150 MALAY LAND TENURE. 



that the Raja's concurrence shall be necessary to validate a 

 transfer made by a land-owner to another. This is the princi- 

 ple upon which the Dutch documents of title, still extant in 

 Malacca, seem to have been issued. A purchaser or inheritor 

 of land had to go before the Court of Justice and declare and 

 prove the transaction by which he claimed possession of the 

 land. Upon satisfactory proof being adduced, the Court con- 

 firmed the transfer or tramnission and issued to him 

 a document in the nature of a certificate of his right of 

 possession, that is of his proprietary right under the local law. 

 The greater part of the land in the town of Malacca is held in 

 this manner, and it has been hastily assumed that the certifi- 

 cates of the Dutch Court of Justice have superseded earlier 

 grants issued to the original proprietors. I do not believe 

 that there is, in the majority of cases, any foundation for such 

 an assumption. Land in the town and suburbs of Malacca 

 was in the possession of individuals before the Dutch occup i- 

 tion — and before the Portuguese conquest for the matter of 

 that. It was held and continued to be held either by the 

 native possessors or by new-comers, with or without the per- 

 mission of the ruling authority, under the local tenure. Only, 

 after the establishment of a Court of Justice by the Dutch, 

 secret alienation was not permitted. A transfer of land had 

 to receive the sanction of the government, in whom theoreti- 

 cally the soil was vested, and this, as has been shewn, is quite 

 in accordance with Malay ideas. 



The uncertainty attending the terms on which such land 

 could be held is clearly evidenced in some of the Dutch 

 documents Sometimes it is expressly declared that the 

 land is subject to any taxes, &e., which may at any future 

 time be imposed, and this sufficiently indicates that the terms 

 ultimately to be imposed were not settled, though it was well 

 understood that land was liable to a customary tax if the 

 Government should at any time choose to exact it. But, as I 

 have shewn, no land revenue was collected in Malacca in 

 Dutch times and presumedly no tax was ever imposed. The 

 land on which the town of Malacca stands pays no rent, tax or 

 revenue of any kind to the Government, to this day. But 

 there can be little doubt that it is open to the Government of 



