MALAYA, A LAND OF BEAUTY

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 108, 9 May 1930, Page 9

MALAYA, A LAND OF BEAUTY

NOVELS THAT CREATE ILLFEELING. The altitude of the Socialist Government towards the Singapore Base is provoking the keenest discussion in Singapore, writes the city’s correspondent of the Sunday News. One of the factors to which local attention s being consistently drawn is the lack <<i knowledge displayed by the average citizen of Great. Birtain towards this part of the Empire. Singapore is not a “sink of iniquity,” as it was once described by a late member of Parliament. Nor is British Malaya the home of harddrinking, dissolute men and unprincipled women that some modern novelists and playwrights would have us believe.

British Malaya, which falls, like ancient. Gaul, into three parts, is a beautiful country with a romantic hi.v tory ;/id a great future, both politically and commercially. The title “British Malaya” is a name recently adopted as a short way of describing a relatively small territory that, in the words of the official guide, comprises “Three distinct systems and nine separate Administrations.”

The whole territory is administered by the Governor of the Straits Settlements, who is ex-officio High Commissioner of the Protected Malay States, both Federated and Unfederated. Singapore, the seat of Government of the colony, has a great strategic importance from its geographical position. It has been described as “The Gateway to the East,” and, as the site selected for the naval base, it has on numerous occasions been the subject of political controversy. It has also great commercial importance. The total annual tonnage of shipping entering and leaving the port averages more than twenty million.

The area of British Malaya is 56,602 square miles, of which the colony, as apart from the Protected States, is just less than 1600. The gross value of its imports is approximately £120,000,000, and its exports £160,000,000 annually. There is more than £75,000,000 of capital invested in the rubber industry alone, there being more than 2,500,000 acres under rubber cultivation. The output is approximately 60 per cent, of the world’s supply. The industry employs a great deal of machinery, but unfortunately not all of it is of British manufacture.

The output of tin from Malaya is more than 30 per cent, of the world’s supply, approximately 40,000 tons per annum. Nearly all the tin ore is smelted in the country. In the last few years there has been a great increase in modern methods of mining, and there are now more than sixty large dredges working. In 1914 machinery of a total horse-power of some 6500 was employed. Now the horse-power i< approximately 120,000. Here lies a market worth attention by British manufacturers.

There are many other industries in existence, most of which afford an opening for British capital. Some are at present small and relatively unimportant, but all growing and capable of great expansion, like copra, rice, arena nuts, tapioca, and preserved pin eapples.