Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1904-05-14
The Beer THAT Made Milwaukee Fam

FLAG men. has forty European officers and
692 native officers, an average of one
officer to every three men.
Whatever has been done toward the de-
velopment of the country has been done by
foreigners. Whatever tendency the native
Malay may have had to labor has been
suppressed by education. No>native of the
tropics who ever learns to read is willing
to work. That is the rule. He will not do
manual labor. He will seek position UNI
der the government or in some Office, and
prefers one that has military uniform at
tached to it. If he cannot obtain one he
will teach school or find mercantile en-
ployment or get his living without manual
labor the best way he can The schools
provided by the British, 200 in number, are
well attended. There were 9,170 scholars
last year, and the educational system
brings the pupils up to the grade of a
high school in the United States, but there
is no compulsory education law and not
per cent of those who enter the lower
grades ever reach the highest. Occasional
ly a student is sent from the Malay
schools to one of the universities in India,
but that is very rare. He usually drops
out as soon as he has learned enough
reading, writing and arithmetic to hold
Sir Frank Swettenham, governor general
until recently, who has been forty-eight
years in office here, says: The industrial
to the Chinese. They are the only people in
the peninsula who can be depended upon.
They have no Interruptions in the perform
ance of their daily labor. and save their
money to make prudent investments. With
out the Chinese nothing would have been
done in the Malay states; no progress
would have been made, and the enormous
natural resources of the country would still
be lying dormant"
Discovery Of Peninsula.
The British have had relations with the
Malays for more than 800 years. Sir Fran
els Drake touched their coast in 1878, in his
celebrated voyage around the world, and
Lord Cavendish followed him in 1858. but
the Portuguese and Spaniards had been
there long before The Portuguese settled
Macao in 15l1, and the Spaniards founded
Manila in 1917 The first business done by
the British on the peninsula was in the
ship Edward Bonaventure, Captain Ed
ward Lancaster, who landed his crew at
Penang in 1892 to get rid of the scurvy and
camped there all summer. The following
fall he took on a cargo of pepper and other
natural products which he bought from the
natives, and returned to England around
the Cape of Good Hope. Captain Houtman,
a Dutch sailor, landed here in 1895 and ex-
changed cargo of merchandise for native
pf oduets. The Malay states are now the
principal source of our tin supply and have
been producing 1t since 1854. when the
mines were first discovered and worked by
Dutchmen
The report of Lancaster's voyage and the
tracted attention to the country, and tie
famous East India Company, which after
ward became the greatest monopoly ever
known in the world. was originally organ
lied in the year 1000 with a charter for fif-
teen years to trade with the Malays. In
1908 the Dutch and the Portuguese de-
nsanded their share of the market. and
from that time on for two centuries there
was constant warfare between the three
ma lions over 1t. In 1853, for reprisals, the
British captured the city of Manila and
the first territory In the east acquired by
England was the Island OF BalampansIn,
off North Borneo. which was eeded to the
king by the Sultan of Suu, now one or our
.brothers in brown" in gratitude for his
release from a Spanish prison in Manila
when that place was captured.
The government of India took actuai pos
session of Penang in 1854, when the East
/ India Company adopted 1t as convict sta
ton, and town gradually grew up
around it. The Prince of Wales Island, as
| IT was then called. was leased for eight
wears for the sum of $4,000 year, to be
paid~fo the Raja of Kedah, and this anuu
| ity has been continued to his successors by
the British government to the present hour
Finding that the soil in this locality was
| uncommonly fertile its cultivation was
undertaken by Hindu labor, and has been
continued ever since. The natives nave
done nothing.
Founding Of Singapore.
Singapore which is now the headquarters
| of the government, was founded III 1919 by
Sir Stanford Raffies by order of Lord Has
tings 30 that the British could command
the Strait of Malacca and thus have
check upon the aggressive policy OF the
Dutch. 1 will tell you something more
about Singapore in another letter, for It
| is in several respects remarkable town.
| While the English were strengthening
| themselves. at Penang and Singapore the
Dutch fortified the ancient town OF Malac-
ca which was the metropolis OF all the
east when the Europeans made their first
appearance in Asiatic waters. Neither
Bombay, CalcutSa, Rangoon. Singapore
Batavia Bangkok, Manila, Hong Kong,
Shanghai or Yokohama had ever peen
! heard of. nor had most of them an exist
! ence when Malacca, the capital of the Ma
lays, was town of great commercial inn
portance 1t was the greatest entrepot and
distributing point for the commerce of the
| east until the close of the eighteenth CEN
! fury. Then Dutch power and commerce
| declined and the Importance of Malacca
| decayed with them until 1926. They fought
| over 1t with the Portuguese. the Spaniards
| and the English again and again; 1t was
| frequently besieged and several times cap
tured Dy hostile fleets. The British cap
tured it in 1876 and held 1t until 1873, when
| Il was restored to the Dutch for few
years. In accordance with the treaty Of
| Vienna, but came permanently under Brit
ish control In 1924. when the various East
Indies Islands were distributed among the
nations The British colony at Malacca
was founded two years later, and from 1t
an attempt was made to control the AFFAIRS
of the peninsula.
The native rulers were left to themselves
until 1876 when Mr.. Birch, the British resi-