1. The Chinese form 23% of the population of Sabah.

2. The NBDP and UP leaders discussed in this essay are those present at a merger meeting on 21st October 1962 as a result of which a definitive list of leaders of the two parties at that stage is known.

3. For e.g. Pang Tet Tshung has a fellow building and hardware trader in John Yong Fung Keong of the NBDP. Wong Tzu Fatt, the UP supermarket owner started the Sabah Import and Export Association with Chai Chin Tuan, a NBDP businessman from Papar, in 1965, with Wong as protem Chairman and Chai as protem Hon. Secretary.

4. Shelley Yap, Advocate and Solicitor, originally from Malaya.

5. Chuck Ming To, a Hong Kong emigrant, manager of the Jesselton Recreation Club.

6. Peter Chin, born in Labuan, lived in Malaya at length, returning to Sabah, to start a contractor business in bombed-out Jesselton.

7. Yeh Pau Tzu born in Sibu, Sarawak, and Chan Foo Sang, born in Seremban. Negri Sembilan, Malaya.

8. Both men were involved in the political process of their country in capacities of ascending order and importance. They were the perennial members of the Town Board. They enjoyed hardly less enduring success in the Legislature: Khoo was nominated by the Government in 1954, Pang in 1959, and they so continued up to Malaysia. Since 1958 and 1961 Khoo and Pang respectively were nominated by the Government lo the Executive Council.

9. Jesselton Town Board: e.g. Pung On Fall, 1961, Peter Chin 1959, Yeh Paul Tzu, 1959, were members in the years stated.

10. Their platforms however were alike. They were one in opposition to Sabah joining Malaysia before self-government was achieved. They also agreed on the timing and extent of constitutional advance for Sabah: the Democratic Party wanted general elections of members to the Legislative and Executive Councils in 1963 and the United Party “self-government in 1963, that is, as soon as it was possible to organize elections”. Loyalty to Sabah and a multi-racial membership were further common objects, with the UP claiming to pay “due regards for special needs of the native peoples”. One party reflected the other in the objects they set out. One party (UP) followed the other (NBDP) chronologically in taking the practical course of accepting Malaysia as an inevitable outcome.

11. In the BUNAP CEC talks on this issue, Tenom and Jesselton members “moved” that serving members of the Federal Parliament and State Assembly be retained, and let the 2 MPs and 4 State Assemblymen be determined by elections. Kudal members without any seat to. retain, dwelled on “the population and size of Kudat District” and “moved” for an election of all MPs and State Assemblymen. And the Labuan member of the CEC wanted the same thing as did his BUNAP Branch. An official from the Lahad Datu Branch pleading consideration of a I.ahad Datu man in the State Assembly pleaded on the ground that Lahad Datu's membership was numerically not less important than Tawau's.

12. The initiative came mainly from the Jesselton Branch of the NBDP which was in fact the headquarters, and the CEC members operated from there.

13. The Alliance partners have in mind a Chinese member and the NBDP did not feel confident that it would be by itself acceptable. Strength through grassroots support, the NBDP's boast was found wanting in an assessment made in September 1962. “How many members do we have? the question was raised in a NBDP bulletin. And the embarrassed answer was “here we encounter a snag, because we do not have 20,000–24,000 members as claimed by our pro-tem, Chairman on more than one occasion. Perhaps our secretary General or our Deputy Secretary General can advise us on this matter”. Worse still, the party lacked funds and the local authority elections (which had caused the stocktaking) was expected to take place in 3 months. It was in this uncertain mood that the party leaders publicized that “the NBDP has been in the past, still is and will always be 100% for merger”

14. Kwan is born the first generation of an immigrant family who made good in Chartered Co. days and has added to the Man Woo Loong tradition of family enterprise. The professional men belong in the same generation. They are regarded by Sabahan Chinese as an educated elite and Kwan, educated in Chinese up to tertiary level and fluent in English gets on well with them and they with him.

15. Born first generation in Sandakan but not with a silver spoon, Khoo's personal entourage included men like himself who have carved their own niche in business, e.g. Ngui Ah Kui and Lim Ching Wah and others in the North Borneo Timber Producers' Association. He is very fluent in English and Chinese.

16. For e.g. they rose to the occasion over how a seat in the Legislative Council which had lapsed through the death of Mr. Philip Lee of the Jesselton Chamber in 1959 should be filled. The Government's idea was to request of the NBUCCC two names to add to the panel. The United Chambers Chairman Chong Khiam's response was to convene an emergency meeting of the Jesselton Chamber of which he was also Chairman. The member? agreed that since the place had been vacated by one of their fellows, the Government's request made in a letter sent by the Chief Secretary to the NBUCCC really applied to their Chamber and it was within their discretion to discuss it. Their decision at the end of the meeting to limit the election to the Jesselton and associate West Coast Chambers was equally arbitrary. But Chong Khiam argued that since the Jesselton Chamber was the Chamber of the Capital, it could not afford to go unrepresented in the Legislative Council. Leaders of the major east coast chambers, Tawau and Sandakan and the Supervisory Committee of NBUCCC, opposed him. Chairman Hiew Fook of the Tawau Chamber maintained that the Colony Chief Secretary's letter envisaged the choice of candidates from more than one organization or district and that the NBUCCC alone should handle the ballot: as Chairman of the NBUCCC it was incumbent on Chong Khiam to reconsider his move. The former Sandakan Chairman of the NBUCCC, Khoo Siak Chiew upheld Hiew Fook's line of argument, quoting his set precedent of consulting the twelve Chambers. As befitting his watchdog role, the head of the Supervisory Committee of the NBUCCC, Chai Chin Tuan (also Vice-Chairman of the Papar Chamber) aligned himself with Hiew Fook and Khoo, and berated Chong Khiam for “high-handed action”.

The Government intervened by allowing that the NBUCCC could “review their whole list of prospective nominees if they should find it convenient to do so”. Chong Khiam opted for the new list and sent the customary circular to the Chambers on the allotment of the ten names required. The outburst at the meeting of the Sandakan Chamber assembled to discuss the circular showed that the Chamber interpreted the option in a very different light. “Chong Khiam had made his own plans; had gone to the Government and got the plans approved” it was alleged “and had everything done to his satisfaction before he wrote to members of the NBUCCC about them”. This astonishingly knowing statement was still more astonishingly confirmed by Chong Khiam's countercharge that the Sandakan Chamber members had opened letters addressed to him as Chairman of the NBUCCC, including one from the Chief Secretary informing him of the Government's compliance with his proposal of a new list. His unilateral decision to abolish the previous year's list in favour of a new list was “unconstitutional” to the Sandakan Chamber and the Chairman of the Supervisory Committee, Chai Chin Tuan alike. A general meeting of the NBUCCC was summoned to deliberate the question.

The major Chambers took the same confronting sides in 1960 when the list of candidates came up as a matter of course for review by the NBUCCC. The Chairmanship of the United Chambers again resided with the Jesselton Chamber in the person of Tim Tseng. He and his local business colleagues assembled and in a characteristic display of initiative, decided that the existing list of eight names should be resubmitted with an addition of four more names. Tim Tseng, however, took care to sound all the Chambers on what was concluded at Jesselton in his circular to them. The east coast chambers, Sandakan and Tawau wanted a complete revision of the list through fresh elections. They won and the list at hand was dropped as was also the intention of lengthening it by four names. In a subsequent circular Tim Tseng told the group of Chambers in each Residency to vote in their candidates for the new list assigned on the basis of two names for each “Chamber electoral college”.

The NBUCCC Chairman's proposals concerning the panel list seem reasonable enough and it is hard to see why there is so much disagreement. Chong Khiam's new list consisted of ten names, with three cf them allotted to the West Coast Chambers and three equally to Sandakan, two to Tawau and two to the interior group. The four additional names proposed by the Jesselton Chamber in 1960 were meant to be shared among the “four Chamber electoral colleges”. Nor was there any appreciable change in the names appearing on the list extant in 1959 and the new list in 1960 that would account for the disapproval of the former by the Sandakan and Tawau Chambers. The apparent irrelevance of the squabble nonetheless shows up the intense self-concern of the towkays in various towns.

17. Khoo Siak Chiew (UP) Tiechiu Association, Sandakan; Chairman 1956, Committee member 1962, 1963.

18. Hong Seng Ho (NBDP) Tawau Hokkien Association, Vice-Chairman 1964, 1965.

19. Yeh Pau Tzu (NBDP) Hokkien Association, Vice-Chairman 1959, 1962, Chinese Secretary 1962–1966.

20. Lim Ching Wah (UP) Tiechiu Association Sandakan. Vice-Chairman 1962, 1963, Chairman 1964, 1965.

21. Chai Chin Tuan (NBDP) Tiechiu Club Jesselton; Vice-Chairman 1959, 1960, 1961. Auditor 1962–1963.

22. Hong Kim Sui (NBDP) Hokkien Association, Jesselton; Welfare Officer, 1962, Vice-Chairman 1963.