THE HONGKONG WEEKLY PRESS AND
May 18, 1903.
THE STATE OF NORTH BORNEO. ] The Bajons were well known as pirates in the | the pepper gardena were allowed 'to fo
The following paper was read before the Colmial Fection of the Society of Arts, London, on March 31st, by Mr. Henry Walker, Commissioner of Lands, British North Borneo:- The subject of my paper to-night is the British colony officially known as the State of Borneo, and with the lantern I shall be “He to give some illustration of the country and the people we rule.
It is interesting to note that the charter granted to the British North Borneo Company In 1881 was the first obarter granted by the English Crown since the formation of the Hudson Bay Company or the East India Company some 300 years ago, and it was the forerunner of the charters granted to the Royal Niger Company, and the Eouth African Companies which have lately been so promi- nently brought to our notice by the South African War.
I am glad to see here lo-day some of the gentlemen who took a prominent share in the sequisition of our territory from the Sultans of Bruns and of Soo oo, and in the formation of the British North Borneo Company. Mr. Martin, the Chairman of the Chartered Com- pany, and Mr. Dent, who had been connected with the Company from its commencement, and Mr. Cowie our managing director, who, when Baron Overbeck was negotiating the concession of the territory, was able, owing to his great influence with the native princes to materially aasist that gentleman.
My own connection with North Borneo began little over twenty years ago. I landed at Kudal in January, 1883 d one of the first men I met was Mr. Cowie, who long before and since has done so much to promote the advance of North Borneo.
1
Ido not propose to weary you with many figures, but I may mention that the trade returns prove a very considerable advauce in civiligation and in the wealth of our colony mines the formation of the chartered company ▲ paper on Borneo was read in 1884 in this room by Mr. Francis Cobb, who quoted the valne of the exports and imports for the east coast of North Borneo during the second half of 1882 as being 192,000 dols. Of late years this value has frequently bren cleared in Bandakan, and Kudat, not in half a year, but at one day, and last year the trade of North Borneo was estimated at over seven million dollars. Our revenue is also growing. Mr. Cobb in 1884 quoted the revenue at 82,000 dols., last year's estimate was $20,000 dols., and we 800 reason to expect that the revenue will also be expressed in millions before many years
are passed,
Undoubtedly the first step to this end is to supply one present population with p ofitable employment, and the next is to increase the population by attracting settlers from the adjacent countries, both of which are receiving careful attention.
Our population nambers about 175,000, for the most part Malays. We attempted a census in 1991, but it failed to reach the interior tribes, and is unreliable. Of the Chinese we have more reliable dats they number about. 13,000. There are a few hundred Filipinor, and Japanese, and Indians The number of Europeans is about 250,
sad
they
#8
|
of
culffration owing to the extraordinary eractions of the Sultan of Brunel and his ombord. It was the custom of the sulfan to require a stará of garden produce from all his subjects. * The Sultan entrusted the collection to his prinose, each of whom visit:d a special district and col lected the sultan's share of the crops, but at the same time the collector took advantage of his position to squeeze the remaining, and sometimes more than the remaining, profits out of the palives, who finally abandoned the cultivation of any product for export, and confined their efforts to raising food for their daily wants.
The action of the sultan and his headmen tended to prevent any systematic labour" "by the natives. Under our rule the natives are working more systematically, and are making more money. When we took charge of North Borneo, in 1881, the total value of exports in that year was 145,000 ̃dols., 'and on referring to the list of articles exported I find they consisted almost entirely of single and ses products collected by the natives. In 191, twenty years later, the exports of jungle and sen products had thoressed by "800,000 dollars, and (his increase has been effect spite of the large number of natives abandoned the casual collection of jungle or sea produce, and have taken to steady employ ment afforded by the new industries which are beginning to flourish under the protection of the chartered company. I may here mention that the total value of our exports in 1901 was twenty-thr.e times the value exporte 1 in 1881, the first year of our charter. Not only do the exports prove that the natives, under our rule, are earning more money, the imports also tend to prove the same. Our imports in 1901 were thirteen times the value imported in 1881, when they amounted to about a quarter million dollars. Our list of importe articles do 3 not differentiate very minutely, and I am therefore unable to tell you many details, b.t I note that the Malay begins to aid to the revenue at a very early age. He is brought up on the imported bottle, which is fill d with import: 1 Swiss milk. Those of you who see our newspaper, the North Borneo Herald, may have note 1 that the most promirent advertisement is the Milkmeid brand of Swiss milk. Before the youngster has began to walk he has acquired a desire to smoke his mother's cigarette, filled with Wills' best Bristol birdseye. Later on be dissipates his earnings in Rimmel's, most exquisite scents, and this luxury is indulge 1 in by both sexes.
old sailing-boat days; but the advent of steamers in Malay waters made piracy im- possible. Sir Harry Keppel, who was one of our directors for many years, had a famous fight, sixty years ago, with Malay pirates in Marudu Bay, on a river where the New London Borneo Tobacco Company now have some large tobacco estates; and I have frequently talked with Malays who in their young days made a basines of piracy. Two of these native headmen became headmen under our rule and bave rendered us very able assistance. When I arrived in Borneo in 1863 the Bajous got their living by fishing and collecting ses produce, bêche-de-mer and tortoise-shell, such
they chiefly lived ia boats, but now fnd more profitable employ ment, and many of them are building houses and planting cocoanuts, and at Sandakan they are rendering valuable assistance in collecting mangrove bark for the mangrove extract mills, and in cutting firewood for export to China, where it commands a good price. In fact, the Bajou, under our rule, is settling down into a good workman, and is building up a permanent home, in place of leading the roving, piratical In life he was formerly accustomed to. appearance the Bajou is small, active, dark- coloured, with very bright, gipsy-like eyes, and straight black hair. They are better looking than the Dasuus, or agricultural class, who accuse them, and very justly, of stealing their buffaloes and cattle. The Bajous at the northern end of our territory, have a lot of ponies, which they ride fearlessly, spearing the great sambur deer while at full gallop. Te ponies used for this purpose are named after the number of kills achieved with their assistance, and a brother officer told me of a buut of this kind, where one of the povies engaged already had fifty two kills to his ort dit, The Dusuus are the formers of North Borneo. They probably number 50, (0. The go forests on the Fadas River are owned by the Dusuus, and. farther to the north, the Dusuns cultivate padi, and use ploughs. They also own a large Both the number of cattle and buffaloes. Bajous and the Dasuns must have been much more numerous in the year 762, when Mr. Dalrymple, the East India Company's Agent, made a report on the territory we now know as North Borneo. In those days the ex orts of pepper from that portion of our west coast, where we have lately made a railway, were so large that, with a view to buying the pepper orop from the Dasuns, the East India Company esta lished a trading station on the island of Balambangan, which lies at the north end of our territory. Mr. Dalrymple then estimated the population round Marudu Bay alone at 150,000, or about ten times what it is to-day and a Mr. Hunt state i that the population near Kimanis, on the West coast, in 1812, was 35,0 0, when to-day we can only number 8,000. One reason for this decrease in the population may be found in the constant attacks from the pirates who, in their turn, were partly extermiṛated by Sir Harry Keppel in 1843. Intert.ibs wars and epidemics also reduce theft num- bers. When I first went to Kudat in 1883, I because acquainted with a hẹɛ man who was the sole living representative of a village that a few months before bad con- tained sixty people; te others had died from small-pox. This will afford some idea of the fearful effect of the disease among the natives. Since 1883 we have had very little small-pox in North Borneo, which I attribute to vaccination and to the medical assistance provide 1 by the charte: ed company. The cost cf our medical staff and stations is about fifty thousand dollars a year, very little of which is recovered from the public; but it is wise expenditure, and it undoubtedly assists in the
I am glad to mention the comforts and luxuries development of the country. At all our stations there are dispensaries with qualified Eurasian indulged in by the Malays, because it affords assistants, and at the four more important some idea of the contribution made by the natives stations there are properly qualified doctors. to the revenue. I have made the calculation, We have quarantine stations at the principal and it works out at ten per cent, of their parn- ports. Leprosy is confrolled. The Chinese|ings-that is, I think, the minimum conti buïion fich lends find for and Malay lepers are collected on an island in made by the natives to the reve
render Sandakan Bay. I had pecasion to visit them to show that the more employmen in January of last year with the Governor, Mr. the native, and the more profits Birch, and we found them very comfortably seliled.
|
But that is not quite the limit of their desires. On one occasion I visited Brunel, the ancient capital of Borneo, which is absolutely s Malay town, and I noti i in the chief Malay shop, the following articles:-Austrian bentwood chairs, large mirrors, enamelled luncheon sets, kerosene stoves, English tioned meats and bisogits, and a very superior lot of glass, crockery, and soft goods. Our shops in the towns of North Borne contain similar goods. Of course, all these good things have to be paid for.
From a Malay point of view, the easiest way to obtain money is to make s contract to do work on condition of `a sum of money paid down-called the adysuce system. It is a bad system, which has to be reckoned with when employing Malays, and also, gene- rally, when employing Chinese. Large numbers of Malays are employed by the timber com- panies, by the mangrove extract wo ks, and by the tobacco companies, sud a great deal of the wages garacd, in North Borneo is prid to the Malays, who, as I have explained, spend their money with quite a gentlemanly freedom; but, I am glad to record, a few have expended some of their money in making cocoanut plantations, and were invited to do so by the offer of land on easy terms.
f
The Malays are by no means of one class, or speak one language, but I may say they all have one characteristic, they are an intelligent face, and are capable of rising to a high scale when educated. Some of the coast natives can read and write in Arabic characters, and they easily soquire a knowledge of Reman characters. The Mohammedan priests have a court where the social relations of the natives, marriage, divorce, &c., are guarded. We have established native legal courts, presided over by three headmen, under the eye of the Resident, and we have the atisfaction of knowing that the natives under are becoming a lawa-biding people. had troubles with the natives, obiefly smoter districts, but the residence in the "of" English ancers, and the better munication |now | b ing established, will
- a sorions nature. divided into three dis ous, or seafarers; Dukuns, or I referred just now to the pepper crop raised or punters of the interior. I by the Dusuns in 1792, and I may mention that | planting again into North Borneo, and to that
Linot farmerk Mur
|
that employment, the more will our revenue improve. I may mention that our Governor intends to re-introduce pepper and gambier