To
The Court of Directors
of the State of North Borneo.
The Humble Petition of the Undersigned Chinese Fins and Merchants of the Stute
of North Borneo.
SHEWETH as follows:-
1. Your petitioners are Chinese Firms and Merchants resident in the
State of North Borneo.
2. Some of your petitioners have been so resident for the past 40 years
and can re-call the time when the State of North Borneo was first opened up as
a country under British Protection. It was in August, 1882 that a public notice
to the Chinese was printed in the Hongkong Daily Press by Sir Walter
Medburst on bahalf of the British North Borneo Company giving a history of
the acquisition of the country, explaining the plan and intention of the British
North Borneo Company with regard to emigrants and settlers from China, and
appealing to the Chinese to settle in the territory in question.
3. In response to this appeal and in reliance upon the Charter grinte l
by Her late Gracions Majesty, Queen Victoria, to the British North Borne > Company, and upon the traditional fairness and justice of British Administration,
the Chinese first began to settle and have continued in increasing number to
settle in British North Borneo.
4. Your petitioners do not propose to go into the history of the part
taken and being taken by the Chinese settlers in helping to develop the country
geuerally, but to confine themselves to a short statement of the dev 1 pat
of the timber business which is the subject-matter of this petition. Ic
may, however, be mentioned here that, at the present time, the Chinese Community in North Borneo are, as it were, the back bone of the country,
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