The Brooke family, who are rather in the limelight as
a result of the offer of the present Rajah to transfer Sarawak to the British Crown, arc a long-lived race. Though Sarawak has existed as an independent (which is very far indeed from meaning self-governing) State for over a hundred years, the present Rajah, Sir Charles Vyner Brooke, is only the third of the dynasty. The first Rajah, Sir James Brooke, ruled from 1841 to 1868 and was succeeded by his nephew, who changed his surname from Johnson to Brooke and held sway till his death in 1917. His son, the present Rajah, who had already been working in Sarawak for twenty years, then followed. The family is now sharply divided about the regime to follow the Japanese invasion and the subsequent British military administration (which still con- tinues). The Rajah, who is seventy-one, desires the Colonial Office to take over. His nephew, Mr. Anthony Brooke, who has been suc- cessively in and out of his uncle's favour (and is now out) is strenu- ously opposing this. Mr. Bertram Brooke, the Rajah's younger brother, writes to The Times to say that the first intimation he had of "the proposed sale of Sarawak's independence" was on the wire- less last Wednesday. What precisely this means, in view of the fact that his son Anthony has been vigorously campaigning for months
against the proposed change of regime, is a little obscure. It all sug- gests that this personal rule is an anachronism in the fifth decade of the twentieth century. * *
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