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

Clearing, planting and growing the trees is a slow process, and the progress of Malaya would have been far from rapid if it had been based on agriculture alone. The money needed for roads and railways came from another source. When we intervened, we found the Chinese coolie already in occupation, and a considerable traffic in Chinese-owned vessels along the coast to Singapore. The cause of this traffic was tin. Tin ore is everywhere in the Peninsula, though it is mined chiefly in the alluvial areas at the foot of the hills. Some of the mining is still very primitive and is carried on by groups of Chinese who work with little capital but manage to make a profit none the less. But in many places modern machinery has been introduced; the steam pump has replaced the chain and bucket of the Chinese, while hydraulic sluicing and other up-to-date methods of 41 mining are becoming common. We often come on a whole valley, looking like a huge quarry, turned upside 42 down and desolated in the search for tin. Everywhere we notice the busy Chinese coolie, in his curious sun hat, and in the distance we may catch sight of the barracks where he lives. The ore is dug out and washed, and then for the most part sent to Singapore to be smelted and reduced to the shape in which it reaches our own country. Nearly half the world’s supply of tin comes from this narrow strip of country; and we may say that Malaya has been built up on tin, though now rubber is rapidly overtaking it in value. The two together constitute over nine-tenths of the total exports of the Federated States and provide a large revenue for the Government to spend on improvements.

The miner and artisan is nearly always a Chinese, so that at the present time the Chinese in the Federated States actually outnumber the natives. If we add the Indian coolies to the Chinese, we find that out of a total population of about a million, three-fifths are of foreign origin. This is how tin and rubber are translated into terms of population. Outside the Federated States we do not find the same proportions in the population, though the geographical conditions are of much the same kind. There is the same rice cultivation in the coast plains; the same plantations of coconuts and rubber, though on a smaller scale.

Trengganu has a considerable textile industry, while Kelantan exports sarongs to the neighbouring states. Tin also is everywhere, and some gold; while Europeans are already mining, prospecting and planting. The population of Kelantan is almost entirely Malay, and the native element is stronger than the Chinese all down the east coast. The whole region is rather more primitive 43 than the west side; the palace of the Sultan of Kelantan, with its curious wooden palisade and guard of spearmen, looks distinctly old-fashioned.

In short, eastern Malaya has been rather out of the world in the past. The coast is difficult of access; the river mouths are blocked with sandbars, and there is a continuous line of surf in the months when the Northeast Monsoon is blowing. It lies, too, out of the main track of shipping; so that we have a great contrast to the sheltered waters of the Straits of Malacca, and it is only natural that the country behind should be slower to develop.

The most backward part is naturally the pathless jungle on the mountains of the interior, which is still 44 given up to wild game and to the Sakai, naked savages living in rough forest-shelters and armed with the blowpipe and poisoned dart. These represent the lowest grade among the people of the Peninsula. But development has begun in the east and the result will be a change in the face of the country such as we have seen in the west, brought about by the Chinese and Indians of the mine and plantation, aided by European and Chinese capital, and working under sound administration.

When we turn northwards from Singapore, on the way (2) to China, we are entering a vast enclosed sea, cut off from the main Pacific by a string of islands almost continuous for fifteen hundred miles. In the northern part of this barrier there are a few narrow passages; in the south the sea is shut in by the unbroken barrier of the coast of Borneo. Some idea of the size of Borneo, which is the largest island in the Malay Archipelago, can be obtained if we compare it with our own islands, mapped 45 on the same scale. We shall find that Borneo can contain not only the lands of the British Islands but a large part of the surrounding seas and channels as well. The south and southeastern part of this great island belongs to Holland, so that our visit will be limited to the northern end; but even in this corner we find a country as large as Ireland.

After a voyage of seven hundred miles across the southern end of this enclosed sea, we are approaching the small island of Labuan, which lies across the mouth of a broad inlet in the larger island. In the latter part of our voyage we have sighted land to the southeast, but this is not our destination, as it is not British territory, though as regards foreign relations under our protection. This land is the native state of Sarawak, which is ruled autocratically by an Englishman, Sir Charles Brooke. The origin of this State is one of the romances of the Pacific. Seventy years ago James Brooke, uncle of the present ruler, made a voyage through the South China Sea. He was specially attracted by Borneo and saw that it might be wealthy and prosperous if only it could be reclaimed from the misgovernment and barbarism of its native rulers. The chance soon came to put his theories to the test. Sarawak, then nominally part of the Sultanate of Brunei, was in a state of rebellion, owing to the misrule of a local chief. Brooke, with the crew of his yacht, helped the Rajah Muda, Hassim, uncle of the Sultan of Brunei, to restore order; and as a reward was made governor of Sarawak, in 1841. Thus the younger son of an Indian Civil Servant became in a moment an Eastern Potentate. Once established, Sir James Brooke, or Rajah Brooke as he is better known to history, not only kept good order in his own district but joined with the British navy in the suppression of piracy in the neighbouring seas. As Brunei decayed, Sarawak grew stronger. Its territory was enlarged from time to time and its prosperity has proved the benefit derived by the native inhabitants from strong and firm control.

An island rather larger than Guernsey, Labuan is the only British territory, as opposed to a Protectorate, which we shall find in this region. Rounding a headland we turn northwards into a broad and deep inlet, and come to anchor opposite a small town of white houses with red roofs and a background of low hills; this is Victoria, the capital and only town. We may have time to travel by the light railway to the coal mines at the other end of the island, but we shall find nothing else to detain us, as the country is mostly occupied by swamps and decayed villages. The harbour and the coal: these two things explain why Labuan is now a British Possession. Though it had been, for a short time in the eighteenth century, a station of the East India Company, it was unoccupied and seemingly of little value when we acquired it from the Sultan of Brunei in 1846; but we looked to its position on the flank of the great route to China, with its excellent harbour and supplies of coal. It was thought by some that the island would become a smaller Singapore, a port of call for shipping and a collecting centre for the whole mainland of Borneo. Labuan started with great expectations; its history has been a series of disappointments. The coal business failed from the first, while the transit trade did not develop, and the reason is not far to seek. In spite of the great natural resources of Borneo, there could be no progress in trade until piracy and head-hunting had been suppressed and some form of settled government introduced. Now that this has been accomplished and the country is prospering and developing, the mainland has its own seaports from which the goods are shipped direct to Singapore or Hongkong, so that Labuan derives no benefit.

Politically Labuan has had a varied career. In 1848, it was made a Crown Colony, Sir James Brooke being the first Governor; later it was handed over to the North Borneo Company to administer for a time; and since 1907 it has been annexed to the Straits Settlements. It has been eclipsed completely by its greater neighbour.

If we cross the wide bay between the island and the mainland, we shall get a glimpse of past history, and better appreciate the reason for the failure of Labuan. At the southeast corner of the bay we enter the Brunei river. The forest comes right down to the river bank, and the trees appear to be growing in the water, with a tangle of interlaced roots showing above the surface; we are passing a swamp of mangroves, or bakau, as the natives call the tree. Then the land begins to rise in low hills covered still with forest, and the mangrove gives way to the coconut palm. We pass native canoes with their double rows of paddles, and here and there on the bank a group of native houses among the palms. Finally we round a sharp bend in the river and come 46 upon the old native town of Brunei. It is a kind of eastern Venice, with its houses built on piles driven into 47 the mud, and its streets all waterways. Here is one of these streets. In Brunei, as all over Borneo, the bamboo, the palm and the creeping rattan provide the builder with material free of charge for posts, flooring, roofs and lashings—for the houses are tied, not nailed together. There is fish in abundance in the river, and we pass a 48 fleet of market boats, with women in large sun hats, bringing the catch for sale in the town; while in the forest all round there is fruit to be had for the picking. Nature has supplied the Malay with most of his necessaries at his very door.