Art. 7.-A NEW INDIA; THE MALAY STATES.

1. The Federated Malay States: Annual Report for 1916. By Sir E. L. Brockman, K.C.M.G., Chief Secretary.

2. F.M.S. Report on the Working of the Trade and Customs Department during the year 1916.

3. F.M.S. Railways. Annual Report for 1916.

4. Manual of Statistics relating to the F.M.S. 1916.

5. Trengganu Annual Report for the year 1915. By J. L. Humphreys, British Agent.

6. The Annual Report of the Adviser to the Kedah Government for the year 1334 A.H. (Nov. 1915-Oct. 1916). By G. A. Hall, Acting Adviser to the Kedah Government. 7. Kelantan Administration Report for the year 1916. By R. J. Farrer, Acting British Adviser.

8. Johore Government Gazette: Annual Report for 1915.* F. J. Weld, Acting General Adviser.

LESS than a half century ago a body of British traders in the Straits Settlements were told that if they choose to run the risk of placing their persons and property in the jeopardy which they are aware attends them in this country (the Malay Peninsula), under the circumstances it is impossible for Government to be answerable for their protection or that of their property.' The other day, at a meeting held at a town in the Federated Malay States to support the Malayan war loan, a speaker stated, as a reason for anticipating a generous response to war appeals of this character, that this self-same country within which the British trader of forty-five years ago could look for no protection is to-day per capita the wealthiest territory in the Empire. It is doubtful whether in the whole history of Imperial expansion, rich as it is in examples of progress, a more striking and significant example than this could be found. In sober truth the development of the region which is conveniently described under the comprehensive name of British

*The above-mentioned works are published by the respective Governments, and may be purchased at the Federated Malay States Agency, 88, Cannon St, E.C.

+ Reply of the Straits Settlements Government to the petition forwarded in July 1872 to the Government by the Singapore and Malacca Chambers of Commerce, protesting against the prevailing anarchy and asking for help.

Malaya is one of the marvels of latter-day civilisation. From a home of the most ruthless race of pirates the world has known the territory has become one of the principal supply grounds of international commerce. Considerably more than half the entire demand for tin of the world's manufactures is met by the produce of British Malayan mines. More astonishing still is the fact that this wild Alsatia of fifty years ago to-day produces 73 per cent. of the plantation rubber produced in the world —an amount that exceeds the entire export of wild rubber from Brazil, which once almost entirely monopolised the market for the commodity. We talk of the romance of Empire, but most of us little realise that it is to-day in the making just as much as it was in the stirring period when Clive and Stringer Lawrence and Coote were settling with their swords the destinies of a continent on the plains of the Carnatic and amid the mango-groves of Bengal. It is only when we dip into the pages of the official literature of our oversea possessions, and analyse the remarkable facts and figures there set out, that we see in full grandeur the splendid work of Empire building which is still proceeding under the successors of Hastings and Light and Raffles.

The Federated Malay States have a record rich in examples of that statesmanship which has made the British Empire what it is. By force of character-that strange mysterious quality of mind which gives individual Britons a dominating power over Asiatics-a group of Malay States, formerly distinguished by nothing but their fissiparous tendencies, have been welded together into a solid whole under a form of government which admirably compromises between an excess of interference and a dangerous freedom. And the feat has been accomplished not only without friction, but with a degree of cordial acquiescence on the part of the Malays, both rulers and ruled, which is astonishing when we recall their turbulent history. No longer is it a mere case of a few restricted 'settlements,' small islands of peace and commerce in a sea of anarchy, but of a great aggregation of territorial units of very great present value and with prospects which open up a majestic vista of future possibilities. Here are the partners in the Old Colony'-Singapore, Penang and Malacca-rich and potentially valuable as

strategic seats of Imperial power, in intimate association with a vast area of new territory-the familiarly known 'F.M.S.' (Federated Malay States)-whose immense resources of natural wealth give an increased importance to the development of British power in this part of the East. The process of accretion and consolidation continues. Slowly but surely in this former land of misrule is being built up an Imperial system, reaching out unerringly to the older portions of our Indian Empire with which, probably at a no distant period, it is destined to have a close physical connexion.

British Malaya has been developed in the characteristically loose way that has marked the growth of our Empire as a whole. It may, indeed, be said that it exists to-day in spite of, rather than because of, the following out of a well-conceived plan. Penang, the oldest British settlement in the Straits, was occupied by Francis Light in the face of marked official discouragement; and the policy pursued by the Supreme Government in India in the early days of that colony's existence would have resulted in its evacuation but for the strong action and shrewd diplomacy of the eminent Empire builder on the spot. When Singapore was occupied and an incomparable strategical point in Eastern seas placed in British hands, Raffles, whose prescient genius had directed the selection of the island, met with the most violent opposition from the local Government in the Straits, and was afterwards subjected to severe censure by the home authorities for daring to be more farsighted and enterprising than his contemporaries. Malacca, again, would have been Dutch to this day, and would have driven a solid wedge into the British sphere of influence on the Malay Peninsula, but for the urgent representations of Raffles and others, who clearly realised the importance of keeping the mainland clear of rivals. In more recent times, when the present constitution of the Federated Malay States was in the making, the weight of official authority in Whitehall was repeatedly thrown into the balance against the progressive development of the system of control and administration which has produced such remarkable results. The craven fear of being great' appears often to have haunted the official mind

where British Malaya is concerned. But, happily our policy has at last been directed on to lines which are more in harmony with the vast British interests that centre in this part of the East. The story of the change from ignorant apathy to informed alertness is one which has a profound significance at this time, when we are daily becoming better acquainted with the enormous range of the Teutonic conspiracy against British trade and influence.

About ten years ago the British Foreign Office received definite information of a project in process of completion for the construction of a railway from Bangkok in Siam to Kelantan in the north-eastern part of the Malay Peninsula. The line was promoted under German auspices and financed with German capital, under conditions which made it practically certain that in the long run it would become virtually a German line. The news was sufficiently startling to awaken in Whitehall a sense of the dangers which threatened our Imperial position in a region which for generations had been regarded as lying within our sphere of influence. Abandoning the laissez-faire policy followed in regard to the north-eastern Peninsular States, the Imperial Government opened up negotiations with Siam for a territorial rearrangement based on the formal recognition of British influence in Kelantan and the contiguous State of Trengganu. Eventually an agreement was come to, by which, in exchange for the abandonment of our rights to extra-territorial jurisdiction in Siam, the Siamese Government conceded to us her somewhat nebulous claims to interference in Kelantan and Trengganu, and her better-defined title to influence in the States of Kedah and Perlis on the north-western side of the Peninsula.

In this Anglo-Siamese Treaty of 1909 we have one of the most potent instruments of Imperial expansion and consolidation that the modern history of the Empire supplies. It has immediately brought into the region of practical policy that all-British Malay Peninsula which Raffles sighed for and which was long regarded as an unattainable dream by successive British administrators in the Straits. Although only eight years have elapsed since the treaty was ratified, British influence is to-day

paramount throughout the entire region. British officials are installed as 'advisers' to the ruling chiefs of the Protected States, and with firm but tactful insistence direct the administration along the lines of ordered government which have been followed by the States in the federated area and which have brought them to the highest pitch of prosperity. Merchants and traders are flocking to the States, and are establishing commercial connexions which promise in a few years to yield a rich harvest not only to British commerce but to the revenues of the local governments. Ports are being improved, roads are being constructed, and in a hundred ways life is being infused into the dry bones of a region which until a few years ago was an absolute terra incognita to the European. But by far the most important result of the recently concluded arrangement is the effect it has had in promoting what may be termed inter-Imperial land communications, for we have been brought by the rapid march of recent events within sight of the period when there will be direct railway communication between India and British Malaya.

A few words about the British Malayan Railway system are necessary as a preface to the story of this important Indo-Malayan trunk line. Less than thirty years ago, there was not a single mile of railway in the whole of the Malay Peninsula. To-day there are 993 miles of line, carrying every year about 15,000,000 passengers and earning sufficient money to pay a return of about five per cent. on the capital outlay. The Government of the Federated Malay States is the sole owner of the lines. It has financed them entirely from the beginning to the present time out of the surplus revenue of the States. The same overflowing Exchequer is being resorted to for the furtherance of the ambitious scheme, which has been in active progress in the past few years, of establishing a connexion between the Malayan and the Anglo-Siamese systems. For the purpose of constructing the necessary linking line in Siam, the Imperial Government sanctioned a loan of 4,750,000l. to the Siamese Government, out of the funds of the Federated Malay States. At the same time the Government of these States proceeded energetically with its project of railway extension northward by means of a line along