Mr. Alleyne Ireland publishes in the Times of Thursday an
account of what has been accomplished by the Brooke family in their sovereignty of Sarawak. It is perhaps a little too purely appreciative ; but the facts are sufficiently remarkable. The two successive Rajas, Sir James and Sir Charles, have in fifty years terminated the chronic feud between the Malays and the Dyaks; have established a Supreme Council of Europeans and natives which attracts general confidence ; have founded a capital, Kuching, as orderly and pleasant as Singapore; have created a regular European Civil Service; and have maintained peace practically unbroken for hall-a. century. Sarawak is in fact one of the best governed of tropical dephndencies. The fact, interesting in itself, as proving that Englishmen can exercise absolute power without becoming tyrants, is specially instructive because in Sarawak Sir Charles Brooke is trying the great experiment of building slowly on a basis of native ideas, employing natives freely— they have a majority on the Supreme Council—and carrying out the rooted Asiatic idea that every man with a grievance has a right of direct appeal to the Sovereign. Sir Charles is, of course, growing into years; but his son, the heir-apparent, is being thoroughly trained as a local Civil servant
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