PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :-
TTILEC.O.882
2 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO
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sufficient reasons exist for continuing the adminis- tration of the Straits' Settlements on its present footing, and I will now proceed to consider whether there are not strong reasons for withdrawing these Settlements from the control of the Indian Go- vernment.
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6. In the first place, there is the outlying posi- tion of the Settlements which removes them far from any Indian interests, and places them quite beyond the sphere of the Indian Government, now that that Government has no concern with China. The Officers who are sent to the Straits, whether Civil or Military, are completely separated from the services to which they belong. From the day of their appointment, they lose all practice and experience of their proper and especial duties as members of the administrative body of one other of the Indian Presidencies, and they find themselves detached for employment in a country which has really no connection with India, and where the official staff is nearly as mixed in its material as the population which it governs, com- prising in its very small circle Officers belonging to the old Straits' service, Officers from Madras and Bengal, Judges appointed from England, bo- sides a class of uncovenanted Officers of its own.
7. At present, in the absence of telegraphic communication, the Governor-General could not visit these Settlements without putting himself for
a time entirely out of reach of Indian affairs; indeed we are indebted to the private opium trade with China for the only direct communication by steam which exists between the seat of Government in India and Singapore.
I have had the honour to hold the office of Governor-General of India for more than three years and a half, and for more than three-fourths of that time I have, of necessity, been fixedly resident in Calcutta; yet I have had only two opportunities of conversing with Officers who had had public experience of the affairs of the Straits' Settlements, and one of these opportunities occurred a few weeks ago upon a change of Governors.
But during that time it has fallen to the duty of the Government of India to report to the Home Government its opinion upon some difficult ques- tions arising in the Settlements; and I cannot but feel that Her Majesty's subjects there resident ha gained nothing by the passage of these ques- : tion through the hands of the Governor-General,
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in Council. Most assuredly India has gained nothing by it; and although the arrangement was doubtless a convenient one, so long as the East India Company held the whole China trade under its control, and so long as Singapore was little more than an intrepôt of that trade, and was not closely connected in commerce either with a colony
at Hong Kong or with the great Colonial Empire of Australasia, it has now ceased to be convenient. To maintain it, will be, I respectfully submit, to maintain a system of double Government, very cumbrous and circuitous, and totally without com- pensating advantages.
8. But whether the main system of Government be altered or not, that under which Officers are provided for service in the Straits, is, so far as civil administration is concerned, a positive evil, which ought in any case to be remedied. Indian Officers have no opportunities of acquiring experi- ence of the habits or the language of either Malays or Chinese, and accordingly when Officers are sent
to the Straits, they have everything to learn. The Government of India is unable to keep a close watch upon their efficiency; the field is so narrow as to afford little or no room to the Governor of the Settlements for exercising a power of selection in recommending to a vacant office; and there is, consequently, so complete an absence of stimulus to exertion, that it may well be doubted whether Indian Civil Officers, sent to the Straits, ever be- came thoroughly well qualified for, or heartily interested in the duties they have to discharge.
The character of the Chinese, the most import- ant, and at times a very unmanageable part of the population of the Straits' Settlements, is quite dif- ferent from that of any people with which Indian Officers have to deal-democratic in spite of the outward form of their own Government, enterpris- ing and persevering, the Chinese are imbued with a strong tendency to self-government, and are therefore the very opposite of our Indian fellow subjects. I am satisfied that if the Straits" Settle- menta are to remain under the control of the Indian Government, it will be absolutely nebámary to devise a plan by which the persons employed in administering the divil governoted that receive a special training; and that without thir the Indian Government munać do justise to these Betttuinatis. The Indian Government, however, would 'fud jrent pastioni diffenity in the mandnes, now that it has