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Government is plain. The policy of your Excellency must be upheld, and these chiefs must as rigidly as ever be called upon to adhere to their engagements, voluntarily entered into with the British Government, and if it be found that this will not be, if it be found that the Sultan is still obstructive, and the Malay Council is split up by animosities. then can the wishes of the people, and of some of the chiefs themselves, be no longer delayed, that under direct British rule they may be permitted to enjoy that peace and contentment which, under their own chiefs, it seems impossible to obtain. I know this is a bold proposition and surrounded with great difficulties. Complicated and delicate it will be; but our honour and our name are at stake, our flag has been insulted, and, if these unhappy telegrams are confirmed, our Resident has been killed. The Home Government cannot shrink from their responsibility. The proclamation of Sir Andrew Clarke was ratified by the Secretary of State in December last. That proclamation said that the Treaty of Pangkore must be adhered to, and the chiefs will be held to their voluntary engagements. The British Government cannot play fast and loose with its engagements, solemnly entered into with these States, whatever the chiefs on their side may do.
And, Sir, if anything further is needed to support you in your course, it is to be found in the sickening narrative of that debt-slavery, which has been carried on under the eyes of the Residents, and they have been unable to stop it, because it has grown into a Malay custom. Not long ago there was an attack directed against this whole Colony on account of two cases of cruelty which cropped up in Province Wellesley. The Indian Government has pressed upon us ever since its restrictive immigra tion laws. The Home Government has followed suit. Surely, if, in the case of its wn people, the Home Government will sanction any measure, however dangerous and injurious to the commercial interests of this Colony, it will not and cannot allow these chiefs to continue to bind so may of their people in slavery as cruel as it is abominable. Innocent children are held in bondage for debts they know nothing of, incurred, it may be, generations before. Daughters are driven to prostitution, sons to robbery or to the like; their property is sold; and so chiefs and followers combine, in their rapine and lust, to prey upon defenceless people, who forsooth are said to be living under British protection. Because this system is now to be put down, and lawlessness is no longer to have its sway, there are those who were ready enough to support the British Resident, so long as he did not interfere with their lawless gains, who have now adopted means of endeavouring to get rid of their engagements with the British Governnient, which are as dastardly as they will prove to be impotent. The situation is undoubtedly critical. Connected as the various States are, it is im- possible to say but what fresh difficulties will arise. The respons.bility is great, looking to the future, but the responsibility of the Home Government is greater; and it is with the hope that they will look upon your Excellency's policy as supported by the public that I have ventured, as one of its representatives, to give utterance to these views; the more so that, with this policy now in operation in the native states, the difficulties and complications are left, Sir, entirely with you, and therefore eminently do you require, and thoroughly do you deserve, the cordial sympathy and the hearty support of every class in this Colony.
Dr. Little said it was now a little more than 12 months since the Unofficial Members of Council gave an expression of opinion in favour of the policy of his Excellency's predecessor in the native states. This policy was at that time considered the best that could possibly be adopted; but unfortunately events had proved that it was a policy barren of results, because it strength consisted only in what might be called inoral force. It had been found inpossible to carry out this principle, and it must give place to the more vigorous policy which bis Excellency bad now entered upon, and of which he had no doubt the results would be greater, at the same time that moral force must give place to physical force. This opinion of his was the result of long observation. It was necessary that a European Power should now step in to save the Malays from utter extinction. History told us that the Malays were once a very powerful nation. It was said that a few centuries ago a Johore Raja was once able to send 100,000 armed men to the siege of Malacca. He supposed that, now-a-days, not one-third of that number could be got in the whole Malayan” Peninsula. This decay of the Malayan nation had not resulted from the same causes as in the case of other uncivilized nations. There were, for instance, the Caribs and other nations in the western world; there were also many of the South-Sea Islanders, and many other races which had vanished from well-known causes. The Malay had not bad, like some of these races, wars and invasions to exterminate them. They had not, like the South-Ses Islanders, and some American tribes, been wiped away by the introduction of fire-
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water and European diseases. The Malaya bad had no overpowering enemies; and it was a well-known fact that contiguous to those countries where they had been at war, the Malays were in a better position than elsewhere. The causes from which the decay of the Malay race originated were not external, but internal, and might be summed up in one word-misrule. In all Malay nations the Rajas were despotic. Below the Rajan, the highest chiefs were despotic to the lower chiefs; the lower chiefs to those below them; and the Datus, and Punghulus, and others, each in turn despotic to his inferiors; until at last you come to the poor ryot, who is under them all, and lives through their mercy and at their mercy. The first cause of depopulation was the miserable condition to which these people were reduced. If a ryot's crop was better than usual, the excess was always taken away. If his fruit-trees bore abundantly,
he was "sorned upon," according to the Scotch phrase, by his superior. It was no use for him to attempt to make any improvement in his condition by opening up new ground. He would not catch fish more than for his daily living, because he knew it would be taken from bim. He had therefore no inducement to add to his race, knowing that the more mouths he had to fill, the greater would be his toils. This led to the common practice of abortion, and it was seldom that more than one or two children, if any, were to be seen in a Malay ryot's house. Another reason was polygamy. Wherever polygamy was allowed, there was always a diminution of the population, and this was still more so in the Malay States, where the chiefs took the best and fairest of the land, out of a sparse population, and put them into their harems; and he was sorry to say that they were not like the cannibal races which the German traveller Dr. Schweinfurth met in the interior of Africa, where, though the chiefs had many wives, they had abundance of children; but the Malay chiefs, from excess and the use of opium, were thoroughly effete and impotent, and therefore there was no multiplication of the race. Many of their wives were regularly married, but it would be a very dangerous thing for a lower chief to deny his daughter to his superior; he would probably lose her and his own head. Another cause, which it was unnecessary for him to go into, as the evils had been clearly shown in the forcible address of his Excellency and the elequent speech of the Hon. Member opposite, was the system of slavery and debt-slavery. The fourth cause was the miserable bondage of the poor ryot. He had no protector and no person to plead for him, and seeing his position was unendurable, if he could possibly expatriate himself he did so to save his life, and went elsewhere, some to the British Settlements in the Straits, to their great advantage, others to such native states as Johore, where a better government prevailed. Such were the causes of the rapid annihilation of the Malay race, and why we, as neighbours, and protectors by treaty, were now bound to step in and protect the ryots against the rapacity of their chiefs. He had often said, and he believed it would turn out to be perfectly true, that the only way of Bettling the country was to dispose of these chiefs either by hinging or pensioning them. He had no doubt his Excellency would see which was the best course. As to moral force, it had been clearly proved that that was of no use. There was no doubt that in some states the Residential system had as yet answered, but that was either from the known ability and character of the Resident or from the qualities of the native chiefs. No doubt in Klang the instructions of the Resident had been carried out to some extent, but that was but a small district. The Residential system was one which bound the Resident and the Rajalis together by a thread which the slightest strain had broken. He was therefore perfectly prepared to endorse & much more stringent policy, and he thought that his Excellency's, which was based on justice, and would be defended by physical force, was the only policy that would answer in those states. Looking to the future happiness of the Malay people, he thought the sooner the chiefs were disposed of the better,--amicably if possible, but certainly in some way, and there he went the whole way with his Excellency, and only, for the present, stopped short of advocating annexation.
Mr. Read-1 not only heartily concur with the views expressed by the Hon. Mr. Shelford, but I will go further, and express my hope that his Excellency will extend his policy in the Native States.
The Chief Justice.-Sir, it appears to me that the policy which was so very clearly enunciated by your Excellency last week is the direct result of that policy to which this Council freely and voluntarily committed itself last year, when we heard from your predecessor the details of his plans for reducing the Malay States into something more approaching a state of civilization than they had been for some years past. The Council then unanimously approved of the course adopted. That policy has been, I understand approved of at home. We were bound, and the Government were bound to see that it was carried out in its integrity. We only need to go back in recollection to what we all
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