The Sea Road to the East, Gibraltar to Wei-hai-wei / Six Lectures Prepared for the Visual Instruction Committee of the Colonial Office

by A. J. Sargent

Malay Peninsula: Political.

The total area of these small fragments is a little over 1,200 square miles, or less than that of the county of Kent; but outside them the whole of the southern part of the peninsula, a country about the size of England, is under British Protection. In the extreme south, opposite the island of Singapore, is the Malay state of Johor. In the middle is a group of four states, Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan and Pahang, which were federated in 1895 and are now known as the Federated Malay States. On the northern boundary are Kelantan, Trengganu, Kedah and the little state of Perlis; these by agreement with Siam, in 1909, were transferred from Siamese suzerainty to the protection of Britain. The Governor of Singapore is High Commissioner for the protected Malay States, and under him there are British residents, advisers or agents in all the States, supplemented in the Federated Malay States by a large staff of British officers.

In addition to the territory in the Peninsula, the Straits 2 Settlements now include various scattered and distant islands which have been attached at different times to the Colony. These are Labuan, off the coast of Borneo, with the Cocos or Keeling Islands and Christmas Island, both in the Indian Ocean. The Cocos, about 700 miles 3 southwest of Java, are on the route of steamers sailing from Colombo to Western Australia, and possess a submarine telegraph station. They are a mere group of coral atolls, with a population of a few hundreds, engaged chiefly in preparing copra from the coconuts with which these atolls abound. They are still ruled, under the Government of the Straits Settlements, by the head of the Scotch family, Ross by name, by which they were first colonized. Christmas Island, about as large as Jersey, lies some 200 miles south of Java; it was not inhabited until a little over twenty years ago, when it was settled from the Cocos. The attraction here lies in the valuable deposits of phosphate, though there is also some good timber in the dense forest which clothes the slopes of the mountain. The population, of about a thousand, consists mainly of Chinese miners. Here we see the harbour of Flying-Fish 4 Cove, on the north coast, where there is good anchorage and a break in the steep cliffs which form the coastline; 5 and here again is one of the quarries. The island is a great contrast to the low-lying Cocos banks, with their groves of palms.

In Borneo there is no strictly British territory other than the island of Labuan; but the State of Sarawak, whose ruler is an Englishman, and the remains of the old Sultanate of Brunei, are under British protection, while the British North Borneo Company holds its territory under a charter from the Crown.

The political relations of all these islands and territories are in charge of the hard-worked Governor of the 6 Straits Settlements, whose home we see in Singapore.

From the time of its cession to us, in 1824, by the local ruler on the mainland, Singapore rapidly outdistanced the older settlements of Malacca and Penang; until, in 1867, after a period of dependence on India, the whole region started a separate existence as a Crown Colony, under the name of the Straits Settlements, with Singapore as the capital. The reason for the rapid development of this obscure island is evident on the (2) map. It commands the Straits of Malacca and the southern entrance of the China Sea; the only alternative is the Strait of Sunda, beyond the Equator, five hundred miles to the southward. It is the halfway house between India and China, and its position at a corner makes it the junction point of all the routes connecting the Indian Ocean with the Pacific. It is also the natural collecting and distributing centre for much of the local trade of the Malay region. As a consequence, an island less than twice the size of the Isle of Wight, and with no resources of its own worth mentioning, has become the site of one of the greatest seaports in the world.

Singapore is not only a junction of trade routes and a strongly garrisoned naval base, it is also a meeting point of different races. The population is a strange mixture of Chinese, Malays and Indians, with a handful of Europeans controlling the whole mass. The Chinese, in numbers, industry and wealth, have been the most important factor in the growth of the whole region, and their influence increases every year. The Malays approach them in numbers, but lag far behind in intelligence and capacity for work; while the Indian element, mainly Tamil coolies as in Ceylon, is much smaller.

The town of Singapore stands on the south side of the island facing the open sea, and the Old Port is not well adapted to the needs of modern commerce; large 7 vessels, as we see in this picture, must anchor off shore in the roadstead and unload into barges. The coast, where it has not been reclaimed, is low and marshy, and the old wharves bear a look of neglect and decay. 8 But west of the Tanjong Pagar dock, now Government property, is Keppel Harbour, a narrow deep-water channel, protected on the seaward side by two small islands. Large steamers can moor at the Tanjong Pagar wharves to take in coal or merchandise, and here we find the mail boats, British, French, German and others; while the old harbour and the mouth of the little Singapore river are crowded with Chinese boats and boatmen, and with barges bringing goods from the steamers in 9 the roadstead. Here we have a view of a corner of the wharves in the river.

Let us land and make our way towards the town. 10 Commercial Square and Raffles Square, with their shops and business offices, are quite English in appearance, except for the waiting rickshas and the dress of the 11 natives. Then we see the cathedral and the cricket ground, which lies on part of the reclaimed foreshore, with the Raffles monument in the middle. In another direction are Chinese shops and a Chinese open-air theatre with the crowd gathered round it in spite of the rain. They are used to rain in Singapore. We pass a Chinese temple, and more shops, and then on the outskirts of the town we may light on the suburban villa of a wealthy 12 Chinese merchant, standing in its own beautiful grounds. The Chinese are proud of their gardens, and the owner willingly shows us round. Here is a lake in the garden 13 with the magnificent Victoria Regia water-lily growing in it. Everywhere in Singapore the architecture and the people of the East and West are blended in a strange mixture.

In the hilly country, outside the city, there is nothing of very special interest for us. As we are close to the Equator and have heat all the year round, with a heavy rainfall, almost any tropical product can be grown on the island; the Chinese make a speciality of the cultivation of pineapples, which are tinned and exported. 14 Here we have a scene in the factory. We need not explore the country, but a visit to the botanical gardens will not be a waste of time, as it will tell us a great deal about the Malay region in general. In one corner of the 15 gardens is a large collection of palms; we have seen already what an important place the trees of this group have in the life of the tropics, and we shall meet them often again. Of even greater interest, perhaps, from the European point of view, is rubber. Here we find the Government conducting experiments to discover the kind of trees most suited to the various districts, and the best methods of cultivation and preparation; we shall see some of the results of these experiments on the mainland of the Peninsula which we are now going to visit.