MALAY LAND TENURE. 117 



" the land- owner is invested with sufficient power over his whole 

 " estate to enable him to turn the remainder of his land to the 

 C( most profitable use it is fitted for. After having thus care- 

 " fully regulated the respective rights of landlord and tenant, 

 " the Dutch are wise enough to abstain from further interfer- 

 " ence, beyond seeing that the legal conditions are fulfilled. If 

 " a land-owner chooses to exact forced labour from his cottiers, 

 " and thereby to create discontent among them, the Dutch 

 '" officials do not envenom this feeling by issuing injudicious 

 " proclamations of abstract rights for the cottiers, or of remon- 

 " strance with the land-owner. They take care that the land- 

 " owner complies with the law, by paying the highest agricul- 

 " tural wages for such forced labour, and they meet the peasant's 

 " complaint by saying that the land-owner is only exercising his 

 u right, in a manner of which he is sole judge, and that the cot- 

 " tiers must either submit or withdraw from the estate/'' 



Chapter VIII. 



TRANSFER BY SALE AND MORTGAGE. 



" Land/' says Marsden, " is so abundant in proportion to 

 " the population, that they (the Malays of Sumatra) scarcely 

 " consider it as the subject of right, any more than the elements 

 " of air and water ; excepting so far as in speculation the prince 

 " lays claim to the whole. The ground, however, on which a 

 " man plants or builds, with the consent of his neighbours, 

 " becomes a species of nominal property, and is transferable ;* 



* In Burma " all owners exercise the right of sale, lease, gift and mortgage, 

 " though sale outright is very seldom made. There appears to be an objection 

 " to it, which may almost be called religious, irrespective of the rights of 

 " heirs, which cannot be alienated ; and when land is sold by deed, it is gene- 

 li rally expressed that the object of the purchaser is to build a pagoda or other 

 " religious edifice thereon. This is supposed to justify the sale. Rice land is 

 " occasionally let from year to year on verbal agreement, the tenant agreeing 

 " to pay ten per cent, of the produce." Sir Arthur Phayre, before the So- 

 ciety of Arts, May, 1881. 



