THE OPIUM MONOPOLY

BY ELLEN N. LA MOTTE

VIII -- SARAWAK

NEAR British North Borneo. Area, 42,000 square miles, many rivers navigable. The government of part of the present territory was obtained in 1842 by Sir James Brooke from the Sultan of Brunei. Various accessions were made between 1861, 1885, and 188o. The Rajah, H. H. Sir Charles Johnson Brooke, G. C.M.G., nephew to the late Rajah, born June 3, 1829, succeeded in 1868. Population estimated at 500,000, Malays, Dyaks, Kayans, Kenyahs, and Muruts, with Chinese and other settlers.

Thus the Statesman's Year Book, to which we would add a paragraph from an article in the National Geographic Magazine for February, 1919. Under the title: "Sarawak: The Land of the White Rajahs" we read: "With the recent death of Sir Charles Brooke, G. C. M. G., the second of the white rajahs of Sarawak, there came to an end one of the most useful and unusual careers among the many that have done credit to British rule in the Far East. For nearly 49 years he governed, as absolute sovereign, a mixed population of Chinese, Malays, and numerous pagan tribes scattered through the villages and dense jungles of an extensive territory on the northwest coast of Borneo.

" Constant solicitude for the welfare of his people won the sympathy and devotion which enabled this white man, supported by an insignificant army and police, to establish the peaceful occupations of civilization in place of barbarous tyranny and oppression."

How thoroughly this "civilizing" process was accomplished may be judged somewhat by turning to the Colonial Office List for 19I7, where on page 436 we read: "Sarawak: The principal sources of revenue are the opium, gambling, pawn shops, and arrack, producing:

1908 $483,019

1909 460,416

1910 385,070

1911 420,151

1912 426,867

1913 492,455

In the Statesman's Year Book for 1916 we find the total revenue for this well-governed little colony as follows, given however in pounds sterling, instead of dollars, as in the above table. Thus:

Revenue-1910 221,284 pounds sterling

1911I 159,456

1912 175,967

1913 210,342

1914 208,823

It would seem as if forty-nine years of constant solicitude for the welfare of a people, establishing the peaceful occupations of civilization, might have resulted in something better than a revenue derived from opium, gambling, pawn shops and arrack.