INTERIOR OF MUSEUM.
In August 1897, having finished his education (Winchester and Magdalene College, Cambridge) the Rajah Muda permanently joined the Rajah's staff to learn the methods of his government, and to gain a knowledge of the diversified races over which he is destined to rule. After having spent several years in the provinces as Resident of different districts, on May 12, 1904, by proclamation the Rajah decreed that the Rajah Muda should in future share his duties, and make the capital his principal residence. He was to preside in the Courts of Law, with the reservation of right of appeal to the Rajah; to take the Rajah's place in the Supreme and General Councils, when the Rajah was not present or unable to preside; the direction of out-station affairs was to be placed in his hands; he was to conduct all office routine as the Rajah had done; and he was entitled to use the Rajah's flag and the yellow umbrella. The Rajah retained the initiative control over the Treasury, Military, Naval, Police, and Public Works Departments, and he made it known that in advancing the Rajah Muda to a position in which he might share his labours and to which he considered him to be entitled, he did not lay down any of the rights or powers invested in himself as Rajah.
Since this the Rajah has divided his time between Sarawak and England, spending the summer months in the former country, chiefly on his yacht, visiting every corner of it, and the winter months in the latter, where he passes his time in hunting, a sport to which he is devoted. During his absence from Sarawak the Government is administered by the Rajah Muda.
Sarawak continued to be a haven for those seeking to escape from the shackles of oppression. We have already recorded in Chapter XIII. how many of the subjects of the Sultan of Bruni had taken refuge there; the people of the Natuna Islands have done the same. These beautiful islands are tributary to the Sultan of Rhio, and are under Dutch control, though nominally so only, for the Sultan appears to work his own will unchecked on the islanders through his agents, who are periodically sent to the islands with the sole object of gathering in what they can for the royal exchequer. Accompanied by a large force, the Sultan's heir, Rajah Ali, on one occasion, honoured the island with a visit, and found pretext to relieve the Datu of Sirhasan (one of the largest of these islands) of all his property, to the value of some $3000, and to annex his cocoa-nut grove containing 6000 palms. Even a gold watch and a telescope, given to the datu by the captain of a shipwrecked steamer as a return for his hospitality to crew and passengers, were not spared. A few years previously the same datu had been similarly plundered. If such were the treatment meted out to the chiefs, the lot of the common people may well be supposed to have been hopeless. They had none to complain to but the Rajah, and he could help them in no other way than by reporting their grievances to the Dutch authorities, who did nothing. Any attempt on their part to lay their complaints before the Resident at Rhio would have been frustrated, and would have met with cruel chastisement.
We have little more of public interest to record concerning the history of the Raj and the lives of its Rajahs. The commercial and industrial progress is dealt with in a later chapter, and that will show the gradual development of the country to its present prosperous condition, and the achievement of an unique undertaking which has been carried into effect slowly, but surely and with determination.
We quote the following extract from Consul Keyser's report to the Foreign Office for 1899:—
This country (Sarawak) makes no sensational advances in its progress. Reference to statistics, however, will prove that this progress is sure, if slow, and each year adds money to the Treasury in addition to the main work of extending a civilisation so gradual that it comes without friction to the people. It is because the ruler of the country regards his position as a trust held by him for the benefit of the inhabitants that this progresses necessarily slow, since sudden jumps from the methods of the past to the up-to-dateism of modern ideas, though advantageous to the pocket, and on paper attractive, are not always conductive to the happiness of the people when peremptorily translated. Yet all the time good work is being quietly done. Improvements are made and commerce pushed, wherever possible, without fuss or the elements of speculation.
The prosperity of the country has not been built up out of the great natural riches of a State such as that of the Malayan peninsula, backed by Imperial support, nor with the aid of the capital and credit of a chartered company, but has followed in the train of a hard and single-handed struggle to convert a desolated country into one happy and contented, and it has succeeded so far as to place Sarawak foremost amongst the Bornean States in commercial wealth.
We have shown how this has been achieved, and "if it is owing to Sir James Brooke that Sarawak is now a civilised state, his nephew, the present Rajah, has the high merit of having completed and extended that work, following out the humane and liberal views of his uncle. The name of Brooke will always have an honoured place in the history of the development of civilisation in the Far East."[[350]]
We will give in the Rajah's own words his views as to the form of government best adapted to the nature and requirements of an oriental people, written in 1901:—