23
to complain of, and that the petition "resulted more from private feelings engendered by local social strife than from any real sense of oppression or wrong."
The main grievances alleged were over-taxation for the benefit of the rest of the Company's territory, lack of sanitation, incapacity of officials, and the flood- ing of Labuan by the Company's copper coin and currency notes, which they were not always in a position to redeem in silver.
(This last complaint is now being urged again by some of the companies interested in Labuan.)
In 1902 a similar petition was received, the general grounds of complaint being much the same as in 1896. Again the Secretary of State was satisfied that there was no real grievance, and the petition that His Majesty's Government should take back the Colony was refused.
How far the administration has been of advantage to the Company is not very clear. The revenue, which in 1889 was $20,510, was in 1903 (the last year for which statistics are available) $56,260, but the expen- diture has risen from $18,373 to $68,785. According to figures supplied by Mr. Cowie, the managing director, the excess of expenditure over revenue in the years 1890 to 1903 was nearly $49,000. The figures are not, however, convincing, as it seems probable that Labuan has been charged with expenditure which belongs rather to North Borneo.
The conclusion generally agreed to appears to be that the only advantages which are obtained by the Com- pany owing to their administration of the Colony are indirect, but that these indirect advantages are con- siderable, ø.g., it enables them to prevent the smuggling of arms, spirits, and opium from Labuan into North Borneo.
Unofficial enquiries, addressed to Mr. Cowie last year with a view to discovering whether the Company would be glad to be relieved of the administration of Labuan, elicited a letter entreating that the island might be left to the Company, as to take it from them would give the impression that they had lost the -confidence of His Majesty's Government.
The figures subjoined show the position of the Colony when handed over to the Company as compared with the position at the end of 1903 --
"
Bevenne...
Expenditure
Importa...
Exporta
...
Population
1889,
1908.
***
**
$90,510
$18,378
$86,360
$63,459
***
$299,346
--
$578,859
***
***
5,996
$2,629,74)
$1,675,098
8,411
semana of 1881).
(oshaun of 1901).
B.E.S.
PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
Reference :---
C.O. 882
8 PUBLIC RECORD, OFFICE, LONDON
|BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHT PHOTOGILAPH—NOT TO
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