The local-born non-Malay communities soon began agitating against the government's policies, and began demanding political representation. In 1936, the Malayan-born Indian community asked the British High Commissioner, Sir Shenton Thomas, to grant them a share of administrative appointments. Thomas rejected the request, stating, "...I do not know of any country in which what I might call a foreigner ... has ever been appointed to an administrative post." Later, some commentators attributed this to ignorance on the British' part of the increasing size of local-born non-Malays. Although 1.5 million Chinese migrated to Malaya to work as manual labourers – with a million Chinese workers in Malaya in turn emigrating back to China – between 1911 and 1921, these critics contend that during the same period, the locally born Chinese community grew from 8% to 17% of the Chinese population domiciled in Malaya. The British nevertheless appeared to view the entire Chinese community as – according to one academic – a "transient labour force", with one government official insisting it would be dangerous to consider the Chinese as having "a tendency to permanent settlement" despite such figures. The locally born Indian community – comprising 20% of the Indian population, the rest being manual labourers having migrated for similar reasons as the Chinese at around the same time – was likewise largely ignored.