From the pages of the " British North Borneo Herald" we have now received full ccount of those timistic speeches at the North Borneo dinner on which we based an article two months ago; and it may be permissible to supplement what we then said of the developments of this teresting outpost of Empire. There ix no lack of picturesque details. As for instance, that in the eighteenth century the first of all chartered companies, the East India Company, landed " pair of elephants on the island, from which has sprung a magnificent herd. Unfortunately the herd seems occasionally too magnificent, for it has lately ran amok in the North Borneo {telegraph system—which is 800 miles Tong—and there-sent direct from Sendakan to the Hotel by prevented " telegram from being
Cecil. on the night of the dinner. Turning to the market value of North Borneo, apart from the telegraph system already mentioned and railway 120 miles in length, we find that the State controls 20,000,000 sores of land suitable for the cultivation of different tropical pro-nets, without calculating on their undoubted mineral wealth and vast timber; that seven rabber companies fare at work with promising success, while one tobacco company at least thas been able to pay twenty per cent on its working in 1906. Of the coaling prospects and achievements of North Borneo we have spoken before; but 'a word must be said for the pacifying nonce of the Company among the nati of whom 150,000 have been reclaimed from barbarism while head-hunting and piracy have been stopped. That the North Borneo ni naturally peaceable or easily-nianaged may be gathered from the experiences of early pioneers, and evidenced by the perpetual native troubles with which Datch colonist i had to contend for over thirty years.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.