David Marshall in MM Lee's Autobiography, and Singapore in FEER

“… [W]hen [David Marshall] made what he considered a sound proposal, we often could not help laughing at him. He was apolitical and naive. We knew he was a prima donna who loved to be centre-stage and would be uncontrollable. On one occasion, he was so furious when we laughed at him at the wrong moment that he flounced out of the room in a tantrum and then out of his own flat altogether.” (pp. 177-178)

“… [T]here was now a Labour Front government consisting of weak opportunists, with a well-meaning but politically innocent chief minister in David Marshall, who did not understand the Chinese-speaking people, but was extremely anxious to live up to his self-perceived role as a liberal and a socialist bent on freeing Singapore from colonialism.” (pp. 196-197)

“While the trade unions continued to simmer away and grow in strength, Marshall stirred up one political crisis after another. He had a knack for creating them.” (p. 211)

“Under populist pressure, Marshall predictably moved a resolution on 9 February 1956 that ‘this Assembly is of the opinion that for the purposes of oral debate, the language of the Assembly should be English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil and that a select committee be appointed to examine the report and make necessary recommendations.’ Marshal knew he risked becoming irrelevant by this move. He recounted how a Malayan (sic) had told him, ‘with multilingualism, you are going to hand us over to the Chinese. They will swamp us.’ ‘Yes, sir,’ he had answered, ‘one must accept the rule of the majority. The Chinese are 76 per cent of our population. Let us not avoid the issue.’ This was typical of Marshall – half idealist and half (or more than half) an opportunist anxious to prove he was more Chinese than Chinese, and therefore acceptable as their champion, at least for another term.” (pp. 219-220)

“Marshall, already in London, had read the statement I made on leaving Singapore and thought I was undermining him. He attacked me bitterly in an address to 200 Malayan students, warming them that I was inviting communists into the PAP and preparing the way for a communist capture of power in 1959….
… He was too involved in his own emotional processes. Before he left Singapore, he said publicly that he would resign if he failed to get independence… Marshall demanded immediate merdeka… Merdeka, he argued, would rally the people against communism.
But [U.K. Secretary of State of the Colonies, Alan] Lennox-Boyd was not impressed….
Far from reading the weather signals and battening down his hatches, Marshal decided to sail ahead.” (pp. 234-235)

One incident will always stand out in my memory. In the middle of an impassioned flow from Marshall, a private secretary tiptoed up to Lennox-Boyd’s chair to put a cable in front of him. Lennox-Boyd read it and began to write on it. Marshall was miffed. He stopped in mid-sentence, and in a high-pitched voice that showed he was really angry, said, ‘Secretary of State, we know that you have many important possessions around the world, but we have come 8,000 miles to London to present our case and we demand that you give us your attention.’
Without lifting his eyes from the cable, Lennox-Boyd continued writing and said, ‘Chief Minister, let me assure you that of all our valuable possessions across the world, Singapore is one of our most valuable. It is a precious jewel in the British Crown. I am all ears. You were saying, Chief Minister’ – and he repeated verbatim Marshall’s last sentences. It was a virtuoso performance, very British, quite devastating. Marshall was livid and speechless, an unusual state for him.” (p. 236)

“… The [London] conference had proved to be a fiasco. But it was not without value, for it purged Singapore of Marshall’s erratic exuberance. Marshall had to resign…” (p. 238)

“When Marshall finally returned to Singapore on 25 May 1956, he was still sore and angry with me. He ordered me out of the room when I turned up at the airport to greet him, intending to stay on for his press conference. Looking right past me, he said the conference was for friends only. I left.” (p. 240)

“… [W]e were prepared to see the pro-communists abandon us and form another party using David Marshall as cover. Marshall’s retirement from politics was brief; he was shortly to launch a new party, the Workers’ Party. We knew that with him as leader, they would have enormous problems. He was erratic and temperamental. He did not have the political skills to keep the balance between constitutional and non-constitutional methods, and would soon get their new party proscribed.” (p. 268)

Marshall of Singapore and the Opposition (Far Eastern Economic Review, September 15, 1955):

“… Within a few days of his becoming Chief Minister, [David] Marshall had a host of troubles on his hands. Singapore’s turbulent Communist-minded students and its restless labour force plunged the colony into its bloodiest rioting in recent years. The riots and the continuing unrest pose a serious threat to the precarious grip Marshall has on the Singapore government. He holds a slender majority in a government in which five subjects – finance, defence, security, foreign affairs and the civil service – are reserved and will be in the hands of three British officials. Over these subjects, the Governor can exercise his overriding powers….
… Troublesome problems and difficult questions are already arrayed before him. How will he solve the problems and answer the questions which are being levelled at him almost daily now? He knows he and his government cannot avoid criticism, but he believes that his creed, his beliefs, his reading of constitutional progress and political freedom will benefit this Colony.
With this firm in his mind, his philosophy may well be enunciated as: to live in harmony with his own personality, to perform such tasks as befit his temperament – all within the framework of his obligations to the society of mankind. His speech at the emergency meeting of the Legislative Assembly – a fearless and undaunted challenge to those who are trying to wreck his ship of state on the rocks of Communism -- shows his will and determination to speed steadily ahead.
The greatest opposition which he has to face as the head of the Government now is from Singapore-born fellow lawyer Lee Kuan Yew, the stormy petrel of Singapore’s present political scene. His People’s Action Party aims at disrupting the smooth working of the Labour Front regime and forcing its resignation….
It was not until the birth of the PAP baby that lawyer “Harry” Lee became news. Until that time, little was heard of Lee in public. If he had any political views, only his intimate friends must have been regaled with his ideas. Always nattily attired in the best English fashion, speaking fluently and easily with hardly a trace of Eastern accent, Lee watched the changing political scene.
Whatever thought he harboured in his mind until then were suddenly unleashed in urge for prominence as the champion of the poor downtrodden worker, the slave and the tool of the “arrogant, hard-hearted and brutal British” and their colonial system of government in Malaya. He joined the new PAP and found in it people with his own brand of political learning – the hotheads, the tempestuous admirers of the Communist doctrine which had been brought nearer to them after the Nationalist Government of China was chased of that unfortunate and battle-scarred land.
… Like Chief Minister David Marshall, lawyer Lee used his English education to full advantage in his remarkable showmanship at pre-election meetings. His hearers, the labour forces of the wharves, building firms, city council and large engineering and motor firms, stood and listened with rapt attention to his accusation against the British overlords. Came the elections that were to move Singapore nearer the goal of independence and self-rule. With one voice the workers threw their franchise in support of lawyer Lee Kuan Yew, who, for all his insults and vituperation against the British, still stalks jauntily into his club and social gatherings nattily dressed in English fashion.

Singapore Separation (by Han Suyin, Far Eastern Economic Review, August 19, 1965):

The end of Malaysia is near, sooner than even the Barisan Socialist opposition expected.
… It was known that the Tunku, prior to his departure to London, had remarked: “We had no trouble and we were quite happy before Mr. Lee talked me into this Malaysia business.”
If it is true that the separation was the Tunku’s decision, one can only praise him for this; that not a drop of blood was shed, and that there is relief all round, is by itself something that Tunku Abdul Rahman alone could have achieved.
To ascribe, however, the separation to a question of “racialism” is to simplify the issue. The fundamental problem was not racialism as such, but the very terms of reference of the merger, the incompatibility between the unequal citizenship given to a certain section of the population, and the claim of equality for all. Some years back, Mr. David Marshall, Singapore’s first Chief Minister, suggested an “independent Singapore.” This was vigorously resisted as non-viable, dangerous, unfeasible, “playing into the hands of the Reds,” etc.
… Now that one faces the fait accompli, perhaps in the near future we may see anyone who claims to staunchly believe in “Malaysia” called a saboteur, an extremist, and an anti-national element… when the reverse was the case only yesterday.
Perhaps now a passing thought may not be amiss for the unfortunate who protested in good faith against the ruinous arrangement of Malaysia, and were branded “anti-national extremists,” or “communist.” Some were hauled off to jail, others lost their jobs, their families thrown out of their flats, because guilt by association became a salient feature of proceedings during the episode of Malaysia.
… It would be an act of wisdom and statesmanship if the Prime Minister of Singapore, now that he is again in position of his rights, can show that the McCarthy type of hysteria which prevailed in the last three years, and affected some of the public speeches and actions of his Government, was only a temporary phase, and can now be remedied.
For Singapore itself, survival depends on its reassuming for a while its free port status, while making strenuous efforts to industrialise and to offer the kind of facilities, amenities, and services which make Hongkong prosperous, viable and famous… [I]t is much safer [to invest] when prosperity rather than prison terms is the aim.
… At the moment, though neither Sabah nor Sarawak show signs of wanting to secede, one can hardly imagine that things will remain as they are… The behaviour of certain Malayan regiments sent there some months back left much to be desired. No less a person than the president of a certain Rotary Club reported on this matter in terms which would have earned him jail or expulsion, had the press reported him. One cannot imagine Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, with his unbounded energy and perpetually active brain, refraining from putting ideas into the heads of certain people in the Borneo territories, where he has many supporters, particularly in Sarawak, where 90% of the Chinese there are Hakkas like himself.
… Relief is the first emotion in Singapore, and it is to be hoped that this feeling of release from tension will lead to constructive approaches. In Djakarta there is also a feeling of jubilation.
First because Singapore’s opting out has “justified” President Sukarno’s “crush Malaysia” movement, although not perhaps in the way forecast. Secondly because new and subtle trade rearrangements will become possible. The proclamation of non-alignment, the maintenance of the Bank of China (which finances almost 75% of the small businessmen in Singapore), the hope of a more realistic and sane policy (following Hongkong’s admirable example) – all this is bound to make Afro-Asian States happier in their dealings with Singapore than hitherto.