CO882-(6-8) — Page 477

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

C.O. 882

8 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

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19. To-day the London Committee finds itself in a different position and one of some difficulty. Circumstances and public opinion--arising to great extent out of revelations of fact made at a public meeting of the Company in Singapore on 22nd March last-have forced the hands of the London Committee (representing shareholders in Britain), and they now allege they are anxious to spend many millions of dollars on large works of development and extension.

20. It is, I think, beyond any question that if these big works are entered upon and effected, the cost to the present shareholders of the Company will be serious, both in capital and returns, for their dividends must certainly shrink, and the selling value of the shares will relatively depreciate.

21. For this, however, they can only have themselves to blame, because the position to-day would have been very different if, in and over years gone by, they had allowed the Company to build itself up, from year to year by degrees, to meet expanding requirements and modern necessities of the port.

22. Paragraphs 12, 20, 62, and 63 of this memorandum go, I think, to show that in reality it would best suit the pockets of the shareholders of to-day, if the following conditions and circumstances should eventuate, viz. :-

(i) That the Company should not succeed in raising the very large sum of money required for effecting these big works; and that the London Committee, as representing shareholders in Britain, should be able to say :-

(ii) We have been most desirous and willing to do these big works: (iii) We have proved this in several ways, e.g., we put ourselves in the hands of Messrs. Coode, Son, and Matthews and intimated our desire and willingness to give effect to whatever they recommended:

(iv) We have tried to raise the money necessary to carry out these large works,

but we are sorry to say that in this we have failed:

(v) We have appealed to Government for help in raising the money, but Govern-

ment has refused:

(vi) The sum needed is very large indeed, and we see no prospect in the near future of raising so much money, or of having it at our call as and when it would be needed if we entered upon the works:

(vii) Therefore, while we had been quite desirous and anxious to "go ahead

and improve things, we find that we cannot now command the means of doing so:

(viii) So we, and Singapore, will just have to accept the present situation and be content with the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company doing much about the same as it has done in previous times,

23. It will perhaps be thought that I am attributing to the men in London (of the London Committee)-who hold in their hands the direction of and decision on what shall or shall not be done for this Company-a characteristic and a degree of subtlety that it is unfair and unreasonable to ascribe to them. To this I can merely say that I write of the men, who mainly pull the wires in this matter from London, as I have found them, in long experience, viz., deeply given to diplomacy of the kind ascribed to Russia. It is not of the Singapore Directors that say this; they have not the power in this matter; it is of the men who control and direct the affairs of the Company from London that I write, and of whose ways and methods I have had long and inner experience.

wire-pulling "

24. As I am writing for gentlemen who probably do not know Singapore from personal contact, I can perhaps make the present case clearer by saying this:-

(i) If circumstances made it pressingly necessary to do so, Singapore could do without the large works recently designed by Messrs. Coode, Son, and Matthews for enclosing its present open roadstead, the construc- tion of which works have, I understand, recently been definitely decided on. (I was and am, a strong advocate for these works.)

(ii) But Singapore, since it became an important port, never was able to, and cannot now, do without the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company, or what may be represented under that name.

(iii) Quite the reverse of (ii)-Singapore has been, and is, crying loudly at the inefficiency of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company, and demands that it shall be better equipped and made much more efficient.

(iv) I think it cannot be questioned that the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company in its existence has greatly helped to attract trade to Singapore:

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(v) And, even when Messrs. Coode, Son, and Matthews' works on the Roadstead Harbour are completed, the port could not possibly do without what is represented and effected by the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company. (vi) When Coode, Son and Matthews' enclosed harbour is built, the port will still be unable to do without the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company, it will want it more than ever, but will then require a much more efficient and up-to-date Tanjong Pagar Dock Company than that of to-day.

25. It seems desirable to explain in this writing something of what the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company is to Singapore-what it does, what it possesses, and what it is responsible to the port for providing. There is nothing else there at present, nor within reasonable practical possibility in early years to come, that can take its place. Its position in, and its relationship to, Singapore are unique.

26. It is probably the largest purely commercial industrial Corporation of its kind in the East. Its business is of many kinds or branches, and it is a vast employer of labour, skilled and other. It employs more labour than does the Government and Municipality (directly) of Singapore put together.

27. Excluding the wharf of the P. and O. Company (which is a small private wharf exclusively for the purposes of that Company) the Tanjonggar Dock Com pany has a monopoly of all wharf berthing and warehousing accommodation in Singapore for ocean steamers; in other words, these are the only premises at which a steamer can moor afloat alongside land, if she is to have the advantage of delivering her cargo, in one handling, from ships' hold into sorting-out, delivering, and dis- tributing warehouses.

28. The lineal water frontage of the Company's wharves is about a mile and a half.

29. Except for a small piece of Government frontage (adjoining the premises of the P. and O. Company) there is no other frontage of the same kind as possessed by the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company remaining, such as could be utilised by any one rising in competition with the Company, unless under disadvantages promising more or less seriously.

30. With the same exception as that quoted above (P. and O. Steam Navigation Company), the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company has the monopoly in Singapore of handling, storing, and delivering all coals. Its overturn of coals (in and out) may be put at something approaching 14 million tons per year.

31.

In practice, every steamer bringing European cargo, every mail steamer, and every steamer bringing coals to the port, or requiring bunkering (the vessels and trade of the P. and O. Company always excepted) requires and seeks berthage alongside the wharves of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company.

32. The calls upon the Company in this respect (and in other respects) are steadily increasing.

33. No ship repairs of any magnitude can be effected in Singapore except by the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company.

34. The Company owns and has a monopoly of all water-side warehouses for receiving, storing, and distributing all cargoes (from anywhere) that have to be delivered direct from ship to wharf (P. and O. Company excepted).

35. The Company owns and has a monopoly of all graving or dry docks in Singapore.

36. It also practically owns, and certainly controls, the chief "slip-way" and repairing premises for smaller steamers in Singapore.

37. In Penang (where it owns a branch) it is the owner of the Prai River Dock l'ompany, possessing there the only dry-docking facilities of importance.

38. A department of its business is the lighterage work of Singapore, of which it conducts the major portion.

39. If there can be said to be in Singapore such a thing as a

"Marine Salvagė Company," it is the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company.

*

40. The Company owns, and in practice has the monopoly (the P. and O. Com- any again excepted) of all waterside warehouses of the nature of what would in England be termed "bonded" warehouses. They are not bonded" in the usual and excise sense understood in this country, but it is into this Company's warehouses that almost all cargo must, by the force of local conditions, be delivered by importing steamers from Europe, and a very great deal from elsewhere also. If a steamer imports into Singapore what is termed a "general" or a "mixed" cargo, involving

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