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C.O. 882
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others, as to negotiations, I generally approve your proposed arrangements; but desire. to know what police or other force you think should remain in Perak after troops have effected object and have retired, and whether one Resident at Larut or elsewhere on or near coast may not be best for a time. Keep me fully informed of everything that happens and all that you propose doing,
No. 72.
Substance of Telegram sent by the EARL OF CARNARVON to GOVERNOR SIB W. JERVOIS, December 10, 1875.
REFERRING to my telegram of even date, the Government have not refused you any. thing, nor will they now refuse compliance with your request for additional troops from India, should they be absolutely necessary, but the responsibility of sending them must attach to you.
I distinctly objected, in my telegram of 25th,* to all annexation, and I understand you not to contemplate it in any shape.
No. 73.
The EARL OF CARNARVON to GOVERNOR SIR W. F. D. JERVOIS, K.C.M.G., C.B.
(No. 218.) SIR,
Downing Street, December 10, 1875.
In my despatch, No. 204, of the 26th November,t I briefly acknowledged the receipt of your despatch of the 16th October, in which you recapitulated the course of affairs in Perak, described your proceedings durings a tour through that State, and informed me of the course of action which, on a review of the circumstances, you had been led to adopt with respect to the affairs of this portion of the Malay Peninsula.
2. This despatch, conveying to me the first intimation of any kind that a serious departure from the policy which had been, after much consideration, sanctioned by Her Majesty's Government, and which it must be remembered was in the nature of an experiment to be very cautiously proceeded with, was being commenced or even con- templated, reached me on the 22nd of November last, nearly three weeks after your first telegram announcing the disastrous consequences which had ensued upon this change of policy.
3. I am now in receipt of your despatch No. 306, of the 4th November,§ but as this communication necessarily throws no light upon transactions respecting which, at the time of writing it, you had little more than rumours, I am still without any more detailed information than your telegrams have been able to supply.
4. While, therefore, it is my duty to allow no further time to elapse without expressing the strong opinions which I feel compelled to form on some points connected with this subject, I desire that you should understand that I am not now pronouncing a final decision upon your proceedings, and if I state freely and unreservedly what I conceive to have been grave errors of policy and of action, my present object is to elicit those full explanations which it is on every ground desirable that I should receive, and which, coming from an officer of high reputation in whom great trust has been reposed, are entitled to be very fully weighed by Her Majesty's Government before his conduct is condemned.
5. I will proceed, then, in the first place, to trace briefly the history of the new system which had been sanctioned by Her Majesty's Government, and which, until suddenly informed by telegraph of the catastrophe which had occurred, I still fully believed to be in force in Perak as well as in other neighbouring territories.
6. On assuming the control of this department in the early part of last year, I found that it had been decided to appoint British officers to reside in certain Malay States. In his despatch to Sir A. Clarke, of September 20, 1873, my predecessor had informed him that Her Majesty's Government "had no desire to interfere in the internal affairs of the Malay States, but found it incumbent upon them to employ such influence as they possessed with the native princes to rescue, if possible, their countries from ruin," and desired him " especially to consider whether it would be advisable to appoint a British "officer to reside in any of the States."
7. Confining myself, as far as practicable for present purposes, to the state of Perak, 1 find that Sir Andrew Clarke, on the 26th January 1874, admitting that he had acted
† No. 69.
• No. 67.
↑ No. 48.
No. 64.
| No. 14 of Command Paper [C. 1,111] of July 1874.
¶ No. 39. of mino Papar.
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beyond his instructions, reported that he had caused a treaty to be executed (known a the Engagement of Pulo Pangkore) under which amongst other things, the Raja Muda Abdullah was to be recognised as the Sultan of Perak, and was "to receive "and provide a suitable residence for a British officer, to be called Resident, who shall "be accredited to his Court, and whose advice must be asked and acted upon on all questions other than those touching Malay religion and custom." There was further to be an Assistant Resident at Laroot, and the cost of these Residents, with their esta- blishments, was to be determined by the Government of the Straits Settlements, and was to be a first charge on the revenues of Perak.
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8. In another despatch of the same date, Sir A. Clarke, again admitting that "the power of appointing a British Resident had not been deputed to him," reported that he had appointed Captain Speedy, Assistant Resident at Laroot, pending the receipt of further instructions, suggesting that he should receive a salary of 2,000%, a year.
9. In replying to these despatches on the 6th March 1874, I said that I was "disposed to hope that, without unduly compromising Her Majesty's Government in "the internal affairs of these States, Sir A. Clarke's proceedings might have the effect "of allaying disorders and promoting peaceful trade;" and I intimated that the appoint- ments of Resident and Assistant Resident were not yet confirmed, and must be regarded as provisional.
io. In subsequent despatches I approved in general terms that policy, the origin and inauguration of which I have described, always, however, treating the appointments of the Residents as provisional and experimental, and understanding, as will be seen by reference to the voluminous correspondence, that the British officers confined themselves to advising and assisting the native authorities.
11. Thus, on the 25th of May last, while treating of the gross and cruel abuse of debt-slavery, for the abolition of which I thought it most important that our influence should be exerted, I nevertheless thought it prudent to qualify my instructions by impressing on you the necessity of caution, and by desiring you, provided that "you "considered it politic to address such a friendly representation to the Sultan as would
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pave the way towards further measures, test his own feeling in the matter, and at the same time avoid alarming him as to any undue interference with him in the internal "administration of the State."
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12. A little later (on the 15th July) I reminded you that "care was needed in "the character of the advice given by the Acting Residents (who held their places provisionally) to the rulers of the different States; how far it should direct their "policy, and how far it should be so framed as to avoid unnecessarily committing you "to undefined responsibilities connected with the affairs of those States."
13. Once more, in transmitting to you an important letter which I had received from Lord Stanley of Alderley on this particular subject, I stated, on the 27th July last, that "I desired clearly to impress upon you that, in my opinion, the British "Residents should in all ordinary cases confine their action to advice tendered by them "to the native rulers, under whose direction the government of the country should be "carried on."
14. These despatches you must unquestionably have received, and the instruction contained in them, expressed in no uncertain or ambiguous language, though certainly not framed to guard against an entire reversal of existing policy as sudden as it was unexpected, were before you. But I am at a loss to understand how a careful and experienced observer should fail to recognise in them from first to last a clear and con. sistent series of directions calculated to keep before both your predecessor and yourself the nature and extent of the relations which the British Residents had been permitted by Her Majesty's Government to hold with the native authorities. I can, therefore, hardly express the surprise with which I received the first intimation that those relations had been violently interrupted, and the still greater surprise with which I learnt from your despatch of the 16th October that the official course of proceeding in Perak which was the signal for resistance and attack was in opposition to the whole tenor of my directions.
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15. I must now refer more particularly to some portions of your despatch under acknowledgment. From its earlier paragraphs, I gather that you are now satisfied that Sultan Abdullah was personally altogether unfit to be placed on the throne, through our instrumentality;" and that his habits of life render it, to say the least, very unfortunate that his character and qualifications were not more carefully con- sidered before this Government was so far identified with him as to procure the displacement in his favour of the ruler who, apparently, commanded a larger share
† No. 43. of name Paper.
* No 40. of Command Paper [C. 1,111), July 1874.
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