98 MALAY LAND TENURE. 



Government is the Krian province in Perak. Before 1874, the 

 coast district lying between the Krian river and Pasir Gedabu 

 was regarded as a personal estate of the reigning Sultan. It 

 contains an extensive area of very fertile paddy-land, cultivat- 

 ed chiefly by Malays of Penang and Province Wellesley, who 

 used in former times to live principally in the British Settle- 

 ments, giving across to Krian during the padi season and re- 

 moving their grain, when harvested, to their homes by the sea. 

 The fact that most of the padi was taken out of the country in 

 this way made it easy to collect the tax at the time of export, and 

 at the time I speak of (1874), the headman upon each creek 

 exacted, instead of an assessed tenth, a fixed tax of thirty gan- 

 t a ng s of padi for every orlong cultivated, in money or kind, 

 before a land-owner was allowed to export his grain to British 

 territory. Those who lived permanently in Krian and did not 

 export their padi had to settle with the Penghulu at the same 

 rate. He kept a roll of the cultivators in his district, and esti- 

 mated roughly, or by actual measurement, the area cultivated 

 by each. 



The inhabitants of this district paid also a capitation tax of 

 $2.25 per family, or $1.1 2\ per every unmarried male adult. 



These taxes were not levied in Perak proper, first, because it 

 is not a great grain-producing country, and taxation would 

 have discouraged cultivators and caused them to abandon culti- 

 vation for mining — the principal industry of the State ; secondly, 

 because the inhabitants of Perak proper were always available 

 for the performance of forced services of all kinds, whereas the 

 cultivators of Krian were a shifting population who spent most 

 of their time in British territory. 



It is evident that the Krian system of collection at the time 

 of export is one not suited to a country in which the grain 

 produced is intended for local consumption. It is hot clear 

 how the tithe of the produce of the Naning rice-fields, which, 

 by an agreement made in 1644, became payable to the Dutch 

 Government at Malacca,* was intended to be collected. It 

 may have been levied upon cargoes coming down the river, 

 but more probably it was never effectually exacted. In Kedah, 

 following the Siamese custom, the practice seems to have been 



* Newbold, I, 203. 



