160 MALAY LAND TENURE. 



" nation evinced not to sign these legal papers. In 1843 or 

 " 1841, the then Resident hit on the notable plan of punishing 

 " the recusants for their contumacy by putting their tenths up 

 " to auction and selling them to a Chinaman, the very thing 

 " that formed one of the grounds for redeeming the lands from 

 " the proprietors !" 



The Government had redeemed the rights granted in the 

 days of Dutch rule to a few privileged (i proprietors ' J and the 

 worst that was said of the bargain for some years was that it 

 had been rashly and improvidently concluded and had resulted 

 in an annual loss to Government. But as time went on it was 

 discovered that the Government had by no means acquired, as 

 had been supposed, an unfettered right to deal with the waste 

 land of Malacca. The deeds by winch the " proprietors " 

 surrendered their rights to Government contained a stipula- 

 tion to the effect that, in case the Settlement of Malacca should 

 ever be given up to any other Power, they should be restored 

 to their original position with respect to the lands.* This 

 proviso effectually prevented the Government from giving a 

 clean title to purchasers. 



The legal difficulty thus engendered, and the acknowledged 

 failure of the voluntary commutation plan, necessitated refer- 

 ence once more to the Government of India, and in 1861 a 

 Bill was introduced in the Legislative Council of India, which, 

 it was hoped, would give the local authorities all the necessary 

 powers. • During a debate on this measure, the law officer of 

 the Government (Mr. Sconce) read to the Council an extract 

 from a letter written by Mr. Blundell, ex-Governor of the 

 Straits Settlements, in which the injurious effect of the exac- 

 tion of the tenth in kind was pointed out. He further 

 explained that twenty years earlier an attempt had been 

 made to commute the payment in kind to a money payment, 

 which had failed " from the bad way in which it was carried 

 out," and that many disputes had arisen from the ineffici- 

 ency of the native surveyors, " whose surveys were so bad 

 " that constant disputes were arising in consequence of them, 

 "many lands having been assigned twice over.'' To meet 



Journ. Inch Arch., X, 60-61, 



