The Coolidge examiner., 1938-03-24
Singapore Is the British Empires
Powerful Naval Base in the Orient

OOSG III tkl0 OIlGIlt
worldwide use from the docks Of
this port.
Although an island, Singapore has
direct railway connection with the
mainland by way of a causeway
crossing to the Malay state of Jo-
hore. The trip north to Bangkok
in Siam is merely an overnight
ride. For faster travel over the
jungle, Singapore has new sea-
side airport built on reclaimed tidal
mud fats and equally useful for
land and sea planes. Draining the
airport's site was an important
step in freeing the city from the
tropical curse of mosquitoes and
malaria, the death rate from which
in two decades was reduced 80 per
cent.
The whole island is dominated by
the city of a half-million, its extern
sive parks and suburbs, and a few
mediocre rubber plantations. Ba-
mana trees, tree ferns. and travellers
trees, tree ferns. and travellers
palms luxuriate over the prim Eu-
ropean greensward of golf courses
and race track. That Chinese eff
forts at rice raising and truck farm
ing are not equally luxuriant is
blamed by Malay superstitions on
the red soil; it was drenched with
blood and thereafter accused at the
sack Of old Singapore in the Thir-
teenth century when Javanese
slaughtered the inhabitants and lev
eled the brick-built houses and pro-
tective earthen wall.
Established by Sir Stamford Raffies
The old city is believed by some
to be the Malayur of Marco Polo,
the island that forms a kingdom. =
which even in the days Of that early
globetrotter had a great deal Of
trade in spices and other wares.
Afterwards pirates haunted the
neighborhood.
Today the Raff1es hotel, Raffles
square. and the bronze statue there
minded, all Singapore is a mon
ument to a Nineteenth century sales
manager supreme for British trade.
Sir Stamford Rallies. Haunting
treaties and reversing the work Of
diplomats, he is remembered for
having accomplished what British
authorities claimed al the time to
regard with ''unfeigned regret
the founding of Singapore as mod
ern free port.
When treaty in 1914 had given
the Netherlands monopoly over all
ports of the rich Indies trade, Raj
fles established puppet sultan to
sell Singapore harbor for British
use. He put Sultan Husain on a
throne to usurp his usurping broth
er's royal authority. and rewarded
him with $1,000 and some rolls Of
yellow and black cloth. On Febru-
airy 6. 1919, Singapore's birthday,
free trade treaty was signed. In
four months the now world famous
port had an increase of 5000 in
population.
Soon the. name Of Singapore. was
echoed among seamen with SIMS
ter ring. The sultan who sponsored
1t was not above suspicion of poison
ing his father. The first British
governor was stabbed by an Arab.
Pirates staggered into port to buy
weapons, then anchored in ambush
outside the harbor.
The name acquired associations
as fierce as its meaning in the
tongue of India from which it came
-Singhapura, City of the Lion. Yet
Raffles, who kindled the sinister ex-
element, escaped all its dangers
and died young after falling down.
stairs.
The population rush to Singapore
after its opening as a free port. re-
peated on small scale a century
later in a rubber rush." as indi-
Gated by the racial hodge-podge
found in the city today. Sprinkled
through the English city, with dig
nified stone buildings lining macad-
amized avenues, are short streets
straight from China.
Chinese signs line open fronts of
first floor shops; from second.
third, and fourth floor windows
above them, items of the family
laundry on projecting poles fly like
banners. Long red joss candles for
use in Chinese joss houses are
poured by hand in workshops in the
shadow of Moslem mosques. Yet
many Chinese know no language ex-
cept English, and are proud of being
slant-eyed British subjects. The
city is fringed with Malay villages
on stills over water.