MALAY LAND TENURE. 99 



to require the cultivator, under fear of punishment, to deliver 

 the tax in money or kind at a certain place. " Grain-holders 

 " were forced to deliver the rice into the Raja's granaries 

 " at the price he chose to fix on it, which always left him a 

 " profit of about 20 per cent., nor could they sell grain without 

 " special permission/'* 



The method of levying the tenth on the rice -crops in Malacca 

 is thus described by Newbold : f " When the grain is ripe, a 

 " person on the part of the Government visits the rice-fields, 

 " attended by the owner, the Panghulu, or Mata-Mata, of the 

 " village and several of the oldest inhabitants, on the spot, in 

 " order to agree upon and assess the value of the crop. A dif- 

 " ference of opinion will naturally sometimes arise between the 

 " taxer and the taxed. This is submitted to the arbitration of 

 " the Panghulu and the village elders. But should these persons 

 " again assess the crop at a lower value than the Collector's 

 " agent really thinks it worth, the latter has still the resource of 

 " offering to purchase the whole of the crop on the part of 

 " Government, at a price according to the owner's valuation. 

 " This proposal, whenever made, has been, I believe, invariably 

 " refused. It is not, therefore, improbable, all circumstances 

 " considered, that not more than seven or eight per cent., at the 

 u most, ever finds its way into the Company's godowns. The 

 " tenth in kind on paddy is sold, whenever a good price can be 

 " procured for it, on the" spot, and the proceeds lodged in the 

 " Treasury. The tenth on the other articles of land produce is 

 " levied at tolls placed at the entrances into Naning from Malac- 

 " ca, and there immediately sold/'' 



This account describes a purely native procedure, for, fifty 

 years ago, when Newbold wrote, just as at the present time 

 (1884), no mode of collecting the tenth was provided bylaw. 

 The absence of legal powers to punish the evasion of the well- 

 known customary regulations does not, however, seem to have 

 prevented the collectors from using their position as oppres- 

 sively in a British possession as in a Native State. J 



* Low — Dissertation, p. 7. 

 f Id., p. 261. 



t Correspondence relating to the Land Revenue System of the Straits Settle- 

 ments, 1837-44, p. 61. 



