BRITISH BORNEO. : 105 
peasants to open land in Borneo for themselves without mo- 
netary. assistance, in the first instance, from the Government 
or from capitalists. In Sarawak Chinese pepper planters were 
attracted by free passages in Government ships and by loans 
of money, amounting to a considerable total, nearly all of 
which have since been repaid, while the revenues of the State 
have been almost doubled. The British North Borneo Com- 
pany early recognised the desirabilty of encouraging Chinese 
immigration, but set to work in too great haste and without 
judgment. 
They were fortunate in obtaining the services for a short 
time, as their Commissioner of Chinese Immigration, of a man 
so well-known in China as the late Sir WALTER MEDHURST, 
but he was appointed before the Company’s Government was 
securely established and before proper arrangements had been 
made for the reception of the immigrants, or sufficient 
knowledge obtained of the best localities in which to locate 
them. His influence and the offer of free passages from 
China, induced many to try their fortune in the Colony, but 
the majority of them were small shop-keepers, tailors, boot- 
makers, and artisans, who naturally could not find a profitable 
outlet for their energies in a newly opened country to which 
capital (except that of the Governing Company) had not yet 
been attracted, and a large proportion of the inhabitants of 
which were satisfied with a loin cloth as the sole article of 
their attire. Great, therefore, was their disappointment, and 
comparatively few remained to try their luck in the country. 
One class of these immigrants, however, took kindly to North 
Borneo—the Hakkas, an agricultural clan, many of whom 
have embraced the Christian religion and are, in consequence, 
somewhat looked down upon by their neighbours. They are 
a steady, hard-working body of men, and cultivate vegetable 
and coffee gardens in the vicinity of the Settlements and 
rear poultry and pigs. The women are steady, and work 
almost as well as the men. They may form a valuable factor 
in the colonization of the country and a source of cheap 
labour for the planters in the future. 
Sir SPENCER ST. JOHN, formerly Her Britannic Majesty's 
Consul-General at Brunai and who knew Borneo well, in his 
