One Hundred Years' History Of The Chinese In Singapore: The Annotated Edition. Ong Siang Song
11 was originally laid out as:
This future occasion was furnished by the Harbour Improvement scheme. The Chinese view was based on the Colony’s experience in the construction of the Singapore and Kranji Railway, through the Crown Agents, which had cost two million dollars against an estimate of half a million dollars.
“The Harbour scheme is put down at fifty million dollars. Increase this by 300 per cent, or even 200 per cent, and the Colony will have to find two hundred or one hundred and fifty millions of dollars. These alarming figures justify the agitation that the time has come when Crown Agents may – nay, must – be dispensed with.”
We have opted to separate these extensive quotations from the main text and indent them in smaller typeface so that readers are better able to identify them as direct quotations. Thus, the same segment is now laid out in the following fashion without the quote marks:
This future occasion was furnished by the Harbour Improvement scheme. The Chinese view was based on the Colony’s experience in the construction of the Singapore and Kranji Railway, through the Crown Agents, which had cost two million dollars against an estimate of half a million dollars.
The Harbour scheme is put down at fifty million dollars. Increase this by 300 per cent, or even 200 per cent, and the Colony will have to find two hundred or one hundred and fifty millions of dollars. These alarming figures justify the agitation that the time has come when Crown Agents may–nay, must–be dispensed with.
PAGINATION
Given the extent of the annotation, it would have been impossible to retain the original layout and pagination of Song’s book. Furthermore, the original had been typeset rather generously in terms of space, and thus occupies a lot more pages than it might otherwise have. This edition has been completely re-laid out. Nonetheless, the pagination of Song’s original version has been ‘retained’ with the original page number indicated by in-text references in square brackets rendered in bold typeface, e.g.:
When he was scarcely twenty-five years of age, he was established in Kling Street and afterwards in [20] Circular Road, Singapore, as a commission agent supplying the junks trading between this port and Rhio, Sumatra and the ports of the Malay Peninsula, with all …
CITATION STYLE
For this volume, we have adopted a system of citation based on a form adopted from the 4th edition of OSCOLA (Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities) developed by Oxford University. While this system of citation was developed for legal scholars, we have found its structure to be the most logical and usable among all styles considered. Moreover, it has the advantage of accommodating proper legal citations, which Song refers to from time to time. Citations of books are self-explanatory and authors’ names are reproduced as printed. In the case of journal citations, the form adopted is as follows:
Author, ‘Title of Article’, (Year) Volume number (Issue number), Name of Journal in full and in italics, and page range, with precise page quote.
For example:
Robert Harold Compton et al, ‘An Investigation into the Seedling Structure in the Leguminosae’ (1913) 41 Journal of the Linnean Society, Botany 1–122, at 12–15.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I conceived this project in 2011 but it was not till 2013 that I managed to persuade the National Library Board to take this project under its wing and to provide funding for its execution. For this, I am eternally grateful to Elaine Ng, former Chief Executive of the National Library Board (NLB) and her team at NLB, including Tay Ai Cheng, Wai Yin Pryke, Wong Siok Muoi, Francis Dorai and Sharon Koh. I am also most grateful to the many unnamed fact-checkers at the NLB who saved us from the most egregious errors. Research for this project was undertaken by a team of researchers under the charge of Tan Teng Teng of Art Logica who was unstinting in her efforts to get down to the nth detail. My co-editors, G Uma Devi and Kua Bak Lim, helped lighten my load considerably. The project benefited greatly from Bak Lim’s encyclopedic command of Chinese materials and sources. Tan Kok Eng, with whom I have shared many publishing journeys, was the steadfast eagle-eye and checked through the typography and proofs to make this copy as clean as humanly possible. I would also like to thank members of the public who contributed and commented on the earlier version of this volume when it was released in April 2016 as an eBook. Last but not least, thanks to Chua Ai Lin, former President of the Singapore Heritage Society and her Executive Committee for keeping steadfast faith in us and for supporting this project wholeheartedly.
KEVIN YL TAN
FOREWORD
WHEN it was decided that a local history of Singapore should be compiled as one mark that the Colony founded by Raffles had reached its hundredth year, the compilers were faced with considerable difficulties, owing to the lack of written records. The published books were few and the newspapers indeterminate on facts, though not lacking in comment on local affairs. Moreover the average period of a generation – and few families ran to two or three generations – was short. The compilers of One Hundred Years of Singapore had intended to include two or three chapters on the history of the Chinese of Singapore, those interesting settlers contemporary with the British, who had brought with them their own characteristics and culture, their own literature and tradition to which they steadfastly adhered, while readily absorbing the spirit of Western law and Western commerce which were the foundations of the future prosperity and greatness of the place. It was soon evident that the task of chronicling the hundred years of the Chinese in Singapore could only be adequately undertaken by a member of that race, and that it would be a task of great magnitude. The Hon Dr Lim Boon Keng was approached; he found the work more than he could undertake with his manifold political, commercial and social activities, but he suggested Mr Song Ong Siang, not less a busy professional man, for the work. Mr Song Ong Siang has brought to it great industry, scholarly ability and a record in the life of his family in the Straits – five generations.
Records of the history of the Chinese in Singapore are even more scanty than those of the Europeans, and only personal inquiry and patient investigation could have succeeded in discovering so much of the old Chinese families here. The Straits-born Chinese have always been noted for the strength of their family ties and their love for the country they have adopted. Numerically they are more than the British, and their influence on the Colony has always been great. The book which the author has produced is a fine testimony to their virtues, and serves to remind future generations of how the sons of an Old Empire can adapt themselves to the conditions of a new one, retaining their centuries-old characteristics, yet receptive of new ideas (often those of their own sages, clothed in Occidental dress) and capable of utilising their abilities in the formation of a unit of a New Empire – the British.
Walter Makepeace
Singapore 16th March 1923
COMPILER’S NOTE
WHEN the General Editors of One Hundred Years of Singapore (since published in two volumes) assigned to me the task of contributing thereto a chapter on the Chinese in Singapore, I had no idea of the magnitude of the work which I was undertaking. During the hundred years that closed on the 6th February 1919, the Chinese had played a very great and important part in the agricultural, industrial, commercial, economic, educational, religious, social and political life of the Settlement, but, apart from information furnished by the newspapers as to the activities, doings, events and incidents of or concerning the Chinese community as a whole or the individual members thereof, there were few records, in any form, available for reference. I realised at once the futility of attempting to write a historical review or a general survey of the subject which would be of any real value to the readers – especially to the present and future generations of Chinese, whether resident in this Colony or elsewhere – at all events, I felt it would be like trying to make bricks without straw.
After careful study of the matter,