36 



ADDRESS BY MR. KRUTT ON 



The development of the Negri Sembilan and of Paliang by the 

 construction of a railway will probably result to her advantage, in 

 view of the fact that there are no good ports in Pahang Its popu- 

 lation in 1817 was 20,000, in 1871, 77,000, and was in 1891, 92,000. 

 The trade in 1826 was $1,590,000, in 1860 $4,600,000, and in 1889 

 nearly ^5,000,000. The shipping consisted in 1878 of 1,173 ships, 

 with a tonnage of 340,000, and was improving somewhat, but not 

 much. 



Although Penang and Singapore thus took an important position, 

 the Protected Native States afforded a no less remarkable spectacle 

 of progress. 



Let us begin with Perak. Its population was at first estimated 

 at very different figures, but we may take it that, without counting 

 the wild tribes living in the forests and which were reckoned to 

 comprise 6,000 souls, the Malay population amounted to from 

 25,000 to 50,000, to which later 40,000 Chinese were to be added. 

 In 1891, this had risen to 213,000, of which 100,000 were Malays. 



The Eevenues, arising chiefly from export duties and from the 

 farms, amounted in 1875 to $226,000, and increased continually 

 till they reached in 1891 the figure of 2|^millions. The export duties 

 upon tin are very high, and amount to from 12 to 15 per cent. 

 There seems to be an inexhaustible supply of this metal. More 

 than two-thirds of the tin of the whole world comes from the 

 Straits. The output amounted in 1892 to 636,000 pikuls, repre- 

 senting a value of about 24 million dollars. 



After paying all its debts, and the costs of the war to England, 

 after having constructed roads and railways, and after having car- 

 ried out all the other works of public utility and general advan- 

 tage, Perak still possessed on the first of January, 1891, a cash 

 surplus of ^2,000,000. It possesses among other things an excel- 

 lent little force of 1,000 Sikh soldiers under English Officers. 

 Eour hundred of these, almost unaided, brought the Pahang war 

 to an end. On receiving sudden orders, they were, in the space of 

 one hour, ready for marching, and remained four months in the 

 wilds of Pahang, without one of them having to be sent back 

 during that time on account of illness. The figure for export and 

 import was in 1876 one-and-a-half million dollars, ten years later, 

 m 1886, fifteen, and in 1891 it had risen to 18i millions. Perak 

 possesses excellent ports in Port Weld (in Larut) and I elok Anson 

 on the large and deep Eiver Perak. Both of these are the termini 

 of the existing railways to the tin districts. 



