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National Geographic : 1966 Aug
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port of Singapore is a free port, and the trade thereof open to ships and vessels of every na tion, free of duty, equally and alike to all." It still is. By police launch I toured the great harbor installation-largest in Southeast Asia and fifth largest in the world-and surveyed the four miles of modern docks where 30 berths provide fueling, watering, and loading facilities for ships from all over the world. Offshore, in the protected roads, dozens of smaller vessels find safe anchorage. Swarms of beamy lighters called tongkangs nuzzle up against them like piglets to a sow to receive their cargo and carry it to wharves up the Singapore River (pages 270-71). "We pride ourselves on offering good, fast service," said a port official. "There is proba bly less pilferage on our docks than anywhere else in the East. We have eleven thousand laborers in the Port Authority. Our godowns -w arehouses-shelter 90,000 tons of cargo each week. But they are never crowded. We keep the cargo moving. A ship arrives or departs every fifteen minutes." Geography has always favored Singapore, possessed of a superb natural harbor and perched on the shores of a narrow strait through which much of the old China trade had to pass (map, page 278). Even the winds blew to its special advantage. The northeast monsoon lasted six months and, when it end- ed, the southwest monsoon took over for the rest of the year. Thus, ships out of China could run to Singapore before the northeast mon soon, exchange European cargo for their own, and later blow back to China on the same southwest monsoon that brought the tall East Indiamen to Singapore. Raffles's settlement became a natural entre p6t, a crossroads depot for exchanging the goods of East and West. And in each exchange, Singapore profited. In 1867 it became a Brit ish Crown Colony. By the early 20th century tin and rubber had become major industries in Malaya, and both went out to the world through the port -a growing place teeming with brawling, lawless laborers representing 48 nationalities and speaking 54 languages. Although World War I did not disturb its roaring business, Japanese expansion did. A great naval base was built to protect against this threat. But while Singapore's defenders watched the sea, the Japanese marched down the Malay Peninsula and broke in the back way. On February 15, 1942, the British de stroyed key installations and yielded the city.* Singapore and Malaya Join-Then Part In 1945 the British came back to Singapore, and Singapore came back to life. But the new ly formed Federation of Malaya, a producing country, and the Crown Colony of Singapore, a trading country, went their separate ways, to their mutual disadvantage. Britain did much to help during the post war years, establishing schools, hospitals, and public housing. But the colony's million war wakened Asians wanted something more. Britain gave it: On June 3, 1959, colonial rule ended and the State of Singapore was born. Four years of careful planning by the wise, intuitive Prime Minister of Malaya, Tunku Abdul Rahman Putra Al-Haj, and the tough, brilliant young Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew, brought about the fusion of their countries within the new nation of Ma laysia. But in less than two years that crucial ly important union failed. Despite the evident need for economic and military merger, the people could not find common cultural cause. Chinese and Malay, long accustomed to living in the same compound, were not yet ready to live in the same house. In the summer of 1965 the hard-fighting Lee told his people, with tears in his eyes, that Singapore was once again a sovereign state. *H. Gordon Minnigerode reported "life (;rows Grim in Singapore," in the November, 1941, GEOGRAPHIC. 283
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