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“Manufacturing Consensus”: The Role of the State Council in Brunei Darussalam

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 April 2011

B.A. Hussainmiya
B.A. Hussainmiya
Affiliation:
Universiti Brunei Darussalam
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Extract

This article examines the history and functions of the Brunei State Council (1907—1959). Although a "rubber stamp" to the British Resident's decisions until 1950, thereafter the Council, dominated by the nominees of a new and strong Sultan, Omar Ali Saifuddin III, became an Achilles heel to the British officialdom that yielded maximum power to the traditional elements under the Constitution promulgated in 1959.

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Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 31 , Issue 2 , September 2000 , pp. 321 - 350
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 2000

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References

1 For details see, Horton, Anthony V.M., The British Residency in Brunei, 1906-59 (Hull: University of Hull Centre for South-East Asian Studies Occasional Paper No. 6, 1984)Google Scholar.

2 The earliest such body in the region was in Sarawak, where the White Rajah, James Brooke, set up a Council of State in 1855. Comprised of the Rajah or his deputy, a senior administrator and three or four Malay Datus, it met once a month to advise the Rajah on major decisions. But the SC in Brunei followed the model set in motion by the British in the Federated Malay States (Selangor and Perak in 1877 and Negeri Sembilan in 1889).

3 Swettenham, Frank, British Malaya, An Account of the Origin and Progress of British Influence in Malaya (London: George Allen and Unwin, 1906), p. 226Google Scholar.

4 Ibid., p. 227.

5 Gullick, John M., Rulers and Residents: Influence and Power in the Malay States, 1870-1920 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1992), p. 39Google Scholar.

6 Brunei Annual Report (henceforth BAR), 1909, p. 6.

7 See , Gullick, Rulers and Residents, p. 43Google Scholar.

8 “Silsilah Raja-raja Berunai”, ed. Sweeney, Amin, Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society (henceforth JMBRAS) 41, 2 (1968): 35–37Google Scholar.

9 Quoted in Brown, D.E., Brunei: The Structure and History of a Bornean Malay Sultanate (Bandar Seri Begawan: Brunei Museum Journal Monograph No. 2, 1970), p. 94Google Scholar.

10 Foreign Office (FO) 12/96, Trevenen to Marquis of Salisbury, 2 Apr. 1986, f. 115, quoted in ibid.

11 CO (Colonial Office) 531/1, McArthur to Colonial Office, 5 Sep. 1907, f. 337; quoted in ibid., p. 94. McArthur saved Brunei from extinction by writing a well-balanced report in 1904 recommending the introduction of the Residential system. He not only became the first Resident in Brunei in 1906, but also won the confidence of the dying Sultan by carrying out British-sponsored reforms without generating much opposition.

12 “His Highness will receive a British Officer, to be styled Resident, and will provide a suitable residence for him. The Resident will be the Agent and Representative of his Britannic Majesty's Government under the High Commissioner for the British Protectorate in Borneo, and his advice must be taken and acted upon on all questions in Brunei, other than those affecting the Mohammedan religion, in order that a similar system may be established to that existing in other Malay States now under protection” (emphasis added). For the full version see Bachamiya Abdul Hussainmiya, Sultan Omar Ali Saifuddin and Britain: The Making of Brunei Darussalam (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1995)Google Scholar, Appendix 5, p. 394.

13 , Brown, A Bornean Malay Sultanate, p. 95Google Scholar.

14 The general impression created is that the Brunei SC remained a lacklustre body while the Residents enjoyed unfettered authority over the protectorate's affairs. According to Horton, “once the British Residential System had become fully established [i.e. by the end of 1910], the SC became little more than a rubber stamp for the Resident” (, Horton, British Residency, p. 137)Google Scholar.

15 Personal Communication to Horton, A.V.M., cited in his “The Development of Brunei during the Residential Era, 1906–1959, A Sultanate Regenerated” (Unpublished Ph. D. Thesis, University of Hull, 1985), p. 137Google Scholar.

16 CO 1030/1038, “Political situation in Brunei [1962]”, report by D.C. White to Lord Landsdowne, 15 Aug. 1962.

17 , Brown, A Bornean Malay Sultanate, p. 94Google Scholar.

18 Hickling, R.H., Memorandum upon Brunei Constitutional History and Practice (typescript, Brunei Museum Library), p. 34Google Scholar.

19 Ibid.

20 SCM, 16 Mar. 1936.

21 BAR, 1920.

22 Sadka, Emily, The Protected Malay States, 1874-1895 (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya Press, 1968), p. 184Google Scholar.

23 BA/Microfflm No. 5/1979, Accession No. 1282, SCM, 1949-56. The bill was to be passed in the British parliament as the Order in Council of the British monarch.

23 BAR, 1908, p. 7.

24 SCM, 3 Nov. 1953.

26 These figures are in Malayan dollars; during the period in question $1 = 2s. 4d., the same as the exchange rate for the Straits Dollar before the Japanese Occupation.

27 BA/Brunei Resident's Notification No. 54 of 19 May 1950.

28 SCM, 30 Sep. 1952.

29 SCM, 26 Dec. 1939.

30 SCM, 9 Dec. 1915.

31 Revenue increased from (Straits Dollars) $543,707 in 1910 to more than $1,000,000 in the 1920s. These exports peaked during the rubber boom of 1925 with a total value of $1,859,736, but a favourable trade balance was maintained until the onset of the Great Depression (1929-32).

32 CO 531/19(1972), No. 363, (Brunei), Memorandum by E. E. F. Pretty, 18 Dec.1925, para. 25.

33 J.G. Black (1937-39) was the first Class II Resident to serve in Brunei.

34 Sultan Jamalul Alam and his Pengirans must have been shocked to realize the true implications of the Supplementary Agreement 1905-1906 and the accompanying letters of assurances that spelt out therightsand obligations of the British administration towards them. Though guaranteeing the Rulers fixed incomes, the letters of assurances effectively denied them all otherrightsof taxation and earnings from their appendages, except for cession monies derived from their former possessions i n Sarawak and North Borneo.

35 SCM, 6 Sep. 1909.

36 On realizing the vulnerability of his position and choosing to cooperate with the British, the Sultan was duly rewarded with the restitution of his stipends, a grant of extra loans ($41,000 at seven per cent interest) and then a knighthood in 1914. He was particularly moved by the latter honour, which he accepted with assurances in return that he would not separate himself from His Majesty's Government.

37 SCM, 15 Mar. 1913.

38 SCM Dec. 1940.

39 See , Hussainmiya, Sultan Omar, ch. 2Google Scholar.

40 SCM, 7 Aug. 1947.

41 SCM, 6 Oct. and 8 Nov. 1947.

42 SCM, 5 Oct. 1946.

43 SCM, 5 Oct. 1946.

44 SCM, 6 Jan. 1946.

45 SCM, 1 Feb. 1948.

46 SCM, 6 Apr. 1948.

47 He attended the first State Council meeting as the new Pengiran Bendahara on 7 August 1947. One of his first and most important contributions was to regulate and formalize a Juma'ah Shari'ah (officially translated as Mohammedan Religious Board) in Brunei by a special Enactment, as had been the practice in other Malay states. Seemingly it was at his initiative that the Juma'ah Shari'ah, which consisted originally of eighteen members, met for the first time on 31 January 1948. From then onwards all religious appeal cases were referred to this board. BA/0096/83 [previously numbered BRO 78/48], item 46, Private Secretary to H.H. the Sultan to British Resident, 12 Feb. 1948.

48 By 1952 there were accumulated assets worth about $144.5 million in the form of investments in bonds, securities, and cash invested abroad and managed by the British Crown Agents (BAR, 1952).

49 CO 825/76 (55426/1949), Item 1, Report by L.S. Greening, 12 Apr. 1959, cited in Horton, Anthony V.M., “The Development of Brunei during the British Residential Era 1906-1959: A Sultanate Regenerated” (Ph.D. diss., University of Hull, 1985), p. 380Google Scholar.

50 CO 1022/396, item 12, Anthony Abell to CO, No. 54, 13 May 1953, para. 4-5.

51 For details of Azahari's career and activities, see , Hussainmiya, Sultan Omar, pp. 95–101Google Scholar.

52 Possibly Sultan Ahmad Tajuddin's proposed visit to the United Kingdom in 1950 to negotiate with the Colonial Office regarding a revision of the Treaty prompted British authorities to review their legal status in Brunei.

53 CO 943/1, 59706, Item 1, C.H. Dawson to A. Creech Jones (Secy of State for Colonies), No. 7, 14 Oct. 1949, para. 2 (parentheses in original).

54 Much the same situation prevailed in the Malayan States. As a Colonial Office legal adviser observed, “The power of legislation has been exercised without being questioned since 1909, but the authority for its exercise, while perhaps a matter of legitimate inference, is indirect and implied.…[i]t seems therefore unfortunate that the jurisdiction for the exercise of one of its main functions should be a matter of inference and implications only”; see CO 717/76, no. 72483, memorandum by W.S. Gibson, n.d.

55 CO 943/1, 59706, J.C. McPetrie's Minute to Sir Kenneth Roberts-Wray, 20 Jun. 1950, para 3.

56 There is no detailed information available on the use of traditional legal codes such as the Hukum Kanun or of Islamic Shari'a law in Brunei. Versions of the former have been found in Brunei, but in the opinion of Liaw Yock Fang, they are no more than copies of the Undang-Undang Melaka, which he has edited and published. See Fang, Liaw Yock, Undang-Undang Melaka (The Hague: Foris Publications, 1978)Google Scholar and Winstedt, R.O., “A Brunei Malay Code”, JMBRAS 1(1923): 251Google Scholar.

57 Dawson to Jones, 14 Oct. 1949, para 11.

58 CO 943/1, 59706, Minutes by J.C. McPetrie of 20 Jun. and 9 Aug. 1949, and G.C. Whiteley's Minute of 9 Aug. 1950.

59 According to Dato Sir W.J. Peel, when he was Resident (1946-48), the State Council “was not an executive body”; quoted in , Horton, The Development of Brunei, p. 473Google Scholar. This had been true since its inception in 1907.

60 For details, see Hussainmiya, Sultan Omar, ch. 8.

61 BA/0871/83 (SUK Series 3, BOK 73), item 1, Report of the Principal Auditor, Sarawak on the accounts of Brunei for the yeartended 31st December, 1952, para. 11 (encl. in Arthur G. Taylor, the Principal Auditor Sarawak to the British Resident, 3 Dec. 1953). An important responsibility fell on the shoulders of the new High Commissioner to Brunei to lay the groundwork for a written constitution. Before this could be achieved, his Legal Office in Sarawak, with the advice of the Colonial Office Legal Division, had first to prepare the groundwork legislation to be put through the Brunei State Council for ratification. By 1951 these arrangements were completed, and in that one year a record number of eighteen legislative Enactments were submitted to the Sultan in Council for approval. The scope and implications of most of the Enactments thus passed were far-reaching. One should remember that 1951 was the year in which Omar AH Saifuddin III was formally crowned as Sultan. It was therefore a year marked by jubilation and celebrations in Brunei. In the hurried manner with which the British administration pushed through these Enactments i n the State Council, we can detect an eagerness to retrospectively validate the earlier Enactments. It should also be borne in mind that the Sultan's advisers in the Council at this stage were at a disadvantage in scrutinizing these Enactments since they were all written in English. Even so, it can be shown that most of the new Enactments, particularly those dealing with changes to the legal status of Brunei vis-a-vis the British Government, were not passed whole-heartedly by the Council. The Resident, who kept himself out of the State Council proceedings on 14 November 1951, sent a stern written message to the members calling on them to approve the said Enactment on that day, as the Order in Council to be passed by the British Parliament giving effect to the establishment of Her Majesty's Privy Council as the highest Court of Appeal was to be passed within a few hours in London. There had already been some correspondence between the Secretary of State and the Brunei Government on the matter, and it appears that the Sultan had agreed to the change. But sensing deliberate delay on the part of the Council, the Resident indirectly threatened it with unforeseen consequences.

62 BA/0682/1983 (SUK Series 3, Box 61), item 17a, SCM, 9 Apr. 1953.

63 Ibid.

64 BA/Microfilm No. 5/1979, Ace. No.1282, SCM (1949-56), Minutes, 10 Feb. 1951.

65 BA/Microfilm No. 5/1979, Ace. No.1282, Budget Speech by the State Treasurer, Annex to the State Council Minutes, 12 Feb. 1953, Item 6.

66 BA/Microfilm No 5/1979, Ace. No.1282, Minute, 25 Aug. 1951. Resident Pretty's suggestion in the Council that the post of State Treasurer and Controller of Customs should be split was rejected. Later, the Commissioner of Development complained that several state projects under the first Five-Year Development had to be shelved because the Council did not approve the appointment of technical experts to implement them.

67 CO 1030/300, Bevington, E.R., “A Report on the Economic Development of the State of Brunei” (30 06. 1955), p. 14Google Scholar.

68 For instance, excluding H.H. the Sultan, the State Council included six Pengirans: Duli Pengiran Bendahara (the First Minister), Duli Pengiran Pemancha (the Second Minister), Pengiran Haji Mohd. Salleh (the Chief Kami), Pengiran Kerma Indera and Pengiran Maharaja Leila. Other members included the British Resident, the State Treasurer, Pehin Orang Kaya Di-Gadong, Pehin [U]dana Laila and Pehin Dato Perdana Menteri Haji Ibrahim Jahfar. (See BA/0260/83 [SUK Series 3, Box 20], Minutes of the State Council, 30 Sep. 1952.)

69 CO 1030/113, Anthony Abell to CO, No 47 (secret), 23 Mar. 1954, para 7.

70 For details see Hussainmiya, Sultan Omar, Chapter 7.

71 BA/0935/83 (SUK Series 3, Box 77), Brunei State Council Minutes, 17 Nov. 1954. The seven observers were Che'gu (later Dato) Marsal bin Maun, Pengiran Haji Ali bin Pengiran Haji Mohd. Daud, Pengiran Abu Bakar bin Pengiran Omar, Che'gu Abdul Manan bin Mohammed, Pengiran Abu Bakar bin Pengiran Pemancha, Pengiran Bahar bin Pengiran Shahbandar and Tan Poh Siong.

72 Dato Sri Paduka Haji Marsal bin Maun was born on 8 November 1913 at Kampong Pulau Ambok. He had his early education at Jalan Pemancha Malay School, and after passing Standard 4 examination he was appointed as a probationary teacher. In 1930 he left for Malaya together with Dato Haji Bashir bin Taha to follow a teachers training course at the Sultan Idris Training College (SITC) in Tanjong Malim, where he spent three years. On his return in 1933 he became an assistant teacher, and in the following year he was appointed Acting Superintendent of Education and confirmed in that post in 1936 (BA/11053/78 [SUK Series E, Box 10], item 88, memo from M. Maclnnes, Director of Education, 22 Apr. 1968). A leading figure in the Brunei Malay Teacher's Union, he became a close confidante of Sultan Omar Ali Safuddin III and the first of the “three M's” feared by the British administration. (The other two were Pengiran Mohamed Ali and Pengiran Mohamed Yusuf Rahim, fellow alumni of SITC.) He played a key role in the events leading to the introduction of the 1959 Constitution. On 1 May 1960 he was appointed Deputy State Secretary, and from 1 August 1961 he became an Acting Mentri Besar, in which post he was confirmed on 1 September 1962. He retired on 4 November 1968 to pursue private business activities. (Information courtesy of Pusat Sejarah File of bio-data of leading personalities of Brunei.)

75 Pengiran Dato Haji Ali bin Pengiran Haji Mohamed Daud (now known as Yang Amat Mulia Pengiran Setia di Raja Sahibul Bandar) was born on 6 July 1916 at Kampong Pengiran Pemancha Lama in the town of Brunei. He had his early education at the Jalan Pemancha Malay School. In 1930 he finished five years of schooling and worked as a pupil teacher from 8 February 1933. He left to study at SITC in 1937 and completed his teacher training in 1939. On his return to Brunei he was appointed as a group teacher, a position he held until 1943 during the Japanese occupation. From 1957 to 1958 he served as a Malay Inspector of Schools and was promoted to Chief Inspector of Schools on 11 August 1958. As another close confidante of the Sultan, Pengiran Ali played a key role in winning nationalist demands for Brunei. He was one of the main figures involved in the re-drafting of the Anglo-Brunei Agreement and the Constitution of 1959, when he introduced drastic amendments to the British version in the Brunei District Advisory Council under his chairmanship. He also represented that DAC as an observer at the Brunei State Council from November 1954 to January 1957. After the 1959 Constitution was launched, Pengiran Ali was appointed as the Acting Head of Majlis Ugama Islam Brunei. On 1 September 1962 he was appointed Deputy Mentri Besar; he resigned in 1965 to contest a by-election. He also served as a member of the Privy, Legislative and Executive Councils, and is now a businessman.

74 CO 1030/113, Anthony Abell to CO, No 47 (Secret), 23 Mar. 1955, para 6.

75 Ibid., emphasis added.

76 , Hussainmiya, Sultan Omar, pp. 192–95.Google Scholar