[
    {
        "id": 215770,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2002",
        "page_number": 69,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "Turnbull, an established historian, equivocally suggests that the transfer was based on an inaccurate and unbalanced feedback of the community's feelings:\n\nNo dissenting voice was raised in London and Calcutta, and the colonial office naturally had the impression that the demand for transfer was based on general dissatisfaction with rule from India, with the entire merchant body clamouring for change. In fact, it had required years of agitation on the part of Read, Woods and a small minority of enthusiasts in Singapore to arouse interest in the transfer, and apart from the brief period of panic in 1857 in when the petition was framed, the majority even of European merchants in Singapore were not actively in favour of the change, while the Asian merchants showed almost no interest in the movement.2\n\nIn spite of these conflicting points, I hold that the transfer was needed as the problems raised in the Straits merchants' petition were material and bona fide enough to necessitate the transfer of the administration from Calcutta to London. However, my essay attempts a revisionist's approach to the transfer controversy, questioning its necessity and examining its legal significance through an orchestration of the pot-pourri of relevant issues, in the hope that this methodology may help to provide a clearer awareness and legal understanding into this much taken for granted transfer, thus according it the new angle of attention it deserves.\n\nBackground history of the Straits Settlements3\n\nSingapore, Malacca and Penang were combined to form the Straits Settlements in 1826. The Straits Settlements became the fourth presidency of India, and remained an Indian dependency until 1867. The EIC obtained possession of Penang in 1786, as a base to protect the company's expanding China trade and a centre for the collection of Straits produce from the Malay peninsula and the eastern archipelago for shipment to China. When Singapore was founded in 1819, it was placed under the administration of Bencoolen (in Sumatra) where Raffles was lieutenant-governor. When he resigned and returned to England in 1823, Singapore was placed under the control of the Supreme Government of India. Singapore was ceded to the EIC in 1824 and",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    },
    {
        "id": 215771,
        "series_id": 26,
        "series_slug": "histsyn-rashkb-journal-engine",
        "series_title": "RASHKB Journal 皇家亞洲學會香港分會學刊",
        "series_use_hku_proxy": false,
        "document_key": "RAS-2002",
        "page_number": 70,
        "title": "RAS-2002",
        "content_text": "3\n\nbecame British territory. Malacca was administered by the Dutch until the signing of the Anglo-Dutch treaty in 1824, whereby it was ceded to the British among other terms. Two years later, Singapore and Malacca came under the Penang Presidency.\n\nAccording to Turnbull, the Straits Settlements were the East India Company's most incongruous offspring….The Straits Settlements formed a scattered unit, which was difficult to administer efficiently.” In legal terms, it included Western laws at constitutional level, and local legal systems under the control of sultans.\n\nPhysical/geographical problems\n\nPenang Island lay opposite Province Wellesley (a strip of land about 30 miles long and three miles wide) which the EIC acquired from the Sultan of Kedah in 1800. Malacca was about 260 miles to the south of Penang. Singapore Island was a further 120 miles south, at the tip of the Malay Peninsula.\n\nThere were problems of communication between these settlements, being only by means of sea. Until 1861, the Straits government possessed only two antiquated sailing gunboats and one steamer, used mainly to ferry the governor, recorders and senior officials between the three stations. Communications with the EIC's headquarters in Calcutta were also poor, and until 1864, a monthly steamer service between Calcutta and the Straits Settlements remained the only link with the seat of government.\"\n\nAdministration problems\n\nAccording to Turnbull, '[d]ivision of interest between the East India Company and its eastern dependencies was even more formidable than the geographical and physical problems of administration. The sole value of the Straits Settlements to the East India Company was to protect and stimulate the China trade. When [the EIC] lost its monopoly of this trade in 1833 Calcutta was left with an unrewarding and expensive burden. She could not abandon the Straits Settlements but constantly begrudged the drain they made upon India's financial resources and upon the time and attention of senior officials over the next thirty years.'",
        "txt_file_path": "txt/dfo323lmgvd/RAS-2002.txt",
        "external_url": "https://digitalrepository.lib.hku.hk/catalog/mp4901278",
        "rank": 0
    }
]