150 



Posts and Telegraphs. 



The Establishment of local offices in Districts where there are a 

 sufficient number of Residents both European and Native has already 

 formed the subject of correspondence between your Committee and 

 Government, but so far the necessary facilities have not been con- 

 ceded. Selangor is fairly well equipped as to telephonic communi- 

 cation, but Perak and Negri Sembilan are still without it. We 

 enumerate a few of the needed Postal Reforms (a) quicker despatch 

 of the European and Indian Mails on arrival at Penang where they 

 are frequently detained 1 8-24 hours quite unnecessarily, {b) the 

 landing of Singapore Mails for Kuala Lumpur, etc. at Malacca 

 whereby a saving of 20 hours or more may be effected, (c) a better 

 service on the Seremban-Port Dickson line (this service being much 

 slower now than formerly when letters were handed out at stations 

 to the Station Master) as there is no possibility of a direct com- 

 munication with Port Diction other than the Railway. 



Loans to Planters. 



These have proved of real advantage to many smaller capitalists 

 and have enabled the borrowers to improve thier properties and to 

 tide over the hard times. We trust that Government will in no case 

 find its confidence misplaced. 



Land Rules. 



A very serious step was taken by the Government of the F. M. S. 

 by raising, as from the 8th of December, 1905, the quit rent of 

 Agricultural land from $1 to $4 for first quality land and to $3 for 

 second quality land after the first six years. 



No doubt an industry as flourishing, as rubber planting is just 

 at present, can reasonably be expected to contribute towards the 

 revenue of the country in which it is produced. Whoever framed 

 the Rules for increased quit rent however, cannot have realized that 

 an increased tax on land generally not only affects one produce, 

 but all, without distinction. Rubber under its present extremely 

 lucrative conditions, no doubt can stand an increase \d. per lb. 

 in its cost of production : but what, if rubber cultivation becomes 

 less remunerative ; and, particularly, what of other products ? For 

 the cultivation of coconuts for instance, a sound industry, that surely 

 should receive all possible support from Government, it is quite safe 

 to predict that in future no further land will be taken up, unless the 

 present rates of quit rent are again reduced. 



To handicap, one and all, agricultural products so heavily, would 

 seem all the more unjustifiable, when quite as big a revenue could 

 easily have been obtained from rubber through an export duty on a 

 sliding scale, similar to the one now in force in respect of tin and 

 coffee. 



The whole policy seems all the more grasping, when it is remem- 

 bered that only three weeks after the publication of these increased 

 quit rents, the export duty was gazetted as raised from i\% to 2\%, 



Measures like these are bound to have an unfortunate effect on 

 capital, which is only too easily frightened away. Granted all the 



