MALAY LAND TENURE, 97 



(< enormous wrong against which no law could give a guaran- 

 u tee except that provided by Article 24, para. 1, of the Re- 

 u gulation for the Conduct of the Government, which forbids 

 " the Governor-General to sacrifice on his own authority the 

 " important principles of administration. 



" Let us admit that an express allusion would have settled 

 " the matter better. There is nothing now to prevent, if not 

 " the Governor- General, at all events the King, from disco ver- 

 " ing some fine day that the dispossession of the ' lords of the 

 " soil' * would be in the public interest, especially since a 

 " good many people are already of that opinion. 



" But let these gentry be re-assured : for many years to 

 " come the government of India will not be able to afford the 

 " immense sums f which such a measure would require, even if 

 " there should be found at the head of this government a man 

 st bold enough to undertake it/' 



Chapter IV. 



THE METHOD OF COLLECTING THE TENTH. 



The exaction of a tithe of the produce of land is by no means 

 an universal tax in Malay States. In those States which are 

 governed by Rajas, there are also hereditary chiefs who inter- 

 cept most of the revenue of particular districts, and in small 

 quasi-republics like the Negri Sambilan taxation is practically 

 unknown. The only purely Malay province in which I have 

 personally seen the tenth of the grain collected by a native 



* " Landheer in Dutch ; Tuan tanah in Malay." 



t " We are reminded that one of the estates of the Residency of Krawang 

 " has been encumbered (to prevent a partition, we believe) with a mortgage 

 " of six millions of florins. However, we are not competent to say what is 

 " the value of lands of this kind. All that we know is that they pay well 

 ' ' worked by an European ; a little less in the hands of a native farmer ; 

 " enormouslv farmed out to a Chinaman," 



