27o 



amount to, when split up among the various estates in the 

 Peninsula. If by their action they were successful in dis- 

 covering a real cure, they should have got off cheaply if the 

 promised reward had been 10 times as large as it was. 



The Association should continue to press Government 

 for a definite statement as to their land policy. It would 

 be interesting to know how much land had been taken up 

 during the last two years and also how may thousands of 

 pounds had been diverted to Sumatra and other countries 

 that would have been invested here, had land been available 

 at cheap rates. This however was looking at the question 

 from a point of view that hardly concerned them, who had 

 probably got all the land they wanted, but it might be taken 

 for granted that this country would remain more or less 

 stationary for many years to come from an agricultural 

 point of view if the present rates of quit rent were enforced. 

 In the case of new grants, there was not much use to ask 

 for any reduction, but he thought that in all cases when the 

 required cultivation clauses had been fulfilled that the quit 

 rent on jungle should be reduced to a nominal figure, as 

 long as it remained jungle. The advantages to the country 

 in having reserves round estates were very great, the re- 

 serves would tend to check the spread of disease, they 

 would prevent wash and silting up of drains and rivers and 

 they would serve as windbelts; and, to the estates, they 

 would be valuable as timber reserves; but no estate could 

 afford to pay a rent of $4 per acre for this purpose, and 

 unless a reduction was made, either whole areas would be 

 cleared of forest or a large amount of land would be sur- 

 rendered to Government. 



As regards the cultivation of products other than 

 rubber, rents on land should be reduced to a minimum and 

 every inducement offered to capital to invest and thus place 

 the country in a far sounder position from an agricultural 

 point of view than it could ever attain when its interests 

 were almost entirely vested in one product. 



A more generous policy on the part of Government 

 during the past year would have prevented many places 

 from getting into serious financial difficulties, but the 

 thorough soundness of rubber as in investment was now 

 being realised by the investing public and with the advent 

 of several new investment companies the difficulties as re- 

 gards finance in the future should be far less than they had 

 been in the past. 



The very slight hold they had over their labour was 

 illustrated by the following figures which he had been able 



