figures as showing the latest state of the trade of the original Settlements :

Expressed in sterling, the total value of imports in 1911 was £43,128,362 against £41,032,243 in 1910, showing an increase of £2,096,119 in 1911; while exports were valued at £37,640,240 in 1911 against £36,819,563 in 1910, showing an increase in 1911 of £820,677. The combined totals of imports and exports in the two years were:

Turning to the Federated Malay States we find that the imports in 1911 reached a total value of $66,532,039 (£7,762,071), while the exports amounted in value to $116,280,927 (£13,566,108). The total trade, therefore, was $182,812,966 (£21,328,179), as compared with $156,107,141 (£18,212,499) in 1910. It will thus be

CHAPTER XIX

THE FUTURE OF MALAYA

The higher destinies of Malaya-At the parting of the ways— Three possible courses-The benefits of unification-Imperial aspect of the problem.

NOT the least difficult part of the work of preparing an account of Malaya is the writing of the final words. The story is necessarily only half told. What is written to-day may be inadequate to-morrow, and a little later may be so far from the true position as to give a false impression. We are really here in the presence of the making of a country, and that a great one. The constituent elements are present for the building up of a tropical dependency of surpassing material and political importance. It only remains for a wise statesmanship to mould this material into the right form. Granted that such is forthcoming, the issue is not doubtful. But, as a preliminary to success, it is imperative that those who have the ordering of the higher destinies of Malaya should shed some illusions. They must at the outset get rid, once and for all, of the idea of "Settlements." That is a phrase which was never particularly happy, and which belongs to a long-past day when the ledger rather than the statute-book supplied the guiding principles of policy. Even the Colonial habit of thought is out of place in the circumstances in which British power is placed. Malaya is rather a miniature

India than a Colony. The three chief centres answer to the Presidency cities. In the Federated Malay States we have a prototype of the Mofussil or up-country districts of India; the Protected States are the Malayan equivalent of the semi-independent territory of India; while Siam stands in much the same relation to Malaya that Afghanistan does to India. Of course, the parallel must not be pushed too far, but, broadly speaking, the principles which govern the two areas are sufficiently analogous to demand that the future of Malaya shall be considered in strict regard to them. The Home Government must "think imperially" if it is to work out this problem on adequate lines. If it is too much a slave of the conventions of the Colonial Office, the splendid prospect which lies ahead will be dimmed, if it is not completely obscured in some directions.

Malaya, without doubt, stands to-day at the parting of the ways. The first stage on the long and difficult road of moral regeneration and commercial and political development has been passed. She may now either go ahead to heights of fame never touched in the chequered history of the Malay race; or, as regards a great part of the area, she may drop back into the welter of anarchy in which the whole population of the Peninsula wallowed only a few decades since. Looking at the position as it is, it is difficult to imagine that there can be any but one answer as to the course she will elect to take. The beacon-light of the Federated Malay States shines brilliantly, beckoning her on the road she should go. We are an unemotional race, or we should thrill over the record which the building up of this federation supplies. In the story of modern civilisation, it takes a high place as an example of what can be done by able and conscientious administrators acting on sound principles. Forty years ago the region was a mere

haunt of pirates, a waste of impenetrable forest with a fringe of squalid Settlements redeemed only from their moral wretchedness by the nobility of character of some of those who inhabited them. The white man who set his foot in the interior did so at peril of his life. Vast areas were never trodden by him, and there were many parts which were a sealed book owing to their inaccessibility to the Malays themselves. How wonderfully changed is the aspect now! There is hardly a part of the area of the Federated States that has not been brought into touch with civilisation by well-made roads. By means of the excellent State Railway which now bisects the Peninsula on the western side, you may traverse the country at express speed from end to end in a train which is not inferior to any that is running in Europe. Thriving towns are everywhere growing up, equipped with all the latest conveniences of modern civilisation. Agriculture has taken to itself features which have made this new-old land the cynosure of the world. The tin mined in the States is a powerful factor in the international metal market. In all directions there is commercial activity-an activity reflected in a trade which reaches the total of over twenty millions sterling. On the administrative side, the achievements have been not less remarkable than this material progress. A judicial system has been set up worthy of the highest traditions of the British judiciary; an able body of civilians, trained after the manner of the best type of British official, fulfil the duties of the civil administration. The higher responsibilities of Government are discharged by a Council in which, by a happy combination of interests, Malay prince and British official sit side by side in a spirit of amiable co-operation. Educational institutions, museums, parks, and all the other marks of an advanced civilisation are found in a high state of excellence. In