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accepted any obligation. People will say a Treaty has been entered into, but it has not been so, nor do I consider it necessary that, in dealing with these Chiefs, our arrange- ment should have been in that form.
you non-
Practically, then, what I am asking you now to do, is to share with me and assist me, or rather the Executive Government, in what it has been doing thus far single-
of handed. Having respect for constitutional authority, I ask now the support official members, and the Council as a whole, representing as you do the interests of the Colony. What I want is that you should now share with me the responsibilities, and assist and advise me in future, so that, by our joint care and watchfulness, we may avoid the repetition and revival of the very difficulties which, up till now, we have been helping to suppress, and which have come to an end for a time, and I hope permanently. I might refer to another motive. What with the threatened canal in the northern Malay Peninsula, and the spread of other European races in the world, the time has come that your own interests here must look for a larger field of operation, and something more than passing trade, to develop, and establish, and render permanent the Settle- ments already here. There is no possible reason, looking to the rapid and enormous growth of Ceylon during the last twenty or thirty years, why we should not look for the same in the Malayan States, where we have, I believe, facilities for internal communica- tion by water which can be greatly improved; a soil and climate, I am informed, quite equal, if not superior, to any in Ceylon; and I am convinced it only wants the protection and assistance of a civilized Power to fill all these empty waste lands with industrious and thriving settlements. There is no reason why the spare capital of the mother-country, which is now seeking investment in India, and in even many of the States of South and Tropical America, should not be brought to our shores. It is for your own benefit, irrespective of the duty that I owe in restoring the peace here, that I have undertaken the task that I have, and it is with this chief object that my advisers have supported me; but also you non-official members are not to let this matter pass silently. You ought not to be satisfied with what I have said upon the matter. You, who know much on this matter, I want you to express your opinion upon it. Having devoted your time, and talents, and energy to business and enterprise here, I want to know from your own experience whether I have taken a too sanguine view, and whether there is not much to be done and much to be opened out, and a grand future before these hitherto compara- tively unknown offshoots of England.
I have other notes that I could refer to, but I think I have said enough now to explain to you what has been done, and what should be done in the future, by a continu- ance of that policy, that is to say, a policy not of aggression upon our neighbours, but of exercising our own influence, and by giving them officers to help them. No doubt such officers will be difficult to select, they must have certain qualities, but I hope amongst Englishmen they will be easy to find, and I have every hope, even from what has already Hitherto, perhaps, been done, that the course that I suggest will be a successful one. the work of this Legislature has been confined to matters rather more municipal than Imperial. This is really a great and Imperial question to think out and consider. I do not ask you now to come to any final decision upon it, or to decide without thought and in haste; but standing as we do here on the grave of ancient Empires, let it be now our mission, gentlemen, to gather together their scattered fragments and form them into the cradle of a new and fair dominion, federated in justice and morality, and which will exceed in usefulness to mankind, and in honour to our nation and faith, all that has preceded it on these shores.
I will now lay upon the table a statement of the expenditure which has been incurred on loan. The whole expenses of the expeditions, hires of transport, and sending the Commissioners, together with a loan of 20,000 dollars in order to re-open the country and restore peace in Larut and Perak, is 43,000 dollars. The expenses for Salangore have been 7,000 dollars. The expedition to Sungie Ujong, successful as that was, bas cost under 1,000 dollars; Rumbow, including a small loan, 1,000 dollars; a few dollars to Pahang; and also 1,000 dollars pending the question of paying the pension of Syed Sabban at Tampe. There has been also an expenditure of between 3,000 and 4,000 dollars for copying records and miscellaneous expenses-making a total of some 54,000 dollars that I have incurred without your authority; or rather, these are engage- ments that I have entered into with the Chiefs, that all the expenses of my interference they should be first responsible for, and any money expended should be repaid, bearing a certain amount of interest,
Mr. Shelford. The arrangements you have made, Sir, will, I venture to affirm, be received by all classes of the community, European and Native, with the greatest satisfac- tion, if but to show, among other things, that the Government has abandoned that
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laissez-faire policy, which it is difficult to understand having been pursued for so long, with regard to these Native States. One has only to look to Johore, where the opium and spirit farms have risen 100 per cent. in value in the last twelve years, and the immigration trebled, whilst it is still increasing, to see what a ruler supported by direct British influence can do for life country. Already capital and industry is found entering the other States that have been dealt with, more especially into Salangore and Perak, where your Excellency's influence has perhaps been more powerfully exercised than clse- where for the time being. Without entering into any particulars, your Excellency having as it were, in making this statement and asking an opinion at once upon it, taken us by surprise, and reserving to myself full liberty to criticise them hereafter, I will content myself by saying I feel satisfied that the public will generally endorse what has been done.
Dr. Little.-Sir, as perhaps the oldest European resident in the Settlement, and certainly the oldest member of Council now sitting here, I beg leave, on my own account, to express the thanks which I believe every one will tender to your Excellency for what you have done in reviving the trade and assisting the moral and social condition of the native States. I will not go at all into the policy of your Excellency, but will only give a few hints in what way I think it will be to the advantage of these Settlements. I am old enough to remember the first German merchant who came to Singapore.
He had desk in Boustead's office, and there transacted all the business connected with the great German nation. Since then German houses have sprung up in this Settlement until suppose they almost equal, if they do not outnumber, the English. Now I understand that one of the great complaints in this part of the world is this-that men do not make money in their business as they did and expected to do, the reason given being the com- petition in this place. Now, the one way to remedy that is to discover and open up fresh places of trade, and I believe that what you have done is the basis for extending the business of the Settlement and adding to the prosperity of the Straits. Nothing could be better than to open up this fine Peninsula, perhaps the finest and richest country in the East, and we have only to treat these natives in a proper way to make them willing to assist us in all our operations, to the increase of our prosperity. The plan you are going to adopt of appointing to almost every Native Court an English resident is one that does not originate with your Excellency. The great founder of the Settlement, Sir Stanford Raffles, in one of his communications, suggested that many of the Native Chiefs had very good dispositions, but like children, required a resident European to keep them up to their good intentions. Besides, it will be a great protection to the Ryots, because these rulers cannot be so despotic and cruel, and such great tyrants, with an English resident amongst them; and, as far as trade is concerned, it is the only way to open up the country to its prospering influences. In a social point of view there is no doubt that the arrangements your Excellency has made must be of great attraction, from the very fact you mentioned, that in the whole of the native States there are only about seven inhabitants to a square mile, while there are 251 to the square mile in our own Settle- ments. This is sufficient to prove the great advance in the social condition of the Malays in our Settlements, and it may be possible to stop what is said to be the gradual decrease of the Malay nation by carrying out these plans of your Excellency. A few hundred years ago the Sultan of Johore besieged Malacca. with 100,000 men; in those days these countries must have been much more populous, for a quarter of that number could not now be raised in all the independent States. That great man, Sir James Brooke, said there was no doubt the Malay would die out like the Red Indian, but it is to be hoped this will not be the case under the present enlightened and beneficent plans of your Excellency. With these few observations regarding their effect upon the interests of Settlements and the social condition of the Malay nation, I will conclude my remarks, leaving the policy for others to take up; and I am quite sure that the non- official members of this Council will assist your Excellency in your pecuniary relations with the native States, being confident that, in a very short time, whatever you have advanced these Governments will be repaid under the new policy you have inaugurated.
Mr. W. R. Scott.-Sir, I think I may boldly state that the policy which your Excellency has pursued since your arrival in this Colony meets the approval of every one in the Settlement. It was immediately thought that it was a wise policy, and was being very cautiously and prudently carried out. The Malay States bordering on our several possessions are very extensive compared to those which acknowledge the British flag. Penang, Province Wellesley, Malacca, and Singapore are but little red dots on the chart. My friend, Dr. Little, has referred to the commercial aspect of the question; I think the greater question is the political one. We see Holland gaining ground through this Archipelago,-possessing, as she does, we may almost say, the whole of that Island of