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The main threads in this pattern have been British. So there is an obvious artificiality though it would be wrong to pursue this objection very far. Indonesia and the Philippines Commonwealth also are colonialist creations. The only legal justification for the Indonesian claim to Western New Guinea was that it had formed part of the Dutch East Indies. The British, for some peculiarly English reason (or more likely for no reason at all), kept their little SouthEast Asian empire in bits and pieces. Malaya was a protectorate of Malay States.Before the war four of them were federated,and five of them Japanese noi. Penang and Malacca, with Singapore and the island of Labuan, formed the Straits Settlements, and were colonies. North Borneo was ruled by a Chartered Company (its incorporation was vehementlyopposedby Mr. Gladstoneuntil he discovered that in a forgotten moment he had himself authorisedthe charter) and Sarawak was the domain of the third and last White Rajah. The Sultanate of Brunei was another protectorate. The Dutch in Indonesia and the Spanish (and finally the Americans) in the Philippines had much tidier colonies, the aJthough Philippineswere ruled for centuriesby a Viceroy in Mexico, on the far shoresof the Pacific. The Spanishcompletedtheir empire making in the Philippines only a matter of a few months after the cessionof North Borneo. The Sultan of Sulu's last act of importance after Overbeck
Pogc Four

and Dent bought North Borneo in 1877 was to cede himself and his islands to the Spanish colonial authorities in Manila. HE idea of federation came up from time to time, especially when the Chartered Company was in financial trouble or one of the Brookes got a bit out of hand in Sarawak, but it neededa world war to give the British Governmentthe courage to take even the first obvious step towards a saner and more orderly arrangement. No one foresaw even then the difficulties which the refusal to consider federation, or even to maintain a Governor-General,would lead to. The complete dishonesty of Indonesian and Filipino opposition to Malaysia was exposedby U Thant's teams of United Nations officials. As a result of their {act finding, U Thant had no hesitationin assuringIndonesia and the Philipthat there was a pines,and anyoneelsewho neededassurance, solid majority in the two Borneo Statesfor Malaysia. No matter how much deeper he dug, or for how much longer his investigation was proionged, that was Borneo's decision. Yet the Philippines Government, hanging on to Indonesia's coat-tails, rejected U Thant's report although pledged to acceptit, and Indonesian hostility reached a new and fanatical pitch. r