Self-government

The Constitution for self-government proposed in the report of the Rendel Commission was being put into effect. The 1955 Constitution was a landmark, but it gave them only a limited degree of self-government. The constitution proposed by the British Government provided that ex officio and nominated members of the Assembly would be abolished, and that the Assembly would be increased to fifty members. In Singapore, the 'Constitutional' Trade Unions were generally run on the British system of election of all Committees by popular vote, whereas the left-wing Unions were run on the tiered system. The grouping of unions in 1954 was much looser than it had been in the Singapore Federation of Trade Unions in 1948. The 1955 elections in Singapore provided a shock for the British, who had since 1947 been grooming the leaders of the Progressive Party, made up mainly of English-educated commercial Chinese, to take over when the time came for self-government.