186 VOLUNTEER POLICE FOR PROVINCE WELLESLEY. 
seen the rural population paralysed and helpless. It is a prin- 
cipal and the more immediate object of the plan now being intro- 
duced, to bring home to the villagers a practical sense of their 
duty as loyal subjects to aid in keeping the peace of their villages 
and of the Settlement, and to give them an organization that will, 
for the first time, make it possible for them to supply such aid, 
and effectively place them, for that purpose, in the hands of the. 
authorities. The simultaneous disturbances of the peace in many 
parts of the Settlement by the secret action of societies whose 
members are found almost everywhere, will be met by an equally 
ubiquitous and permanent resisting force on the side of order. 
The existence of such a force can hardly fail to exercise a strong 
deterring influence on rioters and marauders, and it cannot but 
strengthen the Government and enable it to use the Police and 
Military with much greater effect than it can now do, when it must 
either dissipate their strength and harass the men in the vain 
attempt to oppose every outbreak, or only succeed in protecting a 
few places by concentrating its force there and leaving the rest of 
the country to its fate. 
8. The plan will subserve other objects of hardly less impor- 
tance. The wide difference in manners, religion and education 
between the higher European Officers of Government and the 
Native population tends to estrange them almost as much as if the 
latter were a foreign and conquered nation, and not, as a large 
proportion are, British subjects born in the Colony. The Malays 
are very gregarious, and the mass are prone to accept the guidance 
of those who have any pretention to claim it and will take the 
trouble to exercise it. At present their personal devotion is chiefly 
bestowed on their religious leaders and on connections of the royal 
family of Kédah. Itis very desirable that the distance between 
them and the Officers of Government should be lessened, and that 
the latter should have the means, when opportunities arise, of 
establishing such a degree of familiar intercourse with them as is 
practicable.* At present large numbers in the inaccessible or 
* It takes a long time to gain the confidence of the Malays. When a Euro- 
pean Official, or any person of position, with whom they are not well acquaint- 
ed, puts questions to them, they are doubtful of his motives in proportion to 
their ignorance, and seek to give such replies as will be at once pleasing to him 
and not unpleasant in their consequences to themselves or their friends. If 
there are any native bystanders they are doubly cautious, as they know that 
every word they say may be reported to those whom it may affect. A Malay 
seldom speaks out the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, 
unless to those he trusts and when there are no other listeners. 
