CO882-(2-3) — Page 580

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(Eastern, No. 17.)

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

TELLICO.

882

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

3 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

No. 1.

GOVERNOR SIR W. F. JERVOIS, K.C.M.G., C.B., to the EARL OF CARNARVON.

(Received August 17.) No. 196. MY LORD,

Government House, Singapore, July 8, 1875.

I HAVE the honour to inform your Lordship that on the 31st May last a letter, dated the 7th May, to the Lieutenant-Governor of Penang, was laid before me, in which Mr. Koh Seang Tat, of Penang, to whom my predecessor had leased the opium and spirit farms of the Trans-Krean district, requested to be informed as to the boundaries of this new territory to enable him to place revenue officers there, and exercise his authority as opium and spirit farmer. The Lieutenant-Governor of Penang inquired what reply should be given to this letter.

2. The territory in question is that which has been claimed under clause 12 of the engagement entered into with the Perak Chiefs at Pulo Pangkor on the 20th January

1874.

3. To enable me to reply to Mr. Koh Seang Tat it became necessary for me to consider the object for which it was originally proposed to take a piece of territory on the south side of the Krean River, the circumstances under which the agreement with the Chiefs on this point was entered into, and the subsequent action taken with a view of giving effect to the clause of the engagement referred to.

4. The object of acquiring a slice of country to the southward of the Krean River is first stated in paragraph 5 in Enclosure 2 of despatch of the 24th February 1874, of Mr. C. J. Irving's able Memorandum dated 24th July 1872, relating to the affairs of Salangore and Perak. Mr. Irving then stated that difficulties were experienced by the authorities in the Province Wellesley in stopping the smuggling of chandoo from Perak across the Krean, and in the prevention of the perpetration of crimes in Province Wellesley by persons coming over from Perak. He attributed these difficulties to the fact that a river (the Krean) formed the boundary between Perak and the Province, and he proposed that the frontier should be “set back" to a "line running eastward from a

point half way between the Krean and the next river, the Kurow."

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3. In paragraph 37 of despatch dated 26th January 1874,† the object of clause 12 of the Pangkor engagement is stated to be the rectification of the "southern boundary of "Province Wellesley." But the clause itself specifies that "the southern watershed of "the Krean River, that is to say, the portion or land draining into that river from the- "south," is declared British territory.

6. Turning, however, to Mr. Braddell's Report, dated 28th January 1874, I find, paragraphs 99 and 100, that, at the time the Pangkor engagement was entered into, the meaning of the word watershed' was much discussed;" and it is stated that, "when it was known that Government did not wish to take land higher up the river than the line of boundary on the Quedah side, &c.," "the article was agreed to by all **as it stands."

7. Obviously, there was then no intention whatever of adding to Province Wellesley any territory to the eastward of the eastern boundary of that province.

8. I herewith enclose, for your Lordship's information, two maps; one, a copy of that which accompanied my predecessor's despatch of the 26th January 1874, showing the boundary of the tract of country to the southward of the Krean River, which, under clause 12 of the Pangkor engagement, was then made British territory, "as a " rectification of the southern boundary of Province Wellesley; the other, showing the boundary as more recently laid down previously to my arrival in the Straits Settlements.

• Page 196 of Command Paper [C. 1111 of 1874].

30307.

† Page 73 of same paper. + Page 173 of same paper.

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