CO129-467 - Governor Sir Stubbs & Acting Governor Claud Severn - 1921 [1-5] — Page 381

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The Court of Directors

of the State of North Borneo,

The Humble Petition of the Undersigned Chinese Firms and Merchants of the State of North Borneo,

SHEWETH as follows:-

1. Your petitioners are Chinese Firms and Merchants resident in the State of North Borneo.

2. Some of your petitioners have been so resident for the past 40 years and can re-call the time when the State of North Borneo was first opened up as a country under British Protection. It was in Angust, 1882 that a public notice to the Chinese was printed in the Hongkong Daily Press by Sir Walter Medhurst on behalf of the British North Borneo Company giving a history of the acquisition of the country, explaining the plan and intention of the British North Borneo Company with regard to emigrants and settlers from China, and appealing to the Chinese to settle in the territory in question.

3. In response to this appeal and in reliance upon the Charter granted by Her late Gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria, to the British North Borneo Company, and upon the traditional fairness and justice of British Administration, the Chinese first began to settle and have continued in increasing number to settle in British North Borneo.

4. Your petitioners do not propose to go into the history of the part taken and being taken by the Chinese settlers in helping to develope the country generally, but to confine themselves to a short statement of the development of the timber business which is the subject-matter of this petition. It may, however, be mentioned here that, at the present time, the Chines Community in North Borneo are, as it were, the back bone of the country,

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