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 of native craft—an amount second only to Hong Kong and London in the shipping returns of the Empire. In the same years the value of exports and imports (exclusive of inter-Settlement trade) totalled, roughly, £32,000,000 and £39,000,000 respectively, or considerably more than double what they had been a decade ago. Much of this prosperity no doubt is due to the development of the Federated Malay States, which occupy a large portion of the Malay Peninsula, and constitute one of the finest estates in the whole length and breadth of the Empire, yielding in abundance not only all the fruits of a fertile tropical soil, but also great mineral wealth. It has been developed almost entirely within the last twenty years, and, thanks in no small measure to the genius of Sir Frank Swettenham, a born Empire-builder, such as our race seems almost alone able to bring forth, the Federated Malay States show already a trade of some £12,000,000 exports and imports and a revenue of £2,000,000, and they own over 850 miles of railway, built entirely out of current revenue. Whether British North Borneo and the adjoining Protectorates of Brunei and Sarawak, which lie in the same latitude some 500 miles further east, will ever rival Malaya may be doubted, though they have many natural features in common, and the excellent work done by Rajah Brooke in Sarawak deserves more than mere honourable mention. Space, however, does not allow me to do more than refer incidentally to Borneo, where the extension of Rajah Brooke's authority, at any rate to Brunei, seems to be urgently needed.

The Malayan Peninsula, notwithstanding its great intrinsic value, is itself only the stepping-stone from India to the Far East. Not till Hong Kong is reached does one stand actually on the threshold of a region where we have built up interests of immense actual and potential importance which have made us a power