CARAVANSERAI OF EAST.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18964, 11 March 1925, Page 11

CARAVANSERAI OF EAST.

SINGAPORE AND THE BASE. CITY OF THE SEA WAYS. TAWDRINESS AND POWER. . - >' PIRATES " OF THE RICKSHAWS. [rrr ora kfuctal commhssioxtck. ] SINGAPORE. Feb, 13. Singapore, important as it is to the strategy of the Pacific, is not an attractive city, It ha-s none of the charm of Wcltev r«lrn (Batavia), or ot Macassar. It seems jerry-built. The reason is not far to seek. It is a caravanserai rather than a home, a dak bungalow in the travels of tourist Englishmen and Americans. Only the Asiatics have here set up their tents. The Englishman whoso business makes it necessary for him to live in the East always longs for England, and regards his exile as temporary. No matter how long he is forced to remain ho always hopes for the amazing stroke of fortune which will set him on the London pavements again in a London fog. The Dutchman, on the contrary, hrings his wife and children to the Dutch Indies, hires fir builds a house, wonderfully adapted to-the needs of the tropics, and settles down philosophically lo spend his life in the New Holland his people have made beyond the seas. The city lies on the southern side of a small island at the very tip of the Malay! Peninsula, lo which it has lately been! joined by a causeway along which the tram runs lo .foboro and thence to Kuala Lumpur and TVnang. One glance at the map shows its obvious importance in eastern naval dispositions. It is the very corner of Asia ; it is to the East what Gibraltar and Suez are to the West,. Its shipping is simply enormous. Out in the large fiat, harbour lie literally hundreds of steamers week in and week out, and thousands of native vessels, from the Chinese jnnk and the large Malay proa j to the Sampan. Each day throughout the year sail three passenger liners, and j uncounted cargo boats. It has more shipping than any other city in the world 1 outside Great Britain. j Problems of the Base. The base is situated on the northern ; side of the island, on the straits separ- i ating it. from the mainland. It will be constructed to the east of the Johore causeway, along the coastline of the districts of Sembawang and Seletar. Further toward the centre of tho island, which is about 15 miles in both its chief dimensions. there are huge oil reservoirs at Mandai, thence along a pipe line which leads to the oil wharf at Singapore. There is nothing to see yet upon tho site but a few sheds. Tho coastline "is broken by half a dozen deep indentations along tho edges of which mangroves grow now, but which will be very valuable as sites for wharves and docks. Singapore, though it is hot and steamy, and has an immense and. depressing amount of rain, is out of the typhoon track, which begins in the China Sea and takes Hongkong in its furious stride. There will, therefore, be no danger from storms. Some years ago, the Japanese, seeing the vast importance of Singapore, bought up land on "the Johore side commanding the straits. This they planted with rubber, both to disarm suspicion and to make some money out- of their strategic purchase—good tactics and good business. Now their lands will be under the guns of the base, and while useful for growing rubber, have ceased to be valuable strategically. Singapore regards it as a good joke, and the Japanese, of whom there are many in the city, and who are regarded as good citizens; smile faintly and tactfolly, and refrain from comment. Too Moist lor Problems. There is not unmixed satisfaction in Singapore on the subject of the base. It introduces problems, and the white community of Singapore is too hot and too moist to enjoy problems. It will naturally mean an influx of permanent residents. Instead of one battalion of British troops there will bo two, and then there will be the staff of tho base and the navy, technical and combatant. Already thSre is a housing problem; most of the booses have been built by Asiatics, and there are few which are fit for Enrcpean occupation. Hence the Europeans foresee an increase in the cost of living, and naturally show little enthusiasm. Then there is the question of a health resort. Sickness among the regiments is certain unless provision is made for getting the men away in rotation to a cooler climate. In India the regiments go for a while into 'the hill stations. There are no hill stations in Singapore. However, running up the peninsula is a range of perfectly good mountains, and it is proposed. to build,a military station somewhere along that range, as the Dutch have done near Bandoeng. The Light oi Asia. The Asiatic population, however, will welcome it, and the money it brings. If a branch of Topbet were established in Singapore the Chinese and Hindoo retailers would be on its doorstep next morning. The avidity of the white man's burden after money is shocking, when we read of how spiritual is Buddhism, j how Mahomet scorned the tilings of earth, j If anyhody had offered Buddha a dollar he would never have left his wife, and a great faith would never have been founded. That is if he were like his disciples, the "rickshaw" men. In Singapore we first met the gentle "rickshaw," or jinriksba, man. Everybody knows that he runs about between the shafts of a wheeled chair, dragging the tuan or the sahib, or the Eurasian, or anybody else who will pay him. There is no dirty pride about him, he would drag a hippopotamus, or a polecat round in his rickshaw if they had the money. Here is a bit from the official guidebook about this product of the country; "The common custom is to pay by distance,.' but if one wishes to go about leisurely, with frequent stops, one should pay by time. The rickshaw pullers will object vigorously, no matter how much one gives them; pay no attention to their clamour," It bad always been a wonder to rne where all the Chinese pirates went when China grew too hot for them. [ know now, they go to Singapore, and pull rickshaws. They certainly live up to the guide-book. Beep Brown Smells. Singapore is very much behind the Dutch cities in comfort and sanitation. In the' Asiatic quarters of Batavia, Sourabava, and even Malacca, which is the worst, I never met such deep brown smells as those of tlje Asiatic quarter of this British city. There is no system of sewerage, and this, in a tropical city, necessarily causes a fair amount of typhoid. Many of the bathrooms in the hotels have no shower baths. Tho visitor turns on a Up into a huge tub, and splashes water over himself 'with a dipper. In some of the Dutch hotels one does the same, but in none of the, best, of these is there any lack of shower baths or of sewerage. Tn such hotels as the Preangcr, at Bandoeng, the traveller obtains the very last word in modern comfort for about 25s a day. In Singapore he obtains far less for 30s a day. So Singapore swelters behind its harbour crammed "with ships, and watches tho Eastern and the Western route, a few thousand whites swamped by half a million Chinese, Indians, and Malays. Crowded it is, and not sweet-scented, and tawdry j and vastly interesting, but, it is in the. hands of Singapore that Ibe battle .will 1 lie when onco again, as in the day of J Darius, the East goes up against the West. '