in too great haste and without judgment.

They were fortunate in obtaining the services for a short time, as their
Commissioner of Chinese Immigration, of a man so well-known in China as
the late Sir WALTER MEDHURST, but he was appointed before the Company's
Government was securely established and before proper arrangements had
been made for the reception of the immigrants, or sufficient knowledge
obtained of the best localities in which to locate them. His influence
and the offer of free passages from China, induced many to try their
fortune in the Colony, but the majority of them were small shop-keepers,
tailors, boot-makers, and artisans, who naturally could not find a
profitable outlet for their energies in a newly opened country to which
capital (except that of the Governing Company) had not yet been
attracted, and a large proportion of the inhabitants of which were
satisfied with a loin cloth as the sole article of their attire. Great,
therefore, was their disappointment, and comparatively few remained to
try their luck in the country. One class of these immigrants, however,
took kindly to North Borneo--the Hakkas, an agricultural clan, many of
whom have embraced the Christian religion and are, in consequence,
somewhat looked down upon by their neighbours. They are a steady,
hard-working body of men, and cultivate vegetable and coffee gardens in
the vicinity of the Settlements and rear poultry and pigs. The women are
steady, and work almost as well as the men. They may form a valuable
factor in the colonization of the country and a source of cheap labour
for the planters in the future.

Sir SPENCER ST. JOHN, formerly Her Britannic Majesty's Consul-General at
Brunai and who knew Borneo well, in his preface to the second edition
of his "Life in the Forests of the Far East," lays great stress on the
suitability of North Borneo for the immigration of Chinese on a very
large scale, and prophesied that "should the immigration once commence,
it would doubtless assume great proportions and continue until every
acre of useless jungle is cleared away, to give place to rice, pepper,
gambier, sugar-cane, cotton, coffee, indigo and those other products
which flourish on its fertile soil." No doubt a considerable impetus
would be given to the immigration of Chinese and the introduction of
Chinese as well as of European capital, were the British Government to
proclaim[23] formally a Protectorate over the country, meanwhile the