would have done so; and we may, without undue vanity, believe that the people are better off under our rule than they would have been under that of any other Power. In that sense we may say that our coming has benefited the native races. But have we done for them all that we might or should have done? No doubt many material advantages are now enjoyed by the people-the roads, the hospitals, the education, and a host of other things. Yet we have not sufficiently adapted our law, substantive law as well as procedure, to the conditions of the native community. Three serious evils have grown up under our rule-drink, gambling, and the disastrous passion for mischievous and fraudulent litigation. The last of these is in part the outcome of Oriental proneness to untruth, but it has been largely fostered and encouraged by defects in our administration of justice. Our law fails to effect justice. The judiciary is pure and fearless; but the machinery is defective, and not sufficiently accessible to the people. Failures of justice in the civil courts largely conduce to crime. We are accustomed to believe that the people live under our rule in security from oppression; and, no doubt, security is greater than, at all events, in the later years of the native government; but a great deal of insecurity still subsists. Added to this, it is not too much to say that under our rule a new horror has come into existence, armed with fangs derived from the very strength of our executive authority and the weakness of the administration of justice. No native, however blameless may be his life, is safe from the success of false and malicious accusation. There has been improvement from time to time. Much still remains to be done; and with a Government so genuinely anxious to do the right, let us hope that further ameliorations will yet take place. STRAITS SETTLEMENTS BY LIEUTENANT-GENERAL SIR ANDREW CLARKE, I WELCOME the opportunity which has been afforded to me of saying something upon the subject of the Malay States, not only because I believe that there are certain lessons of Imperial importance to be learned from the brief page of history I am about to recount, but because I consider that these States offer an opening to commercial enterprise as yet insufficiently realised. I have thought a slight sketch of the manner these States were opened to British commerce might not be without interest and, perhaps, instruction. A glance at the map suffices to show the importance of the control of the eastern seaboard of the Malay Peninsula to the Empire. A rich and increasing stream of British trade skirts it for 350 miles. Singapore, thanks to the genius of Sir Stamford Raffles, first occupied in 1819, has become at once a great distributing centre, and the most important strategic position in the Eastern seas. Earlier history knew little of Singapore, however, and Malacca was the commercial emporium in the sixteenth century, when conditions differed widely. Malacca was taken by the Portuguese in 1511, and held till 1641, when the Dutch stepped in, to be in turn dispossessed by England in 1795. Opinions as to the relative values of distant possessions were somewhat vague at this period, and Malacca was given back to Holland in 1818, to be resumed by treaty in 1824 in exchange for a port in Sumatra. The effect of this treaty was to render the Dutch supreme in Sumatra, and practically to transfer to England all such rights as had previously been claimed by Holland in respect to the Malay Peninsula. As early as 1786, the East India Company obtained the cession of the island of Penang from the Rajah of Kedah, and a strip of mainland-the province of Wellesley-was similarly acquired two years later. The four settlements-Singapore, Malacca, Penang, and the Province of Wellesley-remained under the jurisdiction of the East India Company from 1827 to 1867, when they were constituted into a Crown colony. The foothold thus established on the Peninsula brought Great Britain into contact with native states in various stages of anarchy, whose perpetual quarrels became more and more intolerable. The internal troubles of the Peninsula reached a crisis in 1872, when, in addition to the squabbles of the Malay chieftains, the Chinese miners in Larut divided themselves into two camps, and carried on organised warfare, involving much bloodshed. The defeated party betook itself to piracy, and the coast was virtually in a state of blockade. This was the situation on my arrival at Singapore in November 1873. The coasting trade was everywhere stopped, and even the fishermen were afraid to put to sea. The senior naval officer informed me that the vessels at his disposal were quite inadequate to deal effectively with the widespread piracy existing. As the Chief-Justice of the Straits Settlements (Sir T. Sidgreaves) stated in the Legislative Council on September 13, 1874, "These outrages and piracies have been a scandal to the British name, happening, as they have, at so small a distance from our shores." My instructions were simple. The Colonial Office was thoroughly dissatisfied with the state of affairs in the Peninsula. I was to make it the subject of careful inquiry, and report my views as soon as possible. I fear that in some quarters there lurks a belief in the efficacy of reports to cure ills. I am not quite sure how many distinguished persons have been severally called upon to report-on Egypt, for example. My own experience of the uses of reports does not tend to a high appreciation of their practical value, and the War Office is at this moment crammed with such documents, the majority of which have never been even studied, still less acted upon. Reporting alone scarcely seemed to meet the grave of the situation. It was necessary to act in the first place, and to report afterwards. urgency Arrangements were accordingly made for a meeting of the Perak chiefs, with a view to settle definitely the disputed succession to the sultanate; and a series of articles were laid before them, which, after full explanation, were unanimously accepted. These articles stipulated for the appointment of British Residents at Perak and Larut, under whose advice the general administration and the collection of revenue was to be carried on. After some little difficulty, I succeeded in obtaining an interview with the Sultan of Salangore, and concluding a similar arrangement with him, while a small naval force proceeded up the Lingie and destroyed, without opposition, some stockades, with the result that similar measures of pacification became practicable in Sungei Ujong. The principles on which I acted were very simple. Personal influence has always great effect upon natives of the type of the Perak chiefs, and this influence I endeavoured to apply. Where it was possible, I sought interviews with them, and pointed out the effect of the evils from which the country was suffering. Their real interests were peace, trade, and the opening up of their country. In place of anarchy and irregular revenues, I held out the prospects of peace and plenty. I found them in cotton; I told them that, if they would trust me, I would clothe them in silk. Their rule had resulted in failure; I offered them advisers who would restore order from chaos without curtailing their sovereignty. They were willing to listen to reason, as the vast majority of persons, whether wearing silk hats or turbans, usually are; and since, I have often wondered how many of our useless, expensive, and demoralising small wars might have been avoided by similar modes of procedure. The temptations to make war are far stronger than is generally known. A butcher's bill appeals to the dullest imagination, and speedily brings down rewards and honours, which the mere negotiator, however successful, cannot hope to obtain. Perhaps some future analyst of causation will be able to tell us for how much slaughter and wasted treasure decorations are responsible. It was not with the Malay chieftains alone that I was called upon to deal. The troubles of the Peninsula were largely due to the fighting proclivities of the Chinese, supported by secret societies, which were directed by influential Chinamen, even in Singapore itself. The Chinese secret society is a bugbear to some minds, and I may be pardoned for a brief reference to it. Secret societies are the natural and inevitable outcome of an arbitrary and oppressive Government, such as exists in China, and the Chinaman, having acquired the hereditary habit of creating such organisations, carries it with him to the country of his adoption. In China, the secret society is doubtless almost entirely political, constituting a danger to the State. Transplanted to another country, it entails no necessary political dangers, and becomes practically a species of guild for mutual protection, of the nature of a benefit or burial club. Such combinations do, |