Directory_and_Chronicle_1905

FEDERATED MALAY STATES

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according to the High Commissioner, are so good that, unless some unforeseen disaster happens, the future is full of promise for those who have taken up this cultivation. The area at present under rubber (principally the Para variety) is given approximately as 16,000 acres. The sugar estates have done well, and will continue to earn fair profit so long as their machinery and methods of treatment are kept up-to-date. Over 40,000 acres of land are under cocoanuts, for which the soil and climate of these States are peculiarly well suited and cultivation of rice is only a question of irrigation and labour. The irrigation scheme in Perak is making but slow progress, but the success of every form of agriculture and of all the efforts of the Government to develop the country by means of railways, irrigation, and other great public works, depend upon an adequate supply of labour. To meet the demand the Federated Malay States have endeavoured, hitherto without success, to arrange for a direct line of steamers to carry Chinese labour from Cauton to the ports of the Malay States. As regards Indian labour, the Govern- ments of the Colony and the Federated Malay States, supported by the planters, are making every possible effort, by an new system of recruiting and by offering higher wages and other advantages, to secure an adequate supply of Indian labour. The question of creating an agricultural department to foster agricultural interests, encourage the cultivation of new products, to conduct experiments and be a general source of information for planters is under consideration.

The import trade of 1903 was valued at over 47 million dollars and the gross total exports at 80 million dollars. The increase in the import of merchandise compared with the returns of the previous year was 64 per cent. while the exports showed an in- crease of 13 per cent. It is estimated that there are in the Federated Malay States about 70,000 children of a school-going age, but only 9,000 of these attend any recognised school, while many live in places far removed from any school-house; it is a fact that education has no great attraction for Malay parents, or Malay children who might contribute by far the largest number of scholars. The Government offers every reasonable encouragement and there is even a law in force in Selangor and the Negri Sembilan for compelling the attendance of children who live within reasonable distance of a school. A census was taken throughout the Federated Malay States on the 1st March, 1901, and the corrected returns show the population to have been, on that date, 678,595, an increase of 62 per cent. over the census of 1891. It is interesting to notice that the Malay population shows an increase of 35 per cent. in the decade.

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