Singapore—Gateway to the East

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 934, 29 March 1930, Page 18

Singapore—Gateway to the East

DECADE ago visitors to Singapore would have heard first of the great urr3BFlu rubber plantations outM side of the city and. secondly, of the wonderful man, Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles, who founded the city In 1819, by purchase from the Sultan of Johore, and then with that foresight, vision and tenacity of purpose which are a characteristic of British pioneers proceeded to develop a great seaport. Thus It is that the city has a Raffles Place, a Raffles Hotel, a Raffles Library and Museum, and a statue of the great man himself. Today the rubber plantations and Raffles himself are of secondary interest compared with the great naval base now being built at Singapore and concerning which there is so much talk (writes \V. R. Givens). When I was on a recent trip round the world, I found the Singaporeans themselves decidedly "up in the air” because of a report in a newspaper crediting a majority of the natives with being opposed to the scheme and urging its abandonment—this at a time when, with the Baldwin Government still in power, work on the base was being carried on with all possible speed and tnergy. i was not long in learning ihat the statement had no foundation or basis. Naturally in a city of nearly 500,000 there will always be found some objectors, but my information was that the Singapore objectors a mere handful and that there was not only quite general approval of the scheme by the Singaporeans but hearty endorsement of it. The fact that the four Federated Malay States voluntarily contributed over £2,000.000 to the project would seem of itself to be au answer to this weird tale of opposition which was coupled with the more absurd one that one principal objection to the project (as stated by the same newspaper) was that the guns to be used were so large that the repercussion would thake to their foundations all the native houses in the neighbourhood of the base. As a matter of fact, although this j noes not seem generally known—fhe . base is 25 miles by water from Singapore itself and 15 miles across country ; from it, being some five and a-half miles from Johore. The site, before ! work started on it, was nothing but j jungle, with not a house within five miles. And surely a project that involves J the expenditure of millions of pounds j and upon which 10,000 men were ex- j pected to be employed within a few j weeks after our departure (the huge J tioating dock was already in posi- j tion) and that will mean much pros- | perity to the country, would not be j opposed by the people in Singapore j or of the Federated Malay States- Already the clearing of the jungle has worked a great improvement in the health conditions and malaria has been largely stamped out as a consequence. Abandonment of work on the base would be regarded by the Malay States, who have contributed so largely to the scheme, as a breach of faith by the British Government toward them as well as toward Australia, New Zealand and Hong Kong, which have likewise contributed Story Book “Colour” Is Gone Such preconceived notions as I had !

Its Naval Base on Former Jangle Site . . . Malays Occupy Subordinate Positions

of Singapore, gleaned principally from the reading of tales of the sea, had led me to expect a city whose outstanding feature would be the colourful character of its people. Here, if one was to believe all that one had read, was the half-way house between China and Japan, and, as well, one of the last outposts of civilisation—the cross-roads of the world—a city where were congregated men of every type and nationality, men who roved the Seven Seas, at home as much in one port as another, but who somehow or other always di'ifted back to this city, with its alluring climate, its wonderful harbour, its amazing growth and its possibilities of rich, racy and romantic adventure. But, however colourful Singapore may have been in other days, much of the colour and glamour has departed, and today one sees it merely as a big city, largely Chinese, of close to a half million people, with fine, wide-paved streets, beautiful parks, playgrounds, gardens and driveways, magnificent homes and spacious, well-kept lawns and, of course, a superb harbour alive with boats of all kinds from almost every quarter of the globe. But the colour—that is, the unexpected colour, the original colour, the distinctive colour—is gone, for today Singapore is merely a large modern, even though a Chinafied city, with 75 per cent of its residents Chinese and with many of its most beautiful homes owned and occu pied by Chinese merchants, a number of them millionaires. The Malays have been overshad owed and overcast, until today they are an insignificant factor in the life of the community, occupying for the most part subordinate positions, principally as jinricksha men. As for the sailors, they are no different than the sailors one sees every day in New York or San Francisco or Liverpool—scarcely, indeed, as picturesque as those we* had seen in Naples or in Ceylon. Gone was the “atmosphere” created in the story books. What we saw in and about the harbour was drab and dull —almost commonplace And this, mark you, in a port that less than a hundred years ago was a great lurking place for pirates and buccaneers, and where the law was the law not of civilisation but of the jungle Yet I would not be misunderstood If Singapore disillusioned, it at the same time surprised and pleased. It is a beautiful, well-planned city. Here, as in Java and Ceylon, we were particularly impressed with the magnificent paved roads —their width, the excellence of their construction and their extent. In our three days' drive in Ceylon we were on paved roads throughout the trip, while in

Java on our four days’ tour I do not recall a single unpaved section. in Singapore and on over the causeway to the independent State of Johore, the roads we covered were all asphalted, some of 50ft wide, while the sign-posts at Johore showed two roads, one 84 miles, the other 112, which I was told were likewise fully paved. We in the Vest may teach these far easterners much in the way of hygiene and sanitation, in morality, education, cleanliness and the lifting up of womankind and preserving the sanctity of the home, but in road building and the realisation of the progress, development and prosperity that follow good roads they have nothing to learn from us. A Big Chinese Festival

We were fortunate in our weather in Singapore and in the date of our landing. A five days’ Chinese festival had just begun. The streets in the evening were a blaze of lights and the Chinese business section, the largest in the city, was a great mass of seething humanity. Here at last., was colour, here adventure, here all the excitement that one would crave. Chinese fire crackers, exploding unexpectedly at almost every turn of the road, assailed the ears and threatened the eyes, but the stolid Mongol) ans moved phlegmatically along, dis regarding the noise. More amazing, we saw numerous beds placed in the open street upon" which Chinamen were sleeping blissfully, probably aweary of the celebration of the evening before. It was a curious sight to see them sound asleep in these beds on the open •walk, undisturbed either by the noise or by the law. It spoke well, I took it, for the law and order that must now prevail in the city, that they and their property were safe. Automobiles could be hired cheaply. Jinrickshas were everywhere to be seen, operated principally by Malays, who give wonderful service at ridiculously low rates. In Colombo they were one-passenger affairs. Here they easily carried two, and were divided into first, seconQ and third classes, though what these divisions represented I was unable to learn.