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SINGAPORE
are, as regards architectural matters, drains, and gutters, not much credit to the Settle- ment. Government House, the Government Offices, Police Barracks, Magistrates' Courts, Library and Museum, Town Hall and Victoria Theatre, the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank, the Chartered Bank, and The Arcade are fine buildings. The tallest building in the Settlement is "Ocean Building," a new imposing five-storied structure of reinforced concrete with facings of artificial stone, at the corner of Collyer Quay and Prince Street. This building, however, will be eclipsed by the new Post- Office, which is to stand on the site now occupied by the Singapore Club and the vacant ground adjoining. It will have eight storeys, including the basement; will be built of ferro-concrete faced with artificial granite; and will be designed in the classic style. It will house not only the Post Office, but the Singapore Club, the Master Attendant's Office, and other Government offices. The cost of construction will be about $4,000,000. The Settlement possesses a handsome Cricket Club which compares favourably with any in the East. A fine bronze statue of Sir Stamford Raffles stands in front of the Town Hall, to which position it was removed on the occasion of the Singapore Centenary on 6th February, 1919.
A dignified and imposing cenotaph has been erected on the esplanade to commemorate men from the Settlement who fell in the Great War. This memorial was unveiled by H.R.H. The Prince of Wales on the occasion of his visit early in 1922.
Singapore possesses a handsome Anglican cathedral called St. Andrew's Cathedral built in 1861; it is in the Gothic style, with a tower and spire 204 feet high. There is a neat Presbyterian Church, St. Gregory's (Armenian) Church, in Hill Street, and several mission chapels. The Roman Catholics have a roomy Cathedral dedicated to the Good Shepherd, at the corner of Bras Basa Road and Victoria Street, the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Queen Street, the Church of St. Joseph in Victoria Street, one more recently built in Tank Road, and other smaller churches in the outskirts. The Roman Catholic Church (St. Joseph's) consecrated on June 20, 1912, by the Bishop of Macao, has been described as "the finest ecclesiastical edifice in the Far East,' There is also a neat Jewish Synagogue in Waterloo Street and one in Tank Road. Those professing the Seventh Day Adventist Creed also have a small Church. The principal schools are those of the Raffles Institute, the Christian Brothers, and the Anglo-Chinese School. The Raffles Girls' School and the Convent also provide for the education of girls of the Protestant and Roman Catholic persuasions.
The Singapore Club has a good building in a central position. There are Recreation, Sporting, Rowing, Shooting, Cricket, Lawn Tennis, Art, and Reading Clubs, and the Celestial (Chinese) Reasoning Association. There is a Country Club with a well-built bungalow situated some three miles out of town, at which dances and amateur theatricals are frequently given. The best Club-house in the Settlement was that occupied before the war by the German community in the Tanglin district. The Raffles Library and Museum, moved in October, 1887, into the new building erected for them, are creditable and well-kept institutions, the Museum having made very fair progress since its inception. The Library contains about 39,000 volumes, chiefly of standard modern literature, and includes the valuable philological collection of the late Mr. Logan.
There are several good hotels, of which the Raffles and the Hotel de l'Europe are the best. The daily Press is represented by the Straits Times, Singapore Free Press, and Malaya Tribune, and the Government Gazette. There are also several Japanese, Chinese and Malay papers.
Singapore is a free port, there being no Customs Duties, but Excise Duties are levied on alcoholic liquors, opium, tobacco and petroleum. There are no Port, Harbour, Docks, Town or Light dues. The Harbour is practically landlocked by islands, and the rise and fall of ordinary spring tides is 9 feet. Although the majority of ocean- going steamers are berthed at the Harbour Board's wharves, many vessels discharge and load in the Inner and Outer Harbour, the Inner Harbour being protected from the north-east monsoon by a mole of granite rubble about a mile long. The Singapore Harbour Board premises, which were taken over from a public limited liability company by the Colonial Government in 1905, at a cost of £3,448,339, fixed by arbitration, begin about a mile to the westward of the town. The Singapore Harbour Board (constituted under an enactment by the Governor of the Straits Settlements entitled the Straits Settlements Ordinance No. 130 (Ports) now control all the wharves and dry docks in Singapore except the P. & O. Company's private wharf. The assets of the Board at June 30th, 1923, totalled $69,420,000, i.e., £8,099,000 sterling (exchange being fixed by Government at 2s. 4d. per Straits Settlements Dollar). There are 10,027 lineal feet of wharves, including Empire Dock (245 acres) 3,522 feet, and the West and