184 VOLUNTEER POLICE FOR PROVINCE WELLESLEY. 
cautiously you would be prepared, should the experiment be suc- 
cessful, to sanction the wider development of the plan. If I had - 
supposed that it was not to have some degree of permanency, but 
might be abruptly put an end to in six months, I could not have 
taken it upon me to ask the Malays to adopt it, nor is it likely that 
they would have done so at all as a mere temporary expedient, or, 
if they had, that they would have received it in such a spirit as” to 
ensure its good working. It would, I fear, entirely defeat our 
object if, at this stage, the intimation were made to them (not of 
course by me) that the system now introduced is only likely to be 
maintained for a few months. I would submit, with deference, 
that the fairest as well as most expedient course would be to defer 
any discouraging step of the kind until the contemplated changes 
take place, when Government, if it thought fit, could abolish the 
system, in such a manner and with such explanation of its reasons 
as would be calculated to lessen any dissatisfaction on the part of 
the Malays. 
G. I hope you will allow me, however, to add some reasons in 
support of those that may be ‘weathered from my Memo. of 20th 
August, for not looking on the measure as amere make-shift pend- 
ing the adoption of those improvements in the Police for which the 
Settlement is to be indebted to you, and I would preface these 
reasons by saying that, although I brought the plan forward as one 
that was peculiarly and urgently necessary in the somewhat ex- 
ceptional condition of that portion of Province Wellesley in Which 
1 have resided for the last five years, 1, long ago, when living in 
the south of Penang, earnestly advocated the association and or- 
ganization, with the sanction and support of Government and for 
the ae ;¢ of maintaining the peace and counteracting the various 
class and religious influences opposed to it, of the Malays and the 
well- disposed. inhabitants of all other classes, including the maay 
Chinese who disapproved of the secret societies and wanted nothing 
so much as adequate ck protection against being absorbed into 
or Qe rseeuee by them. A plan on a narrower basis for piving the - 
assessment committee and, as an after-thoucht, the Police, the aid 
of ae sional Pénghtlus * was tried by Mr. Buunpens, when Besi-’ 
dent Councillor of Penang, and so long as he remained here and 
took a strong personal interest in the Pénenilus, much benefit was 
derived from it. It was afterwards extended to the Province, but 
too hastily to almit of a good selection of headmen, and it soon 
fell into neglect. More recently Colonel Man was impressed with 
ae 
* Pénghilu Mukim. Mukim is the territory or rather the group of families - 
attached to a mosque, a parish. 
