The Raja Presents

The Raja had come up to London from his servantless Berkshire cottage, where he has to get on his knees to blow up the fire. The Ranee was in London, celebrating at Giro's with their three pretty daughters. In the House of Commons came an announcement. Ailing, 71 -year-old Sir Charles Vyner Brooke had decided to cede his Sarawak state to Great Britain for one million pounds.

Suspicious leaders rose to ask suspicious questions. Labor's Herbert Morrison countered: "There is something curious about this indignation of the Conservative Party over a little bit of territory's being added to the British Empire." The storm extended to the Brooke household. The Raja's good-looking nephew and onetime heir apparent, Anthony, wrote letters to the press denouncing his uncle's gift as an "anachronistic arrangement."

Gossips linked lean, nervous Gerard MacBryan, the Raja's private secretary, to the deal. MacBryan, who calls himself a, Socialist, lives in a London flat decorated with cerise velvet curtains, hidden lighting and deep-cushioned upholstery. He was present at the Ranee's Giro party.

Later the Ranee, clad in a thick grey wool skirt and a sand-colored velour tunic, sipped gin from a Venetian goblet in her tiny, cramped studio, told what the Raja's cession was all about. "My daughters," she beamed, indicating a row of family portraits on the mantelpiece. "That's really why. We've got three gorgeous daughters (thank God for them) but no son, though God knows we've tried hard enough."

She scoffed at Tory demands in Parliament that the Sarawak State Council pass on her husband's proposal. "Poor darlings, don't they understand? The Sarawak people agree to anything the Raja wants. It's just a case of a few leading ones squatting on the verandah and saying, 'Yes, Raja!' But they don't like Anthony Brooke--he's got a power complex. If he wants a game of golf, he phones the police to have the road cleared for his car. If we want a game, we walk."

The Raja tried to close the issue raised by the Tories with a letter to the London Times. "All is peace in Sarawak," he pontificated. "The natives have confidence in myself and my private secretary."

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