CO885-6 — Page 76

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

19

Reference :-

C.O. 882

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-

COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

14

10. I am glad to add to the reasons which lead me to sanction this course my confidence in Mr. Swettenham's experience and good judgment, and my wish that, while his services are still available, he may superintend the carrying out of the policy of which he is so strong an advocate; but he will understand that he is not to take too much in hand at once, my object now being to complete existing connexions with all reasonable speed, and not to discuss new points of departure; and he will bear in mind the approaching completion of the trunk road into Palang, which will, I assume, imply the setting free of a large amount of labour suitable for work on railway construction.

11. He will be able, probably, with your authority, at once, without further reference to me, to push on work where it is already in hand in security that a lean, when absolutely necessary, will be forthcoming; but, in addition, he should submit to you, and, through you, to me, his estimate of the financial requirements of his scheme, year by year. He should also report what arrangements he will propose as to further increases of staff, and especially whether he is satisfied that he has available a railway engineer of sufficiently wide experience to undertake the general supervision of the scheine. All these points will receive my carly attention as soon as his report, with your observations upon them, reaches me.

12. Although I am not following your advice in consenting to a loan, you will, I know well, give me a frank and full expression of your views on all the various points. which may arise.

26169.

SIR,

No. 7.

I have, &c.,

"J. CHAMBERLAIN.

HIGH COMMISSIONER SIR J. A. SWETTENHAM to MR. CHAMBERLAIN.

(Received November 22, 1898.)

[Answered by No. 9.]

(Federated Malay States. No. 169.)

Government House, Singapore, October 28, 1898. REFERRING to your despatch, No. 71, of the 7th June last, I have the honour to transmit a letter from the Resilent-General, with enclosures, giving full details of railway extensions in progress and proposed in the Protected States of the Malay Peninsula.

2. Copy of the Resident-General's letter, No. 1568, of 19th June, 1897, mentioned in his paragraph 2. is enclosed,

I have, &c.,

Enclosure 1 in No. 7.

J. A. SWETTENHAM.

The RESIDENT-GENERAL, Federated Malay States, to the ACTING HIGH COMMISSIONER for the Federated Malay States. (No. 2164/98,)

Resident-General's Office, Selangor,

Malay Peninsula, September 27, 1898.

SIR,

I HAVE now the Eonour to report with reference to the enquiries me in paru- graphs 4 and 5 of the Secretary of State's despatch, No. 71, of the 7th June last, enclosed in your letter, No. 567/98, of the 6th July.

2. In these paragraphs the Secretary of State also refers to his despatch, No. 57, of the 12th May, 1897, and No. 14, of the 21st January last. As regards the despatch of May, 1897, I have already, in my letter No. 1568/97, of 19th June, 1897, reported to you very fully on the whole question of railway extension. With that letter I forwarded à map showing the proposed "extensions. I reported how I proposed to distribute the work between Messrs. Hanson and Watkins, the respective railway engineers in Perak and Selangor, and I also said that I considered it would be very advisable if we could

obtain, for a fixed term of years, the advice of a highly qualified chief engineer.

• 12182: not printed.

15

3. I may say at one that the total amount of the loan (£500,000) will be required, and whereas I believed that an equal sum supplied from current revenues would be sufficient to complete the work, I now find that, for various reasons, it will probably be necessary to devote a larger sum to the purposes of railway extension. The amount which I originally put down (one million sterling) was arrived at by the simple process of calculating so many miles of construction at $50,000 a mile, a sum which, roughly The extensions now in hand, speaking, railway construction had hitherto cost us. however, include some heavier work than has ever yet been undertaken, such, for instance, as the tunnelling between Taiping and Kuala Kangsar, and the large bridge across the Perak River at Enggor. Besides these special works there are the bridge across the Krian river, the station and dock works at Kuala Prai, and the purchase of passenger ferry bouts for the service between Kuala Prai and Penang. We are further called upon to expend $100,000 for the construction of a wharf at Penang. This expenditure was not anticipated when I first proposed the railway extension scheme. These heavy works and unusual charges have combined to raise the cost of construction, and, in addition, a further fall in exchange has made all English purchases much higher when converted into

dollars

4. The proposals for expenditure on railway extension are annually submitted to Your Honour with the Estimates, and that will be the case in future, as it has been hitherto, 1 have, however, prepared a rough estimate of the sums already spent and likely to be spent on this railway extension, year by year, until its completion. In this return the Secretary of State will be able to see what it is proposed to devote from the loan, or from local revenues, to railway construction in Perak, Selangor, or the Negri I had hoped to complete the Sembilan, year by year, until the work is finished. extensions in 1901, but I find that we should not have the means to do that, and I have been obliged, therefore, to spread the expenditure over another year, and I hope that 1902 will see the through line of railway from Kuala Prai to Seremban, from whence there is in existence a privately owned line to Port Dickson.

5. In submitting this estimate, which has taken a long time to prepare, and necessi- tated constant references backwards and forwards from one State to another, I trust it will be understood that the figures have no pretence to anything like accuracy, except as regards the past. Only a portion of the final survey between Tapah and Tanjong Malim (a distance of 45 miles) has been completed, while a survey from Kajang to Seremban has only very recently been commenced.

6. In my letter of the 19th June, 1897, I said that I proposed to place Mr. Watkins in charge of the section from Tapala to Tanjong Malim, which is wholly within l'erak territory. Now that good progress has been made with the line through Province Wellesley and I propose as soon as possible to take up the construction from Kajang to Seremban -I have arranged to relieve Mr. Watkins of his work in Perak, in order that his whole time may be devoted to the extensions in Selangor and the Negri Sembilan, which must be under his charge.

7. In the letter quoted in the preceding paragraph I said that if we could obtain the right man I should be glad to secure the services of a chief engineer. When, a few months ago. Mr. Oliver was sent out here, I thought that he had been selected to fill the I found, however, post of Adviser to the Malay States Governments on railway matters. that this was not the case, and that Mr. Oliver's journey was made with the object of obtaining certain information for the use of the consulting engineers, from whom he held his instructions. Mr. Oliver very obligingly offered me the benefit of his advice, and I consulted him on several questions of importance, and I am anxious to acknowledge my obligations to him. Though I am still of opinion that it might be of benefit to the Government to secure the services of a highly qualified officer in the position of chief railway engineer for, say, a term of one or two years, still we are in a position to carry on the work under the supervision of Messrs. Hanson and Watkins, and, since we have had the benefit of Mr. Oliver's advice on the most important questions, the need for a chief directing engineer is not so great as it was.

8. The whole of the loan will be required, but the plan which the Crown Agents have adoptel hitherto, of raising money as it was required, is, no doubt, a very convenient one, and I shall make every effort to carry on here, as long as possible, with our available funds; but it may be necessary at any time to ask the Crown Agents to remit to us a portion of the loan for local expenses. So long as we are not asked to remit any money to England for any requisitions on the Crown Agents, either for railway material or the