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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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

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No. 1.

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

MY LORD,

(Received March 13th.)

Government House, Singapore, February 10, 1876.

Is Despatch No. 218, of the 10th December 1875,* your Lordship, whilst asking for explanations, expresses strong opinions on some points connected with the course of action which I considered it necessary to adopt with reference to the affairs of the State of Perak, as communicated in my Despatch No. 291, dated 16th October last.†

2. In expressing the opinion which your Lordship had then formed on the subject, your Lordship states that I made a serious departure from the policy which had been anctioned by Her Majesty's Government, and which, until your Lordship received the news of the murder of Mr. Birch, you still fully believed to be in force in Perak, as well as in other neighbouring states. Your Lordship also remarks that, upon that change of policy, disastrous consequences ensued, and that it was the signal for resistance and attack. Your Lordship proceeds to bring to my notice some extracts from Despatches, with a view of showing that the policy of Her Majesty's Government was to appoint British Officers as Residents, whose duty it would be solely to advise the native rulers in matters relating to the government of their respective states.

3. In order that a fair judgment may be formed as to the nature of the change which I made with respect to the administration of affairs in Perak, I beg that your Lordship will refer, firstly, to the Pangkore Treaty itself, and to the injunctions laid down by your Lordship with reference thereto (on both of which I shall have to remark here- after); and, secondly, will permit me to draw therefrom the deductions which, under the circumstances which I shall detail, it seems to me, necessarily follow, as to the course of action which it was imperative to adopt in order to give effect to the engagements con- tained in the treaty, and to your Lordship's strongly expressed injunction,† that the Sultan and Chiefs of Perak were to be informed that Her Majesty's Government would look to the exact fulfilment of their pledges, and would hold responsible those who violate the engagement which they had solemnly agreed upon.

The extracts which your Lordship quotes from Despatches addressed to me in July last, more than 18 months after the Pangkore Engagement was entered into, and two months after Sir A. Clarke had left the Government, could not, I considered (see my Despatch No. 298, of 21st October last), he held to enjoin me to take the retrograde step of reversing the course of action which, under that engagement, and under your Lordship's strict injunctions, had been adopted by my predecessor.

4. I believe that I can show your Lordship that the policy as pursued since the date of the Pangkore Treaty has been really not at all what your Lordship seems to have considered it to have been, and that your Lordship is under a misapprehension as to the line of action which you have approved, and does not do justice to that which you now condemn. The step which I have taken appears to your Lordship to be a great one in advance, because your Lordship has believed that a policy of advice only was in operation, whereas, in fact, from the commencement of British intervention, the government of the Malayan States, to which British Residents have been accredited, has been, in greater or less degree, exercised by those officers themselves.

5. Even if it were ever contemplated by this Government that the Residents should confine their attention to merely giving advice, it has been found from the very com- mencement that such a course has been impossible.

6. There has been really no ruler, neither in Perak, Salangore, or Sungie Ujong, in each of which States we have had Residents, who has ever had the power to carry out the advice of the Resident.

7. The power of the recognised ruler has been more or less nominal, and any of the petty Chiefs and usurpers of local power could set his authority at defiance with impunity.

True, the Resident, as a matter of course, always would have advised the ruler that it was his duty to preserve peace and order in his State, to maintain a pure dispensation of justice, regardless of the rank of criminals, to place the collection of revenue on a atisfactory footing, and generally to secure good administration. The rulers, however, would have been powerless, even had they been willing to carry out this advice, and the very fact of their attempting to do so would have raised up enemies amongst the Chiefs, whose unjustifiable practices have been denounced, and amongst robber bands, whose source of livelihood depends upon the mal-administration of the country.

• No. 73 of Confidential Paper, “ Eastern, No. 17.” ↑ No. 48 of same Paper.

No. 52 of same Paper.

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8. Luder these circumstances the Resident has not only had to give advice, but also to render active assistance and take the control of public affairs.

He has had to organize an armed force, to take into his own hands the collection of the revenues, to listen to all complaints made, to punish evil-doers, to repress armed gangs of robbers and murderers, to apprehend criminals, and to see that justice was done. 9. When I arrived here in May last I found that each Resident was practically administering the government of the state to which he was accredited, and I certainly always considered that this was understood to be the case in the Colonial Office, as it certainly was by everyone out here, from the very commencement of the Residential system. 10. These remarks apply to all the States to which Residents had been accredited, and, in the case of Perak, the necessity for this course was considerably enhanced by the anarchy in the country caused by Ismail's claims, which led to a division of parties, and by the weak obstinate behaviour of Sultan Abdullah, to whom a British Resident had been appointed. I will discuss hereafter this question of the division of parties, and in what manner it affected the position of the Resident.

11. I would now beg to point out to your Lordship that, in addition to the general considerations which, as I have shown in paragraphs 6, 7, 8, rendered the Residential system, as a system of mere advice, if such were ever contemplated, a practical impos- sibility, that the very terms of the Pangkore Treaty contained the elements of control, and that a system of virtual administration in Perak, either covertly or openly, was but the logical sequence of the terms of the Treaty, especially when regarded in connexion with those considerations before alluded to.

12. Upon turning to the treaty, we find that all revenues were to be collected in the name of the Sultan, but that the collection and control of such revenues and the general administration of the country were to be regulated under the advice of the Resident, and it is stated in the treaty itself that this advice" must be acted upon" by the Sultan.

Such an engagement, to which the Sultan and Chiefs of Perak were held bound, virtually threw the government of the country into the hands of the Resident, and com- mitted Her Majesty's Government to this policy.

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13. I may remark that this was pointed out to your Lordship at the time, in the House of Lords, by Lord Stanley of Alderley, when he said that be" felt it to be his duty to warn Her Majesty's Government against giving its sanction to the plans of "the Straits Government, by which it would not only be entering into equivocal and entangling engagements, but embarking in a course which must inevitably lead to the invasion and conquest of the whole of the Malay Peninsula.

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The

object was, in reality, to impose upon the Sultan of Perak two British Officials, to be called Resident and Assistant Resident, to be paid out of the Perak revenues, and with "powers which would make them the virtual rulers of the country."

Now, I would beg to observe that although your Lordship, when replying, reminded Lord Stanley that the Residents had not been imposed upon the Sultan, but that they "had been appointed at the distinct request and entreaty of the Rajahs to whose courts they had been sent," your Lordship did not contradict the very grave assertion, made by him, that the engagements entered into would make the Residents “the virtual rulers

of the country."

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14. That it was early recognised by my predecessor that a system of mere advice was impossible, is shown by the following extract from the instructions issued to Mr. Birch on the 26th October 1874, prior to his taking up the duties of Resident, from which your Lordship will observe that the power therein conferred upon him is not at all compatible with such system.

"The subject of the future revenue relations of Perak remains. His Excellency, in the absence of any reliable information on this important matter, is not now prepared to give you any distinct instructions, further than to allow the existing system to go on when not of such an irregular character as to require immediate alteration; but you will use your best exertions to put down, by force if necessary, all unlawful exactions of what- ever nature, so as to secure that whatever revenue is collected shall be for the State alone, and that freebooters, leviers of black mail, and Chiefs pretending authority to levy duties may be hindered in their extortions, and all revenue collected may be paid into the general treasury of the country."

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15. Nor were such instructions confined to the Resident accredited to Perak. I find that, in the case of Salangore also, Mr. Davidson received such instructions as virtually authorised him to administer the affairs of that State. The following extracts bear upon this point:-

"His Excellency desires that you will proceed at once to Klang, where you will establish yourself, at first making such arrangement for your personal accommodation as

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