Directory_and_Chronicle_1900 — Page 933

STRAITS SETTLEMENTS

This Colony-now consisting of the island of Singapore, the province of Malacca the island of Penang, the Dindings further south, Province Wellesley on the mainland, and the Cocos or Keeling Islands, and Christmas Island, the latter two placed under the same Government in 18-6 and 1889 respectively--was transferred from the control of the Indian Government to that of the Secretary of State for the Colonies by an Order in Council dated the 1st April, 1867. The seat of Government is the town of Singapore, on the island of the same name. The Government consists of a Governor, aided by an Executive and Legislative Council, the latter body consisting of nine official members and seven unofficial members, of whom two are nominated by the Chambers of Commerce of Singapore and Penang. There are Municipal bodies in each Settlement, the members of which are partly elected by the ratepayers and partly appointed by the Governor.

Penang was the first British Settlement on the Malayan Peninsula, having been ceded to the British by the Rajah of Kedah in 1785, and it soon acquired a monopoly of the trade of the Peninsula. Malacca, which had been successively held by the Portuguese and the Dutch, finally passed into the hands of Great Britain by treaty with Holland in 1824, having been previously held by Great Britain from 1795 to 1818. With the establishment of Penang in 1785 most of the trade which had formerly centred at Malacca was transferred to the former. In 1819 Singapore was taken possession of by Sir Stamford Raffles, by virtue of a treaty with the Johore Princes, and it soon took the lead of Penang as a commercial centre. In 1826 Singa- pore and Malacca were incorporated with Penang under one Government, Penang remaining the seat of Government until 1830, when the administration was transferred to Singapore.

The revenue of the Colony for 1898 was $5,071,282 and the expenditure $4,587,367, as against a revenue of $1,320,207 and an expenditure of $5,551,834 in 1897. The total value of the imports in 1898 (exclusive of treasure) was $223,003,708, in 1897 $198,349,233, and in 1896 $186,196,932, and the value of the exports in 1898 was $194,140,680, in 1897 $172,661,634, and in 1896 $161,777,519. About two-thirds of the trade belongs to Singapore. The population according to the census of 1891 was 506,984 as compared with 423,384 in 1881, and in 1898 was estimated at 592,587.

SINGAPORE

The town of Singapore, situated on the southern shore of an island of the same name, in lat. 1 deg. 16 min. N. and long. 103 deg. 43 min. E., is the seat of government of the Straits Settlements.

The Island of Singapore is about 26 miles long by 14 wide, containing an area of 206, or, with the adjacent islets, 223 square miles, and is separated by a narrow strait about three-quarters of a mile wide from the territory of Johore, which occupies the southern extremity of the Malay Peninsula. Originally taken possession of in 1819 by Sir Stamford Raffles, it was, until 1823, subordinate to our then settlement in Sumatra. In that year it became an appanage of the Indian Government, in which condition it remained until 1867, when it was placed under the Colonial Office in conjunction with Penang and Malacca.

The plain upon which the town and suburbs stand is chiefly composed of deep beds of white, bluish, or reddish sand, averaging 90 to 95 per cent. of silica. The rest is aluminous. Recent shells and sea-mud found in this sand show it to have been formed by a retreating sea. The general composition of the island, which consists of low hills and ridges, with narrow and swampy flats intervening, is sandstone, with the exception of Bukit Timah, which is of granite formation, containing about 18 per cent. of quartz. Colonel Low (J. I. A., vol. i. p. 84) specifics eight varieties. The soil overlying the granite is rather meagre (the stone being neither very porphyritic nor micaceous and not very liable to disintegration), but it of course contains a vast quantity of vegetable mould.