Singapore's experiences form an interesting chapter in the rickshaw problem which Shanghai is periodically called, upon to remedy. Although the rickshaw indüstry is not so firmly and widely established in Singapore, it is an important transportation medium but for more than a month a strike of pullers has been in existence and there have been no public rickshaws on the streets. The cause of the strike is the high charges exacted by the rickshaw owners for the hire of the vehicles and as the Singapore Government has not been impressed by the necessity for intervening or deemed the question sufficiently important to take the brosd action of the Shanghai Municipal Council, the pullers took matters in their own hands and stopped working. Inconvenience has been caused to the public and trouble to the police but there seems to have been no real impediment in- the withdrawal of this form so\ popular in Shanghai. Possessed of wider powers than the Shanghai authorities, Singapore has repatriated nearly 1,000 pullers, sending them back to Amoy passage free and with three Straits dollars each for expenses. It must be admitted that the small part rickshaws play in the city's public transportation makes the problem relatively easy to handle or the Municipal Commissioners have progressively decreased the number of vehicles to a maximum of 3,750 and a year hence it will be further reduced to 3,000. The guiding factor is the development of other forms of transport, especially motor transport, which is displacing man-hauled vehicles irrespective of the humanitarian factor jarring so unpleasantly with the economic aspect in Shanghai. The whole tendency of sentiment in Singapore is directed against the continuance of this industry—if it may so be called—and the strike may provide the opportunity for disposing of it. There are forces of national pride which reveal themselves with startling efficiency among the Chinese. One writer points out that there are no rickshaws in. the Netherlands East Indies although there is a large Chinese population. They were introduced in Batavia with the consent of the authorities but did not last more than a few days for, according to the writer, the Chinese community got together and decided it was against the prestige of the race that Chinese should be seen in the streets working like beasts of burden. The men were offered jobs at higher wages and the rickshaw experiment collapsed.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.