On Wednesday, the British North Borneo Company held its sixteenth
half-yearly meeting at the City Terminus Hotel, when the Deputy-Chairman, Admiral Mayne, M.P., was able to point to a considerable amount of progress in regard to the cultivation of tobacco, which is the staple product of the Company's dominions. Referring to the political part of their work, he remarked that they were on " the most friendly terms with Rajah Brooke," and also with the natives. " They had now," he went on to say, "only three hundred police, or troops, to keep peace and quiet in a country the size of Ireland, and anything like warlike operations, threatening, or bullying, had been discountenanced in every possible way. Their desire had been to ingratiate themselves with the natives, and the Com- pany's people could now go in safety to places where formerly they could not go." The condition of the Company certainly seems promising ; but we doubt their being able to keep up this reign of peace and quiet if, as one speaker at the meeting predicted, they find gold.
Previous page
