CO885-(7-8)-2 — Page 396

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

TPILIC.O. 882

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON |

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

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81. In my view it will be a hardship and an injustice on the general community of Singapore if the policy is agreed to and accepted, and the practice perpetuated of a small group of London merchants, long retired from the Straits, being officially recognized as having a final "say" and direction in what unquestionably are the internal local affairs of the Colony.

82. To establish this, in any way, would, I venture to think, be an error fraught with inconvenience if not, indeed, danger, besides constituting a hardship, injustice, and slight on a community, the majority of whom, and all those free to think for themselves, have grown to feel, and feel very strongly, not only that persons on the spot are those best and rightly able to judge what the place requires, but that there is an amount of interference (actual and attempted) by retired and out- of-place as well as out-of-date gentlemen in London, with the internal affairs of and freedom of opinion in the Colony, that is detrimental to its best interests, and that at times even flavors of impertinence.

83. Whoever such Government nominees for a Controlling Committee in London would be, if they be Singapore men, it is, I think, certain that two or three years' absence from Singapore will be enough to put them quite out of accurate touch of the place and its people, and of the requirements of these. Surely we have already had sufficient evidence of this in the present London Consulting Committee itself!

84. The suggestion that there should be upheld a system giving control, direction, and the power or right of veto to a group of retired merchants 7,000 miles away from the scene, over the working of machinery on which more than one-half of Singapore's whole volume of shipping trade is dependent, is one that I most earnestly hope will never be adopted.

85. Very respectfully, but most strongly, would I venture to urge that the present position and its drawbacks, and the complete remedy for these for all time should now be boldly faced, without any mincing of matters. And the remedy I believe can be attained by a decision that Government shall finance the Company for these big works; one minimum condition, as quid pro quo for providing heavy finance, being, that all direction must lie in Singapore, immediately at the hand of the Government Authorities there; no London intermediaries. And I believe that the clearest and surest way of attaining this is to require that one-half of the Directorate in Singapore, plus one more man, shall be in the Governor's appointment; the rest elected by the shareholders. Only in some such way as that can effectual responsibility be got to lie in the place where it properly and correctly, I urge, should lie, viz., Singapore.

86. The shareholders of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company, whether they be in England or in Singapore, or elsewhere, must, of course, have representation of their interests and views. But surely it is not only enough, but is strictly proper, as well as quite fair, that their representatives should be on the Board of Direction created by themselves for directing and carrying on the work, business, and policy of the Company? Their money is in Singapore, their business is in Singapore, and, as a business, it is one vitally affecting the interests of Singapore. The shareholders already have their representatives and mouthpieces on the Company's Board in Singapore, men who are admitted to be competent of conducting and directing the business of large commercial firms in Singapore, and who do so with success.

87. Then why the necessity or occasion for a system of dual control and direction from London, that there are now such strenuous efforts to perpetuate and secure?

88. In this connection I have heard quoted the argument that there is in London a "Committee" of the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, this latter an institution which has its head office and direction in Hong Kong. This suggested instance of analogy to the case of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company must, however, have been quoted in misapprehension. The functions of this last- mentioned Committee are, I am informed, purely of an advisory nature to the branch of that bank established at, and doing large business in, London. In no sense does it control or interfere with the affairs or direction of the bank at its head office in China.

89. Cases more analogous to that of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company are the businesses of the "Hong Kong and Whampoa Dock Company, and the "Kowloon Wharf and Warehouse Company," both of Hong Kong.

90. I am not aware that either of these Companies, which are large and import- ant factors in facilitating the trade of Hong Kong, has had any control or direction from London. And I venture the opinion that if control and direction from London

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had existed in these two cases neither they nor Hong Kong in as far as the existence of these Companies has affected the prosperity of that port-would to-day have been in the satisfactory and up-to-date position that they are in.

91. In undertakings of these kinds it is simply not possible that complete -uccess can be attained when there is dual control—such as that in London as well as in Singapore that for years has hampered those on the spot desirous of raising the efficiency of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company to a point that would satisfactorily meet the necessities of the port.

92. With this Company, the circumstances and position of to-day, the commotion that has arisen out of disclosures publicly made at the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company's (Heneral Meeting on the 22nd March last (not one single item in which has been, nor can be, refuted nor satisfactorily disposed of), and the fact that the Company has now had to appeal to Government to lend it millions of dollars to rectify-all in a lump-the accumulated result of failure to attend gradually and continuously to the process of building up the Company in efficiency in and throughout years past. -urely these must all be evidence sufficiently convincing of what dual control has meant in the case of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company, in which the governing and lirecting voice has over all these years lain with gentlemen in England, whose chief personal interests and whose leanings have been, and are, as described in paragraphs 10 to 16 of this memorandum.

93. So preposterous has the condition been that it is almost difficult to believe it has existed; nevertheless, it is a fact that, for twenty years and more, the Articles of Association that govern the powers and doings of the Directors in Singapore of this Company have-throughout all that time-debarred it, and still debar it to-day, from entering into operations involving $50,000 (approximately £5,000) without first getting the approval and sanction of people in London to what they (the Directors in Singapore) would do! This restriction was created by the London Shareholders; the London Committee insists on its being complied with; not only have they no intention of altering the position, but they are striving to get it perpetuated. It is a condition and has created in Singapore a situation that is not only ages behind the times, but that is ridiculous.

94. I believe that shareholders in England and the gentlemen at present forming the London Consulting Committee of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company have argued that the Board of Directors in Singapore as to-day constituted is not representative of the shareholders in England, because they (the Singapore Directors) more accurately represent the interests of large steamship companies using the Company's premises and facilities. Such a presentation of the case I must, even at the risk of being thought impolite, characterise as at least misleading.

95. Not only are a majority of the present Board in Singapore the business representatives, partners, and attorneys, and the nominees of gentlemen constituting the London Committee, but no man-if the shareholders in England choose to vote gainst his appointment—can be a member of the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company's Directorate in Singapore, or of the Committee in London. The entire constitution of these has lain under the control of shareholders in England under the voting powers possessed by the latter.

96. But let it for a moment be assumed that the Directors in Singapore do represent steamship companies requiring facilities from the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company.

97. To that I would say, that these are the very men who, from their knowledge and practical experience of the Company's shortcomings, of what is most needed, of where the shoe pinches, of where, and how, and why the interests and requirements of shipping are hampered or short-served-these men if not directed, commanded. and bullied into being mere "marionettes" of London “ Seniors,” if allowed to think for themselves, to exercise their own judgment, to act on their own discretion and initiative, and if freed from what has grown into fear of, and subjection to, dictators in Europe, on whose favor their positions and future depend are exactly the men who know, better than any one else, how the Company should be managed, what it requires, and what ought to be done for it, and for the trade that it is there to

98. While on the one hand it is upon the most efficient catering by the Company to the interests and requirements of shipping that the Company's well-being depends. on the other hand the representatives of steamship companies can only have as their highest possible aim that the Tanjong Pagar Dock Company shall so efficiently quip itself as to do the best possible work for the vessels that it serves.

Serve.