316 



Rubber. 



The rubber industry is thoroughly estabhshecl in the district, the 

 area under rubber has been extended, and a decided improvement in 

 the methods of cultivation is to be seen. 



Mr. Stonor writes : 



" The best results, from a casual observer's point of view, 

 are to be seen in a group of estates near Sungkai, which show 

 excellent progress, and will baar comparison with anything I 

 have seen elsewhere. Some seven or eight of these estates 

 are served by an admirably designed and w^ell-ordered estate 

 hospital, erected at their joint expense, and centrally situated, 

 near Sungkai village." 



V ery nearly 10,000 acres were alienated for coconuts and rubber. 



Agriculture. 



The District Officer gives a short account of 21 estates which 

 cover an area of no less than 42,000 acres. 



The cultivation of padi up the Perak river was better: some 

 trouble arose at Kampong Gajah regarding the fencing of padi fields 

 and some of the raiats were stiff-necked and insubordinate. I went 

 up river with the District Officer and the Dato' Sri Adika Raja and 

 settled the matter. 



AGRICULTURE. 



Padi. 



It was a good padi season throughout the State and the Govern- 

 ment has spent money in irrigation and will, I sincerely hope, not 

 grudge further expenditure. The increased rent, by water-rate, may 

 not yield the stipulated interest on the money spent, and it certainly 

 will not yield it at once, but a rigid calculation of that kind is not a 

 true criterion of the value of these works to Government : for. without 

 such help, the land would remain unoccupied altogether. 



influx of Foreign Malays. 



At the present moment" foreign Malays are coming over to Perak 

 in gr.^at numbers. Until the 1911 census is taken their numbers will 

 not be known, but every Land Officer knows that they are 

 coming. These people cannot be expected to stay unless they can 

 get padi land, for no Malay Settlement is permanent without padi. 

 Malays plant rubber and coconuts {per se) and sell to Chinese and 

 Europeans: but Chinese and Europeans do not seek to buy padi land 

 and fruit gardens, and it is only in those conditions that we shall find 

 the immigrant Malays settle, till in the next generation they call 

 themselves the people of the country. 



We welcome them, and our Land Officers do all in their power 

 for them, but there are no special officers of the Public Work Depart- 

 ment to devise systems of irrigation, small as well as large: and the 



