BOII* AND LABOUR- 9 



t>c\ no inclination to raise produce which will not 

 3 ietd u speedy return, such as pepper, sugar, gam bier 

 or eulch, indigo and vegetables, or to adopt European 

 [am >i cmeuls. Chinese labourers can scarcely U hud 

 for less than nine sicca rupees monthly — Cbuhaiis, from 

 the Madias side of India, are now paid about six ru- 

 pees and the same rate or even less is given to Ma- 

 lays. Malayan women receive for hoeing about *ix 

 cents of a dollar daily and children from three to six. 

 The labor or three able-bodied Chines may be cousi- 

 defied equivalent, under due superintendence, to that 

 of rive Chuliahs or Malays; but were the balance of 

 hire to operate against the former, which it does not, 

 Miil it would generally be found advantageous to cm- 

 ,i1oy tliem where \ cry systematic work is to l*e done, it 

 is, however, undoubtedly the interest of agriculturalists 

 to oik uira^c all of t hese classes; at the same time, especi- 

 ally guarding against the mouoplizingspirit of theChi- 

 nese; and an increase beyond the present rate of doily 

 labor, by aH »r*ii.i- to the Chuliahs such hire as may 

 induce them to resort, as they have done, to the Island. 

 Planters generally engage labourers by the m with* but 

 wapes are given by most of them according to the ac- 

 tual number of days only in which work is performed. 

 There is no parallel in Europe to the labor attending 

 the cultivation of . a plantation here, and indeed any 

 where near the line. In the course of a couple of 

 mouth*, the l»est cleared land, if left to itself, will he 

 choked with a rank crop of tall weeds, and wiry f or reedy 

 grasses. No sooner has the forest " bowed beneath 

 the sturdy strpke" of the Malayan billiong, or axe, 

 tail the stumps been grubbed up and burned, than 

 (he tallang grass (grameu carricosum of JVJUrsden), 

 strives for mastery. This grass must be quickly era- 

 dicated or it will cost, when its roots have struck deep, 

 twenty dollars an orloug to destroy it in light soils, 



