MALESE FEDERATION. — On 1 February 1948, it replaced the Malayan Union, proclaimed on 1 April 1946 and composed of the same British possessions and protectorates that had previously formed British Malaya (excluding Singapore, which was constituted as a Colony). The Federation of Malaya is now governed by a High Commissioner, assisted by two councils—an Executive and a Legislative Council—while each State enjoys broad administrative autonomy.
The population (4.9 million in 1947) is composed of more than half Malays, about two-fifths Chinese, and the remainder Indians and Europeans.
The country’s economy is essentially based on rubber production and tin extraction (respectively two-fifths and one-third of world pre-war supply), but it also benefits from a rich and varied agricultural (rice, coconut palm, tobacco, tropical fruits, textile plants) and forestry sector (with reserves still almost untouched), while mining also includes iron, coal, tungsten, phosphates, bauxite, gold, etc. Maritime fishing represents another promising sector. Processing industries (rubber, metallurgy, mechanical, etc.) are also developing.
The capital of the Federation of Malaya is Kuala Lumpur, situated at the center of one of the most active industrial districts.
EVANGELIZATION. — The city of Malacca, captured by Afonso de Albuquerque in 1511, had been established by the Portuguese as the center of all trade between Europe, India, and the Far East, with a substantial Portuguese colony. Pastoral care was entrusted to a secular priest. In 1548 the Jesuits, in 1549 the Dominicans, and in 1583 the Franciscans founded houses in the city. In 1557 the Diocese of Malacca was erected, as a suffragan of Goa. The European city soon took on a Christian appearance with its churches and convents.
Malacca served as the starting point for missions to the Moluccas, Cochin China, and Siam. Within Malaya itself, missionary work was largely confined to the Portuguese and their slaves, as the Muslim Malays proved resistant to the Gospel. The Dutch captured Malacca in 1641, expelled the Portuguese and their missionaries, and allowed churches and convents to fall into ruin. The bishop of the Diocese of Malacca, which was mostly vacant anyway, took up residence in Portuguese Timor.
In 1787, Msgr. Garnault, Vicar Apostolic of Siam, fled with his small flock from Quedah (Siam) to Penang Island, where he founded a seminary. In 1807, the Paris Missionaries reopened their major seminary there. In 1830, the same missionaries began a mission in Singapore. The city had been taken by the British in 1795 and, in 1824, they took possession of the entire Malayan Peninsula, making it a central trading hub. In 1838, Msgr. Courvèzy, Vicar Apostolic of Siam, took up residence there.
The Diocese of Malacca was suppressed in 1838 by the brief *Multa praeclare*, and the Malayan Peninsula was first attached to the Apostolic Vicariate of Ava and Pegu (1840), then to the Apostolic Vicariate of Siam (1841), and finally erected as an independent Apostolic Vicariate of Western Siam in 1841. The missionary work of the Paris Missionaries in their stations at Singapore, Malacca, and Penang was largely confined to the Chinese and Indians, since the indigenous Malays offered almost insurmountable resistance to evangelization.
In 1888, the Diocese of Malacca was restored as a suffragan of Pondicherry, though no longer under Portuguese patronage; only one church in Malacca and one in Singapore were attached to the Diocese of Macao. Later, the mission was able to establish itself in the Malay States, but largely among immigrant Chinese and Indians. The educational system run by the Brothers of the Christian Schools and the Dames of St. Maur is particularly well developed and has gained new momentum since the end of the Japanese occupation during the Second World War.