Admirers of Mr. Arthur Bryant as an authority on seventeenth,
and for that matter eighteenth, century England must have asked themselves with some surprise, as they read his article in last week's Sunday Times on Sarawak, whence his apparently extensive know- ledge of the Far East was derived. I say " apparently" because the article was highly controversial, and a considerable amount of its reasoning could be demolished without difficulty. It was a fervent plea for support for the claims of the late Rajah Muda, Mr. Anthony Brooke, against the decision of his uncle, the Rajah, to make over the dependency to the British Government—a step which will obviously safeguard the interests of the natives much more effectively than the perpetuation of dynastic family rule. My own perplexity about the article has been a little relieved by the discovery that Mr. Bryant is brother-in-law of the Mr. Brooke whose cause' he is championing. Perhaps other people's may be relieved likewise too.
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