SINGAPORE
By SIR EVELYN WRENCH [This article was, of course, written before the 7apanese war broke out.]
IT is just seventeen years since the first sod at the Singapore naval base was turned, and today a good-sized town, remind- ing one of a boom city in the Canadian West a quarter of a century ago, has been dramatically conjured out of the tropical jungle, with a background of rubber-plantations and banana- groves. Thirty years ago in the Western United States the citizens of Seattle proudly pointed to a mountain that was being removed by gigantic steam-shovels to increase the area of the business-section of the town. At the Singapore naval base the landscape has been changed, hills and such minor obstacles over- come as the removing of a bridge, the deflection of a river, and the conversion of a swamp into dry land.
Entry into the naval base is no easy matter. The Indian sentries on duty courageously carry out their difficult task of holding up all and sundry until they are satisfied as to the visitor's credentials. In spite of the fact that I was accompanied by an officer, who had a pass for himself, and explained that I was visiting the base with the Admiral's permission, I was not per- mitted to proceed until the escorting officer got in touch with Headquarters on the telephone—welcome proof that no risks are run.
The Singapore base must be the greatest naval-equipment station in an area that stretches from the Pacific coast of the United States to Great Britain. It is certainly the greatest naval project undertaken by the British Empire during the past quarter of a century. For once the men of vision have had their way, and, despite the pacifism of the post-war era, and in face of great obstacles, the tremendous undertaking is ready for whatever tasks lie ahead. British and Allied squadrons can count on the most up-to-date plant in the world for the equipment and repair of their ffeeti. The base is certainly the greatest arsenal of democracy in South Eastern Asia. Everything appears to have been thought of. It was particularly with a view to seeing what was being done for the men of the Navy and Army that I applied for permission to visit the base. Much building is still in progress, but tremendous headway has been made during the past two years. Few defence-centres can possess more carefully designed barracks suited to the tropic heat of the Equator. Each unit has its own quarters ; there are buildings for the officers, for the non-commissioned officers, for the rank- and-file, for the police, for the military units employed in the defence of the arsenal, and for-the coolies and their families. The base is self-contained, and everything possible has been devised to provide ample recreation for the men. A delightful blue- tiled swimming-pool is open from early morning till late at night, with an up-to-date system of water-purifying ; every four hours the pool is entirely chlorinated. In the recreation-rooms billiard-tables and darts are provided. Out of doors there are tennis-courts and football-grounds. Hockey is the favourite pastime of the Indian troops, a game at which they excel. Already flowering shrubs and trees add a touch of colour to the verandahs in many of the quarters. There is a well-stocked nursery, pre- sided over by a Chinese gardener, who possesses his countrymen's expert knowledge of the plant-world. It was almost like visiting the nursery of a seedsman at home, except that orchids grew out of coconuts suspended from wires in the open air. No doubt in a few years all the roads from the barracks and assembly- plants will be tree-lined, which will give a more finished appear- ance to the base.
The most noticeable feature is that the greater part of the work is being carried out by coloured labour, with only a com- paratively small number of white overseers. Wherever one goes, in the machine-shops, in the dockyard-stores, in the buildings alongside the docks and the dry-docks, Chinamen, Indians, and Malays are busy in a shade-temperature which must be very nearly a hundred. I watched piles being driven into the ground, where new buildings are to be erected in an area previously a swamp, and here picturesque Chinese women with parasol- sized straw hats, blue jerkins and black trousers, were carrying building material or earth in large baskets suspended on bamboo- poles placed across their shoulders.
Naturally, for reasons of censorship, much that was seen cannot be mentioned, but a visit to the base reminded one of up-to-date machine-shops in the large industrial plants of the United States and Great Britain. I take away with me a memory of enormous cranes, of iron-foundries and forges with flying sparks, almost unbearable to look at in the afternoon heat, of hush-hush build- ings, of many types of naval vessel, of magnificent Sikhs, looking tall alongside the Malay sailors, of British soldiers off duty re- turning from an afternoon's bathe, and, above all, of British
blue-jackets, in tropical kit, walking as imperturbably as if they were at home. The dockyard is so immense that one of the major problems is the provision of transportation during recrea- tion-hours; the base already possesses a large motor-bus for men who wish to visit other parts of the island ; Mrs. Spooner, the wife of the Admiral in command of the dockyard, is now collecting funds for providing another to take the men from one part of the base to another. There is a large cinema, open to the air, in a temporary building, and before long a permanent habita- tion will be provided. There are excellent refrigeration-plants, and iced drinks are always available in the canteen. Everything possible is being done to neutralise the discomforts of life near the Equator.
Although the initiative for the construction of the base origin- ally came from Great Britain, the outer Empire is deeply alive to its significance. Australia, New Zealand, India, in addition to the colonial territories, realise that Singapore is their first line of defence. In many parts of the Netherlands East Indies, and in the United States, I have found great interest being taken in its dramatic growth. In face of the Japanese menace, the naval base at Singapore is ready, and the foresight of its founders justified a hundredfold.
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