509 



W. Peel, Esq., 



Ag. Superintendent of Ind. Immigrants, 

 Penang. 



Penang, 

 loth October, 1910. 



Sir, — We have the honor to acknowledge receipt of your letter 

 dated the 7th instant conveying the information that His Excellency 

 the Governor has been pleased to allow the importation of Statute 

 Immigrants to continue to the end of the present year. 



We are instructed by the Committee of the Malay Peninsula 

 Agricultural Association to request you to convey to His Excellency 

 their thanks for his action in so readily acceding to the representa- 

 tions of the Association. 



We are further instructed to request you to lay before His 

 Excellency the views of the Association regarding the immigration 

 of Chinese labourers for agriculture. 



Following the gradual extinction of Tamil Contract labour, 

 which seems to be settled policy of the Government, the Association 

 has to recognize that estates will, as time goes on,' become more and 

 more dependent on Chinese. The Committee therefore desires to 

 bring to the notice of His Excellency the Governor the unsatisfactory 

 conditions at present existing in regard to the recruiting of Chinese 

 Sinkehs in their own country, and the harm which results through 

 the absence of any official control by the local authorities of the 

 recruiters. It is generally recognised and admitted that so long as 

 the traffic remains in the hands of brokers and agents it will be 

 impossible to ensure that only men likely to make useful agricultural 

 labourers are exported to the Straits. At present, while very high 

 recruiting fees are being paid, a certain number of undesirables are 

 being brought into Malaya, and the Association feels that it is 

 justified in regarding the future with some apprehension unless steps 

 are taken officially to remedy the existing state of affairs. Estates 

 are perfectly willing to pay reasonable prices for Chinese labour of a 

 suitable class and the cost of the establishment by the Government 

 of the Straits Settlements and the Federated Malay States of an 

 official recruiting agency in China would easily be defrayed b}' 

 recruiting fees and such an agency would benefit both the coolie and 

 his employer by the elimination of the middleman. A certain 

 proportion of the exorbitant recruiting fees at present paid to the 

 brokers might then be paid to the coolie and this fact, together with 

 the placing of the traffic under official British control, would have 

 the further effect of cutting away the ground beneath certain mis- 

 informed persons in England who are already beginning to agitate 

 against the employment of Chinese contract labour in Malaya- 

 Should the Government not see its way to establish an official 

 recruiting agency in China, the Committee trust it may yet be 

 possible to eliminate some of the more pressing disadvantages of the 

 present system by the institution of a labour bureau, financed and 



