Book Review: Prince and Premier
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206001500411 |
| Date | 01 December 1960 |
| Author | Patrick C. T. White |
| Published date | 01 December 1960 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BooK
REVIEWS
359
with
one
another
and
with
details
of
Nuri's
life.
There
are
some
printing
errors
and
queer spellings,
and
unfortunately
there
Is
no
docu-
mentation.
Nevertheless
it is a
valuable
book.
It
was
in
the
press
before
the
events
of
July
1958,
whereupon
the
author
added
two
chap-
ters
but
made
no
other
changes.
Lord
Birdwood
gives
a
picture
of
Nuri's
character-a
man
of
action
and
clear
thought,
astute
but
absolutely
honest,
with
a
great
sense
of
humour
and
a
total
lack
of
conceit.
He
believed
in
paternalistic
government,
and
Lord
Birdwood
does
not
discuss
the
charge
that
he
rode
too
roughshod
over
opposition;
but
he
also
believed
in
constitu-
tional government with
parliamentary
and
cabinet
representation
of
important
elements
including
minorities.
His
rare
published
or
broad-
cast
speeches,
with
their
terse
good
humour,
showed
his
fellow-feeling
for
the
Iraqi
man
in
the
street.
But
to
convince
Iraqis,
let
alone
Syrians,
of
the
merits
of his
various
policies,
he needed
a
propaganda
machine
as
strong
as
those
of
his
enemies.
Lord
Birdwood
may
be
right
in
attributing
Nuri's
fate
very
largely to
his
neglect
of
propaganda.
Another
matter,
which
Lord
Birdwood
also
does
not
discuss,
was
Nuri's
neglect
of
social problems.
He
was
personally
no
reactionary, but
as
Foreign
Minister
in
the
thirties
he
belonged
to
cabinets
which
grossly
mishandled
agrarian
problems,
and
towards
the
end
of his
life
the
steps
he
took
to deal
with
these
and
with
the
housing
problem
were
too
little
and
too
late.
He
was always more
interested
in
questions
such
as
Fertile
Crescent
Federation
and
Middle
East
Defence,
and
In
the
huge
dams
and
other
projects
of
the
Development
Board
which
was
so
largely
his
creation.
Moreover
opposition
from
leftist
intellectuals
forced
him
to
rely
increasingly
on
reactionary
support.
One
reason
for
this
oppo-
sition
was
that
Nuri
and
his
contemporaries had
been
in
power
too
long,
but
the
main reason
was
that
he
was
too
pro-British.
Not
only
was
Britain
a
formerly dominant
and
now
declining
power,
but
her
own
and
her
allies'
attitudes
towards
Iraq
were
ambiguous
and
unhelp-
ful,
before
and
after
Suez.
Britain
deserves
a
share
of
the
blame
for
this
great
Arab's
fate.
Durham
University
F. R.
C.
BAGLEY
PRINCE
AND
PREMIER.
A
biography
of
Tunku
Abdul
Rahman
Putra
al-Haj.
By
Harry
Miller.
1959
(London: George
G.
Harrap
&
Co.;
Toronto:
Clarke,
Irwin.
224pp.
$4.00.)
It is
both fitting
and
proper
that
we
should
have
at
this
time
a
biography
of
Tunku
Abdul
Rahman,
the
first
Prime
Minister
of
the
Malayan
Federation.
For
that
country
is
now
not
only
a
full
partner
in
the British
Commonwealth
of
Nations
but
also
a
nation
which
can
and should
play
an
increasingly significant role
in
shaping
events
in
South-east
Asia.
The
story
of
Rahman's rise
to
power
is
an
extraordinary
one
and
loses
nothing
in
the
telling.
Born
a
prince,
the
son
of
Rahman
II, he
began
his
career
as
little
more
than
a
playboy.
He
attended
Cambridge
University where
his
academic
record
was
as
undistinguished
as
his
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