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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

CO. 882

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH—NOT TO

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nition that was to be given to one should be given to the other, and that, whatever it culminated in, these actual outrages, and this fighting and contention between them, was really owing, not to causes directly in themselves due to them, but to the excessively oppressive, and unwise, and improper way in which they had been treated by the native rulers of the country. The fact was, that the moment that I authorized, under the naine of a British Governor, that the headmen of these two parties should be informed that impartial justice was to be meted out to both alike, simultaneously the headmen of these two parties came in, surrendered unconditionally, and promised at once to submit their case to my arbitration. I was aware that a mere settlement between the two Chinese factions would not be sufficient to secure the peace of Perak and the immediate peace of Larut, and that it was necessary to determine and to recognize who was the true, bond fide, and legitimate ruler of the whole country. There were difficulties, and very great difficulties, surrounding this, in order to enable me to come to any definite conclusion on the matter. However, due to the system which I have mentioned, and to my friends whom I have named,-and especially I must here acknowledge the energetic exertions of Major McNair and due to the manner in which I was enabled by their assistance to bring about me the various headmen of Perak on the Island of Pangkor,-I was enabled to come to a just and a satisfactory decision and to place in the Supreme Government of that country a man, whether fitted for So far that decision has been it or not, who is to my mind, the legitimate ruler. hitherto satisfactory; and with regard to the displaced ruler, the Chief who had been temporarily elected, I am confident in my own mind, and all the evidence proves it,- and will be better supported by those who know more intimately, as my honourable and learned friend the Attorney-General does, the character of these natives, that that was only a temporary sovereignty which had been given to Ismail. But I am only dealing with the results, and though eight or ten months have passed since that, and there has been naturally an amount of soreness among the people whose headman had been actually sovereign, there has been no outbreak, and I am inclined to hope that, with a little watchfulness and forbearance on our part, the people of Perak will cheerfully accept the sovereignty of Abdullah, and especially if his rule is assisted by the advice and assistance of an English officer.

In few words, then, the result of my interference was to restore tranquillity to Larut and Perak, and it has to a certain extent settled the question of the succession to the Sultanate of that country. And with reference to its effect, I may say that when, in January, we interfered, that country was simply one camp. Everything was at a standstill: the fields were uncultivated, the fruit-trees had been torn down,-it was one huge cockpit, where nothing but fighting, and murder, and violence, and piracy Now, already two or three great roads have been re-opened and were going on. communication re-established; large numbers of hard-working miners have returned there; and, although the mines themselves had been destroyed to a very great extent, and the whole had been neglected, fresh capital has been invested there, and Captain Speedy, who is temporary Resident in charge, and has aided, and watched, and brought about the later condition of affairs there, writes me to-day giving the hopeful statement that whereas, in previous months only a few dollars had been received for the duty on tin, in the month of July he received 5,000 dollars for the duty and that was Besides that, Malays are flocking in; practically the first month of produce they had. the paddy-planters have cleared ground for paddy, and others are planting fruit-trees and building houses. When I was at Larut, at one place alone I saw seventy-two sawpits at work, and in every direction enterprise is increasing; in fact, so much so, that in Penang people are complaining severely that they are unable to get carpenters and labourers, and wages have gone up,-partly, no doubt, from the state of things in Acheen, but more especially from the exodus of their population to Perak.

I shall not weary you further with Perak than to say that that is a general sketch of the condition of affairs there, and although Ismail and Abdullah have not yet come together, I hope and believe that they will, and that, beyond the intrigues of a few disappointed petty Rajahs who are interested in keeping the sore alive, there is no ground for anxiety, or for not thinking that in that large native State we have now established a condition of things which will bear favourably and well upon our own interests here. I took occasion also, when dealing with these questions of the factions of the Chinese and the disputed succession, to get rid of a very long, old-standing grievance which there had been between us and this State for several years, and that was the question of the Dindings, which from time immemorial formed the rendezvous and harbour of the pirates of that coast, and also to settle the boundary of the Krean,- because the boundary as it was originally, being a water boundary, there were criminals

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and gamblers and people of bad character, on the other side, giving us very considerable trouble, and it is always undesirable, if it can be avoided, to have the course of a river as a boundary between two territories; it is much better to have a land boundary than one of that kind; and I may mention that already all the Malays on the Krean have come from the land opposite to Penang to lodge their claims for lands; besides which thousands of acres, far in excess of what that territory consists of, have been applied for by the Malays and others, showing how willing the natives themselves are to come under our flag. And the same applies to the Dindings. When I went there last January, the number of Malays was a handful, and there are now 400 there, and a great Chief at the mouth of the Dinding river, a Sumatra Chief, who has opened up the country, and with respect to whom I was anxious at one time to know what line he would adopt, has written to me how glad he is to be placed under our flag, asking for the flag, and asking what are his duties, saying he has so many people and so many acres, and whatever the British Government decided to give him he would cheer- fully accept. Another large Chief, with a great number of followers has intimated the same, and, as you know as well as I do, there is not the least anxiety or the least hesitation on the part of the great mass of Malays wherever they can have the opportunity, there is no hesitation on their part, in accepting our flag and coming under

our rule.

At Salangore, an atrocious piracy at the mouth of the Jugra gave the justification and ground for interference. I there, perhaps, took rather an unusual course, but I believe that circumstances justified me in doing so, Instead of transferring and allowing these men to be tried in our own Courts, and punished there, the Malays, the people themselves of the country from which they came, losing sight of them, I at once insisted upon the ruler of the country accepting the responsibility of their act, and punishing them himself. The result has been satisfactory. I have brought no pressure to bear upon him, but I have visited him two or three times, and I have left with him an officer of my Government to advise him; and although the first time I went there he hesitated to see me, and I had very great difficulty in getting an interview, he writes to me last week, thanking me for the officer I have sent him, and the assistance and advice which he has given to him. He says, in writing to me :- We are very much obliged to our Friend for the officer whom our Friend has chosen. He is very clever; he is also very clever in the customs of Malay Government, and he is very clever in gaining the hearts of Rajahs and sons of Rajahs with soft words, delicate and sweet, so that all men rejoice in him as in the perfume of an opened flower."

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Nor has he limited his satisfaction to these pretty compliments; he has contributed most material evidence to prove it. You know that the Rajah of Salangore is, for a Malay, very careful of his money, and yet, while he has been getting taxes and hoarding money, he says, unsolicited by me, that this Government shall not be at the expense of maintaining the Officer which it has sent him, but he sends 1,000 dollars, and says he will send as much every month to pay the expenses for this officer. Therefore, besides honeyed words, he has sent what he was willing to do, and I gather from Mr. Swettenham that the Sultan is really sincere now in his wish to restore peace to Salangore, and to throw it open to trade and settlement. It will be a matter of interest also, to those who know the circumstances of the case, to hear that he has assured me that he has banished Mahdi, the celebrated Chieftain, his own immediate relative, who has been keeping Salangore so long in a state of turmoil-be has banished Mahdi from Salangore, and has assured me that if his associate, Mahmoud, who has given very great trouble, is caught, he will punish him or send him to be punished here. So that, as far as those two States go, there is little doubt that, with a little watchfulness and care on our part, we shall be able to provide security, not only to the natives born in the place, but also to foreign enterprise and capital, to open up those countries. which teem with wealth and nature's produce, and only want a good Government in order to develop them.

And this brings me indirectly to a subject which I might have alluded to earlier, and that is, that after the eighty years, one way or the other, that we have been occupying posts upon this Peninsula, we have hitherto taken no direct and immediate means to suppress atrocities, and a condition of things exists here against which England is in other parts of the world sacrificing not only treasure, but giving some of her bes lives. And it may not be out of place here to quote at length, to show how grave is our responsibility and how momentous are our obligations, the opening observations of a recent paper by Mr. Braddell, the whole of which will be laid before you. The learned gentleman says:—

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