CO882-(2-3) — Page 605

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48

This was a subject so large and important as hardly to admit of thorough explanation in a conversation; I therefore asked his Excellency's leave to report upon it.

I now beg to give you a detailed account of the circumstances of debt-slavery, sa known to me personally.

In treating the question under its present condition-I mean, under Malay rule,—it is necessary to consider the all but slavery of the debtors, and the difficulty of making any arrangement between debtor and creditor, which, while it frees the one, will satisfy the other, and still be in keeping with the "adat Malayu," as interpreted in these States.

The relative positions of debtor and creditor in the western States, more especially in Perak, involve evils which are, I believe, quite unknown to Europeans, even those living so near as Singapore.

The evils to which I refer have hitherto been regarded as unavoidable, and a part of the ordinary relations between the rajahs and subjects.

I may premise by saying that though the system of "debt-slavery," as it has been called, exists to some extent in all the States, it is only seen in its worst light where a Raja or Chief is the creditor and a subject the debtor.

Few subjects in a Malay country are well off. The principal reason of this is that, as avon as a man or woman is known to be in possession of money, he or she would be robbed by the Rajah, or the money would be borrowed with no intention of future pay- ment, whether the subject wished to lend or not.

Thus, when a raiat (or subject) is in want of money, he goes to his Rajah or Chief to lend it him, because he alone can do so. Either money or goods are then lent, and certain time stipulated for payment. If at the expiry of that time the money is not paid, it is usual to await some time longer-say two or three, or even six months.

Should payment not then be made, the debtor, if a single man, is taken into the creditor's house: he becoines one of his followers, and is bound to execute any order or do any work the Rajah as creditor may demand, until the debt is paid, however long a time that may be.

During this time the Rajah usually provides the debtor with food and clothing, but if the creditor gives him money, that money is added to the debt.

Often, however, the Rajah gives nothing, and the debtor has to find food and clothing

as be can.

Should the debtor marry-and the Rajah will in all probability find him a wife-then the debtor's wife, his children, his grand-children, all become equally bound with himself to the payment of this debt.

Should the debtor be originally married, then not only be, but his wife and children, are taken to the Rajah's house, and are his to order until the debt is paid.

Should the debtor be a woman unmarried, or a widow, the same course is taken, and whoever marries her becomes jointly responsible for the debt; and this goes on through generations, the children and grand-children of the debtor being held in the same bondage by the children and grand-children of the creditor.

Should at any time the debtor succeed in raising the amount of the debt and proffer it to the creditor, then it would be customary to accept it. If, however, a large family were in bondage for the debt, one whose numbers seemned to the Rajah to add to his dignity, then he would probably refuse to accept payment, not absolutely, but would say "wait," and the waiting might last for years.

Debtors once absorbed into the Rajah's household are looked upon as his property, just as his bullocks or his goats, and those who alone would have the power to interfere look on and say nothing, because they do the same themselves.

In different States this debtor-bondage is carried to greater or less extremities, but in Perak the cruelties exercised towards debtors are even exclaimed against by Malays in other States.

• Malay society professes to be governed by the "Hukum Isharat” (the Divine law of the Koran), and the ** adat Malayu" (fif., Malay custom). This last, the "adat Malayu," when originally drawn up, was a just and equitable codes, under which, though occasionally severe punishments were given, yet in the main if acted upon might have fairly suited the people living under ita influence. Successive Rajas in cach native state have an altered this code, that the custom actually in force now bears but the vaguest resemblance to it. Every alteration made has been for the worse, leaving out the good and introducing bad “aday,” until now whatever is done by a Chief consulting only his own inclination is justified by him as “adat Malayu," The very luw upright Chiefs now to be found, say there is no longer any “adat Malayu," but that everything is done by ** adat suka hati,” f.s., the custom by which a man can best suit his own purpose and incllustion.

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Many Chiefs in Perak have a following principally composed of young men and girls, for the most part debtors.

The men are treated as I have already described either food and clothes are found for them or not: they are usually found, for the Raja's power and his pride consists in the number of arms-bearing followers he has at his beck and call; men, too, are useful to him in many other ways. Those who have grown old in their bondage, whether men or women, either for very shame the Rajah provides for, or he compels their children to support them.

The men either (1) follow because they like it (a very small per-centage indeed); or (2) they are debtors or the children of debtors; or (3) they are real slaves from Sumatra or Abyssinia, or the children of slaves.

The girls are treated differently; they are (1) either slaves or the daughters of slaves; or (2) debtors, the daughters or grand-daughters of debtors; or (3) the Raja has simply taken them from their houses into his own house because he wanted them; or (4) they follow him for pleasure.

In Perak some of the Chiefs do not provide their girls with food or clothing, but they tell them to get these necessaries of life as they best can, i.e., by prostitution, for the labour of the debtor being the property of the creditor, prostitution is in this case a necessity and not a choice.

Each Raja in his own district claims the privilege of fining, either for a capital offence or for a trifling misdeed. Should then, a man be fined and not pay the fine, he and his family, if he has one, are at once taken into this debt-bondage, not to work out the fine, but to toil away their lives amidst blows and upbraidings—the daughters driven

to prostitution, the sons to thieving, and even greater crimes.

This is no exaggerated statement, but the plain truth.

When the Raja gives nothing, neither food nor clothes, or when he is a passionate man and threatens to kill one or other of his followers for some trivial offence, or for no offence at all, it often happens that one will seek refuge in flight. If caught, though it may be said to be the received custom to inflict only some slight punishment, yet that would not deter a Raja from punishing such an offence even with death should it seem good to him.

Only about two years ago, not 100 yards from where I write, Raja Kahar, the second son of the Sultan Abdul Samat of Salangore, murdered three debtors for no reason but that he willed it.

Three debtors, not of Rajah Kahar's, but of the Sultan's, two girls and a boy, all I believe under 20 years of age, ran away from the Sultan's house in Langat to a place called Teluk Panglima Garam, about two miles down the Langat River. This was reported to Raja Kahar, who sent to the place, caught all three, and brought them

back.

The boy was taken at once into a field and krissed.*

It is not the custom to kriss girls, so Raja Kahar's wife told them she was going to hathe in the river, and ordered them to accompany her. Both girls followed her on to a log lying in the river only a few steps from the house. Here they were seized, and one held, whilst a boy follower of Raja Kahar's took the other by the hair, pushed her into the river, and, still holding her hair, pressed her head under water with his foot till she. was dead. The other girl was then thrust on to the log and into the water, and treated in the same way. The corpses of the girls were left lying on the muddy bank, for the refection or refusal of the alligators, until their friends came and removed them.

I am told that Rajar Kahar went to the Sultan and said [Malay characters]

†, and that incurring the Sultan's anger in consequence, he, in a fit of unwonted generosity, presented the relations with winding sheets for the corpses.

About 18 months ago Raja Yacob, the Sultan's third son, krissed a debtor- follower of his, because he was reputed to have expressed his intention of stealing something.

About three months ago I was in the Ulu Langat, i.e., the country at the head of the Laugat River, and there saw two women, who, having originally been bond-debtors to a Langat Raja called Unku Haji, had been captured by some of Tunku Kudin's people when a fort was taken in Ulu Salangore during the disturbances in that State. That was three years ago, and each of the women had then been given in marriage, to

⚫ man.

*It is almost unnecessary to explain that "krise" is the name applied to many different kinds of daggers much used In Malaya.

†The literal meaning of these words is, I have thrown away those children who ran off" [Malay charac. ter] in a word need when speaking of throwing away rubbish pe anything worthless or objectionable,

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50897.

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C.O.

Reference :-

882

3

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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