Book Review

Asia

"Things are different in Sarawak" was the catch word of Brooke rule in Sarawak. Its officials prided themselves on the informal and personal nature of their administration, which also constituted the line of least resistance to indigenous social structures and cultural practices.	1
Organized along more formal lines in the 1870s by the second rajah, Charles Brooke, the Sarawak Service continued to reflect his uncle James Brooke's founding philosophy of enlightened stewardship. Residents and District Officers in their isolated up-river postings enjoyed wide discretionary powers but were expected to maintain the primacy of native interests. Originally recruited from the Brooke family's circle of West Country relatives and friends, their principal qualification was to be considered a gentleman. Expected to serve two seven-year tours of duty before retirement, it was not until the 1920s that they were permitted to marry.	2
Sarawak officers made deprecating comparisons with the British administration of the Malay States, characterizing it as overly centralized and pukka. They basked in their independence from the knuckle-rapping overlordship of the Colonial Office and its wing-collared mandarins. When increasing efforts were made in the late 1930s both to centralize Brooke government and to bring it under the surveillance of a London-appointed "Adviser," they fought back vigorously. When the third rajah made his decision in late 1945 to cede his sovereignty to the British Crown, he accused those officers who opposed the transfer of being "little tin gods."	3
When a British colonial government was established in July 1946, after Sarawak's formal annexation, the orang dahulu (as the prewar Brooke officers were known) resented efforts by the orang bahru (the new colonial officials) to bring administration into line with practice in Africa and other colonial territories. The assassination of the second governor, Duncan Stewart, by Malay anticessionists in December 1949 was attributed to the insensitivity of his predecessor, Sir Charles Arden-Clarke, to Sarawak's tradition of autonomy. There are still reverberations of this tradition in the occasional tensions between Malaysian Federal and Sarawak State departments.	4
Naimah S. Talib provides the first comprehensive account of the Sarawak administrative service from James Brooke's installation as rajah in 1841 to the end of British colonial rule in September 1963. A student of the late and respected David Bassett, her family's link with Sarawak was important for her work, as was her extensive correspondence with former Sarawak government officers to whom she sent questionnaires. It is to be hoped that the material thus generated will eventually be deposited in some appropriate place as part of the record of European administrators in a country which many historians like to refer to, patronizingly, as a "footnote to Southeast Asian history."	5
Talib sees the development of administration in Sarawak as derivative of the patterns adopted in the Straits Settlements and the Malay States. And yet the single most influential official in the evolution of the Malay States, Hugh Low, spent his formative years working for James Brooke and imbibing a unique philosophy of native rule from the man who saw himself as reforming Asian government rather than introducing colonial rule. Furthermore, Brooke chose his handful of officers not "at random," as Talib asserts, but in accordance with traits of character that would harmonize with his philosophy of government. That he chose young men of his own family and acquaintance was totally consistent with his conception of personal rule.	. . .