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ployers, that his appointment may in the future prove to have been 

 one of the brightest features of the Government scheme for pro- 

 moting a great and eventually spontaneous flow of Indian labour 

 into the Malay Peninsula. 



Emigration to the Straits and Federated Malay States. 



Returns have been furnished showing that 8,790 coolies were 

 collected and shipped by professional recruiting agents in 1901, 

 and 1,099 by planters' kanganies. The past paddy season has been 

 a good one in Southern India, and it has been in consequence more 

 difficult of late to get coolies over, but on the whole, estates in Set- 

 angor and Negri Sembilan are fairly well stocked, though there are 

 great complaints of shortage in Perak. There is no doubt a grow- 

 ing tendency in that State to employ Tamil labour on the mines, 

 where wages are said to rule a good deal higher than on plantations, 

 and to this fact may be attributed to some extent the shortage com- 

 plained of. 



The attached satistics of the population in the districts of the 

 Madras Presidency and of emigration to this country in 1902 will 

 be of value and interest. 



