restated its view on the question of an amnesty in its Election Manifesto issues in May 1955. The Manifesto contained an undertaking to offer a general amnesty to the Communists in the following terms: ... to end the emergency as soon as possible by offering a general amnesty and, if it fails, to mobilise all our resources and seek all foreign aid to increase the vigour and intensify the fight against the terrorists. The Communists' counter offer A month before the election, with the country increasingly gripped with political fever, the Malayan Communist Party took the initiative by putting forward a counter-offer to enter into negotiations for the termination of hostilities. The offer was contained in a letter written in Chinese, copies of which were sent to a number of leading personalities and organisations in the Federation of Malaya and in Singapore. The letter was signed by a representative of the Malayan National Liberation Army and dated 1 May, and had been posted in Haadyai in Southern Thailand. None of these letters were sent direct to the High Commissioner or to any of his officers. The letter asked a safe conduct to enable representatives of the Headquarters of the Communists terrorists to come out to negotiate both a ceasefire and the participation of the Communist Party in the future development of the country. The letter also rejected the Alliance's amnesty offer. The imminence of the Federal elections probably explained why the MCP chose to make their offer at that particular time. Furthermore, the offer was consistent with the then International Communist policy of turning away from armed struggle to expansion by political means. At the second Conference of the Communist and Workers' Parties of the British Commonwealth, held in London in April 1954, a report entitled Malaya Fights for Freedom had been submitted by the exiled Lim Hong Bee that favoured, among other things, a provisional coalition People's government formed by all patriotic parties to achieve full national independence. In August 1954 a Malayan delegate to the Council of World Democratic Youth in Peking was quoted as saying "... they are willing to undertake peace talks to bring the Malayan war to an end..." By November 1954 a guerrilla newssheet produced in the Kedah/Penang area carried this report together with approval of the Geneva Conference on Indochina as an example of "how disputes can be solved justly by peaceful means".