121 



No. 2 in 923/1912. 



The Secretary, Taiping, 



Planters' Association of Malaya, 13th February, 1912. 



Kuala Lumpur. 



Dear Sir,— I am directed to acknowledge the receipt of your 

 letter of 6th February current, forwarding a resolution passed at a 

 Meeting of the Planters' Association of Malaya held on January 7th. 



I have etc., 



(Sd.) W. E. PEPYS, 

 for Ag. Secretary to Resident, Perak. 



The Secretary, Kuala Lumpur, 



Planters' A.ssociation of Malaya, 22nd February, 1912. 



Kuala Lumpur. 



Dear Sir, — I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of February 

 6th referring to section 9 of the minutes of yOur Meeting held on 

 January 7th 1912. 



2. I quite agree that the precipitancy with which this Labour 

 Enactment was passed through the Council is to be deprecated. 

 Another member and myself expressed this opinion in Council. I 

 asked if there was no existing legal power to enable the Government 

 to deal with what was obviously, on humanitarian grounds, a matter 

 of urgency. The reply given was that the Legal Adviser had been 

 consulted and that the answer was in the negative. 



3. Li view of all the circumstances and the fact that your own 

 representative on the Council offered no opposition, I did not feel 

 justified in voting against the Enactment. 



4. Your letter raises rather an interesting point. It may be read 

 as an expression of disapproval on the part of your Association that 

 I did not vote against this particular Enactment. Had I voted against 

 a proposal, affecting planting interests, endorsed by your own repre- 

 sentative on the council, I could not complain if your Association 

 thought fit to express disapproval. But so long as the selected re- 

 presentative of the Planting Community, who is your own elected 

 chairman, is present at a Council Meeting, you can hardly in fair- 

 ness blame the other un-official members for taking any sort of 

 action which meets with the planting member's approval. 



5. It is so (>bviously to the interests of the general public that 

 the small unofficial minority on the Council should be united that I 

 think you will find the other un-official members supporting the 

 planting representative even when not altogether in favour of some 

 specific detail. For instance, personally I objected to two sections 

 in a recent enactment which compel employers of labour to keep a 

 check roll showing names, days worked and rate of pay drawn by 



