OBSERVATIONS
UPON
THE EASTERN ARCHIPELAGO.
It is with diffidence that I take up my pen to offer a few remarks upon the prospects afforded to our commerce and manufactures by the opening of the Eastern Archipelago. Hitherto I have done little more than narrate what I have seen, and have seldom made any attempt to express what I have thought. However, as my thoughts have been generated from what I have observed, whether I am correct or not in my opinions, I shall venture to lay them before my readers.
How it is that until lately we have never taken any notice of this immense archipelago it is difficult to say, unless we are to suppose that, up to the present, the other portions of the inhabited globe have been found sufficient to consume our manufactures as fast as they could be produced. It does appear strange that an assemblage of islands, which, large and small, amounting to about 12,000 in number, equal in territory to any continent, and so populous, for the inhabitants, including the more northern islands, are estimated at fifty millions, should have hitherto been unnoticed, and, at all events, have not attracted the attention of our government. Moreover, there are such facilities of communication, not being compelled, as with the Chinese, to confine ourselves to five or six ports, at which the whole trade is centred in the hands of a monopoly, taxed with the expences of land-carriage, port duties, and other exactions. Here, on the contrary, from the division of the territory into so many portions, we possess all the advantages of inland navigation, if I may use such a term, for the straits and channels between them serve as large rivers do on the continents to render the communication with the interior easy and accessible. And yet, although we have had possession of the East Indies for so many years, this archipelago has been wholly neglected. At all events, the discovery of it, for it is really such, has come in good time, and will give a stimulus to our manufactures, most opportune, now that we have so much increased them, that we are in want of customers. Still we have, almost unknown to ourselves, been advancing towards it step by step. The taking possession of the island of Sincapore was the first and greatest stride towards it. Had it not been that we had founded that settlement, we probably should not have been nearer to Borneo now, than we were fifty years ago. Sir T. Raffles conferred a great boon upon this country, and is entitled to its gratitude for pointing out the advantages which would accrue from this possession. Till we had made a settlement there, we knew no more of the eastern archipelago, than what had been obtained by our circumnavigators, or of the produce of it, further than that Borneo was the country from which could be obtained the orang-outang.
Latterly we have been at some trouble and expence in forcing our trade with China, little aware that almost in the route to China we had an opening for commerce, which, in a few years, judiciously managed, will become by far the most lucrative of the two, and what perhaps is still more important, may be the means of a most extended trade with China, as we can drive the Chinese from the archipelago, and supply China from them ourselves; but of that hereafter.
One cause, perhaps, which has prevented us from turning our attention in this direction has been, an unwillingness to interfere with the Dutch, who have been supposed to have been in possession of all the valuable islands in the archipelago, and from long-standing to have a prior right to this portion of the East; but, although the Dutch have not been idle, and are gradually adding to their possessions, there is little chance of our interfering with them, as there is room, and more, for the Dutch, ourselves, and every other nation which may feel inclined to compete with us. The possessions of the Dutch are but a mere strip in this immense field; and, although it is true that they have settlements on the Spice Islands, so named, yet we now know that every one of these islands may be made spice islands, if the inhabitants are stimulated by commerce to produce these articles of trade.
It was the settlement at Sincapore which first gave us a notion of the trade which might be carried on with this archipelago. Every year large fleets of prahus have come up to Sincapore laden with commodities for barter, and have taken in exchange European goods to a certain extent; but their chief object has been to obtain gunpowder and shot, to carry on their piratical expeditions. In fact, they are traders when they can only obtain what they want by exchange; but when they can obtain it by force, they then change their character, and become pirates. But our possession of Labuan has brought us about eight hundred miles nearer to these people, and enables us to take more effectual steps towards the suppression of piracy than we have hitherto done; for this we may lay down as an axiom, that we never shall reap the advantages promised to us by commerce in this archipelago till we have most effectually put an end to the piracy which has existed in these quarters for centuries. Before I go on, I cannot help here observing how much this country is indebted to Mr. Brooke for his unwearied exertions in the cause of humanity, and his skilful arrangements. It is to be hoped, that our gratitude to him will be in proportion, and that Her Majesty's ministers will, in their distribution of honour and emoluments among those who have served them, not forget to bestow some upon one who has so well served his country.