December 16, 1901.]
CHINA OVERLAND TRADE REPORT.
between exports and imports, has doubtless fal- efforts hero have always carried. No опе len short of original expectations, whatever its can explain why Borneo should want labour promise now. Such hopes had large colonisation from China when a general slaughter at Manila in view, an end of which the governing company proved a stimulas to Chinese trade. The phi- has at no time lost sight, and which it yet losophy which underlies the acquisition of the strives to promote as the one sure means of mak-dollar in China and which led tho Canton ing its inves meat profitable. The territory Viceroy to dismis lightly-"no matter. plenty has been explored. Any part of it may pro-
more Chinese--the Spanish Governor's apolo- bably be visited without native interference. gies for the Manila massacre, would seem in As a source of trade commensurate with its place here, where no Chinese is expected to be possibilities, the territory is in a condition which
come a Christian, and where as a heathen he Lord Aberdeen's remarks would not untruthful way draw a lucky number against fever, ly fit, if reprinted to-day.
Regardless of cause, Chinese have not come to Borneo in numbers to stock the labour market to its capacity at any time, they have never come, as they go elsewhere, to take chances of work, but always with an advance and guarantee and when they work off the obligations under their contracts they demand increased pay. Failing to secure the increase, they cut loose for the settlements, to set up in business or to continue coolie service at rates about as high as Manila has to pay. They prefer to buy rice rather than to grow it, and although exports last year reached a value of £200, mainly from two provinces, they were offset by imports of more than £60,000 for the entire territory. The increase of beri-beri among them has been attributed by medical analysts to mould or some toxic ingre- dient that they get with the rice they im- port. They find more comfort in the pipe and more pleasure in the game than in the quality of their food, which meets requirements when it fills.
There has been no change of plan from the beginning, in regard to development. It was to be accomplished through ample supplies of free labour from China. No thought ever turned to white labour, against which the theory prevailed, no doubt with sufficient basis, that it could not stand the climate. European administration and capital and hinese labour would speedly advance Borneo toward the activity and importance marked out by destiny for the islands which border the commercial highways of the Pacific. This sounded most attractive, especially in view of the proximity of Borneo to the China coast Experience in other territory hereabout under British domina tion, as in Malaya and Ceylon, had condemned native labour as worthless. Since Chinese had sought distant markets for their toil, no reason could be imagined to restrain them from trooping to a land almost at their own threshold, with inducements of good pay, of freedom to retain their enstoms, and of opportunity to return hon e easily. Borneo, & soil on which nature had planted nothing to sustain human life, was to be made prolific by a people who might get from it, in addition to to their own support, products for remunerative outside markets. Prosperity awaited merely the coming of field hands, gardeners, carpenters, miners, and every class of labour. This irresis- tible prospect looked well for the operating company. Customs collections from the pro- duct of Chinese labour, satisfactory as they could be, had been found to weigh light in com- parison with the revenue obtainable from Chi- nese on account of their vices. When Rajah Brooke's neighbouring precinct of Sarawak had only 3,000 hinese, they paid in indirect taxes more than 250.000 Malays and Dyaks. In 1874, with 7,000 Chinese there, returns from opiam, spirits, and other Chinese farms amounted to £14,000 per Further colonisation for gambier and pepper planting increased the farming returns almost at once by £9,000, and raised the total revenue to £50, 00. It is now steadily about £65,000, of which farwing licenses furnish nearly half.
Results in Singapore on a larger scale, and in the Malay Peninsula, justified the reckoning that no Chinese would be worth less than £2 per year to a colony. They might become worth from £3 to £4 each if they were prosperous, for while industrious and saving, conditions enabling them to indulge generous impulses had always found them liberal in their households and free in their personal expenses. The superlative merit of this scheme lay in its high productiveness without imposing a dollar of direct tax upon the individual. The Chinese were to think they lived in a free country while they really paid the bulk of its revenue. few hundred thousand of such immigrants, at £2 each per year for the government, would be worth capturing as an item of revenue; and for revenue the company had entered into the business of government.
year.
A
Excessive mortality among the early im- migrants probably made more difference to the European planters who had brought them over than to anybody in China. Planters had to pay ship-passage, advance wages and commis- sions to agents. If fever struck a coolie down before he could work out that advance the plauter mourned a pocket-loss. It cost £5 per coolie to bring them out. Wages at under £2 per month made it eminently desirable that the Coolie should last at least through one season. Climate claimed a place along with time and tide in respect to the affairs of men in those years, and the early course of private enterprise u der the new government is marked with financial wrecks. Borneo breeds a mischievous fever but since it hardly could be surer in its aim than massacre, just reason cannot be traced for the handicap which colonising
Difficulty in obtaining Chinese has led to changes in plantation management which original plans did not contemplate. While the government is chiefly concerned in earning revenues that will pay dividends on the shares. it naturally supposed that the investment interest which it would protect would be English. That prospect looked well at first, but with the abandonment of plantations by English companies, Dutch planters or com- panies took some of them in hand. They found that they could make better terms for them. selves with an English administration than with their own, in the southern part of the island. Most of them were already experienced in tobacco-planting, knew the climate and how to handle labour here, and could keep them. selves in closer touch than could the English with crop news from Sumatra and the market outlook in Amsterdam, where Borneo tobacco receives its quotations. The Dutch now grow nearly all of the tobacco, which is by far the largest item on the export list. They brought with them coolies from Java and Sumatra, who had the advantages of training in tobacco fields and of reasonable immunity from the attacks of climates. There were not enough of such coolies to go around, and these who came did so wel! that the government decided to let China go its own way and try the Dutch island for immigrants. To this proposition the Dutch authorities opposed a veto, not by blunt refusal but by expressions of fear that the Borneo climate might be too trying for their subjects, and insisting upon proof to the coutr ary. This government returned a plea filled with circumstance and statistics, but the Dutch accepted it in a diplomatic sense and closed the ncident. Nothing remained for the English except to fall back on China. Every ship re- turning takes some. There have been more arrivals tha departures nearly every year. Those who come have government medical service, every plantation has an apothecary and most of them doctors. For all that the yellow man continues to betray such insecurity of mortal tenure as leaves the labour market always hungry. Recent a rivals for the construction of the railroad on the west coast may be estimated from a draft for £9,000 which the contractor forwarded the other say to a commission agent in Hongkong, in settlement for a coolie cargo at £5 per head. The contractor runs a hospital, in which room is in demand.
It is in the railway section that the govern. ment hopes to induce Chinese colonisation. The bright newspa) er which reflects officials. social and commercial life from Sandakan, the capital, calls the project "A Financial Master- stroke," which it is hoped will go a long way toward realising the company's dream of estab- The lishing a thriving Chinese settlement. work to be had on the railway at present, and
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for several months to come, is a grand oppor. tunity for the Chinese coolie, and shonid attract mony hundreds. Once they are there, the fertility of the soil, the abundance of timber and the enticement to explore the country and trek toward the healthy interior, should keep them there. There is no doubt that every Chinese inhabitant is worth a good deal to the country. Our Chairman puts it at £2 per man annually, and the revenue derived from the per- manent establishment of a thrifty and ever in- creasing Chinese population would clearly reach a very large sum, even in the short perind of three or four years, and in twenty years that particular source of revenue would be increased about five-fold. The master- stroke" appears to be a plan devised by Land Commissioner Henry Walker, and printed for circulation in China. It offers five acres of land free for each married couple who may agree to settle on the line of the railway, also twenty dollars for each adult for passage money and small expenses. Upon reaching the rail- way, the men may obtain work on the line at forty cents per day, or thirty cents per cubic yard for earth-cutting, or thirty cents each for sawing wood sleepors. Before settling upon a piece of land, the applicant must pay $7.62 for survey and title for 999 years. Subsistence money may be borrowed from the government, but as work and wages are ready, it is not expected that anyone will apply for a loan. The master stroke proceeds to explain that Borneo is only four days and one half from Hongong, advises that passage be taken for Labuan, which is 25 miles from the railway, and declares that Chinese at work on the railway are healthy, with a doctor handy in case of need. There is plenty of timber, and water wheels may be built in the neighbouring streams. After the building of the railway, the export of sleepers and logs to China should provide mployment for many men. At the upper end of the railway, hills are high, and the climate good. Tea can be grown there as well as in Java or Ceylon.
per
Several months have passed sines this pro- spectus was placarded in China. Labour for the railroad meanwhile has been hired in the old way, by sending to a labour agent an order to engage coolies and promising £5 head for all deliveries. £l is said to be left for the coolie after payment of passage and com. missions. Nearly all the help that the railroad contractor has was engaged in that way. No coolies are reported to have responded for Chins to the happy effort of the Land Commissioner. Settlements along the road might be started by those now employed on that work, if they find the allurements of the country sufficiently strong. The road ought to be in operation early next year. Since gardon crops may be grown rapidly thrifty labourers might tide themselves over until crops of longer growth and better market value can mature, thus giving the country a trial for at least a full season. returns need not be specially encouraging to hold that colony and possibly to increase it. A long stay might lead to the planting of cocoa- nut trees, sugar-cane and gambier. Tapioca promises so well that the government has a standing offer to young men with a capital of £2000 or more, of a free grant of 500 acres of land for that purpose and for cinchons, coffee and tea. In a small way the Chinese settlers might try a hand at those products. That is probably the way a beginning must be made, for while all of the growths may thrive, experi- ments with them so far have not shown attrac tive commercial results.
First
the island, out
Unless North Borneo has an unlucky mark against it, good management ought to contrive with the means at hand to attract a Chinese population. Sarawak has greater area and more people than North Borneo, but it is much further south in of the direct line of trade, and it is not claimed to be physically superior to this territory The personal force of Sir James Brooks and of his nephew, Sir Charles Johnson Brooke, the present Rajab, have made it what it is. They have had it for sixty years and it does more business, perhaps on that account, than this territory. The labour needs there have been supplied quietly and with great ad- vantage to the revenues of the Rajah. Several times when he had use for more Chinese, he arranged for them, and they came in according