568 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. [December 
PROGRESS AT THE STRAITS. 
" The present Governor of the Straits Settlements 
(Sir Frederick Weld)" — writes an ex-Ceylon planter — 
" appears to be a very enterprizing and progressive 
officer, and he has the interests of this colony most 
decidedly at heart." The present mail-news from 
Singapore confirms this opinion in a very practical 
Way. Sir Frederick Weld has just started on a tour 
of inspection intending to explore portions of the 
British Settlements at Malacca and Klang, which 
had never before been visited by British officers. 
He is well seconded at Perak by Mr. Low, to 
whom (with his chief) will now belong the honour 
of getting the Secretary of State to alter a decision 
twice expressed against Cooly Immigration into 
these semi-Brilish Settlements. 
Indian Immigration. 
From the dispatch of Governor Weld to the Secretary 
if State. 
Singapore, 5th May 1881. 
Mr. Low has set out in clear language how essential 
it is, in opening out the excellent agricultural lands of 
Perak, that Indian labour should be introduced, and 
he points out that, unless such labour is procurable, 
that State must rely on its tin deposits for any develop- 
ment that must take place. He states that the Indian 
Immigrants can be as effectually protected in Perak as 
in Province Wellesley or Ceylon, and he explains that 
for tbe administration of justice, there are British 
Magistrates at eight stations, and that Police are 
quartered in twenty-five different localities. He reports 
that the Government has power to carry out all ne- 
cessary regulations, and he adds that it may be fully 
trusted, under the supervision of the Governor of 
these Settlements, to enforce any regulations that may 
be made. The statements in the Resident's letter 
will, I feel confident, have great weight with H. M.'s 
Government, They come from a very experienced 
and trustworthy official, who has proved himself to 
be a most competent administrator, and I have not 
the slightest hesitation — personally acquainted as I am 
with the country and its administration — in support- 
ing those statements, and confirming them in the most 
authentic manner possible. 
There is, too, abundance of British capital forthcom- 
ing, so far as I can learn to open up these fertile states, 
but on every occasion of an application for a grant of land 
being made, the experienced planter points out the 
necessity of obtaining Indian labourers before any real 
work can be done with the view of making any consider- 
able investment. Certain grants of land have been 
taken up in each of the Protected States, and in Johbre, 
still but comparatively little progress has been made 
owing especially to the existing uncertainty of the action 
of Ii. M.'s Government on this question. And I think 
that there can be very little doubt, but that if the final 
decision is adverse to the course which I am advocating, 
those who are now prepared to embark to a large extent 
in planting in the Native States will be driven elsewhere 
and that the attempts made by this Government to 
introduce a large system of agricultural undertakings in 
the Native States, which would tend to the direct advant- 
age of those States and to British interests, will receive 
a great blow and heavy discouragement, and the solid 
improvement of the country be indefinitely postponed. 
On every ground, therefore, I am of opinion, that 
it would be advisable and expedient that Indian Immi- 
gration should be permitted, under regulation, to the 
Native States and also to Johore, In the first place, 
there would be the advantage of opening up magui- 
ficent country, already proved to be eminently suited 
or plantations of almost all kinds ; in the second 
there would be the direct advantage to both British 
and Native interests, by increasing trade, and en- 
suring that the resources of the country are not solely 
as at pres nt, dependent upon its mineral wealth ; in 
the third, there would resault the abolition of the 
growing practice of introducing such labour under no 
recognised regulations or authority : and in the fourth, 
there would be thrown open lar^e remunerative employ- 
ment and room for settlement, in a field every way 
eminently suited to their habit3 and constitution-, to 
numbers of the labourers of a country already greatly 
overstocked, and which is periodically visited by famine 
to a most lamentable extent. 
From the Resident of l'erak to the Colonial Secretary, S. S. 
In 1879, tbe disease which has been so injurious 
to the coffee plant in Ceylon, caused almost a panic 
amongst the planters of that Colony : many of them 
visited Perak and other parts of the Malayan Pen- 
insula, and applications were made to this Govern- 
ment for about 35,000 acres of forest land, on which 
it was proposed to commence the cultivation of 
coffee, cinchona, &o. 
All the skilled gentlemen who examined the country 
declared that Perak, from the extent and elevations 
of its mountain ranges which reach to 8,000 feet ; 
from the quality of its soil ; from the facilities of 
access by its very numerous rivers and creeks ; 
from its absence of destructive winds ; and from its 
neighbourhood to a British Colony ; had every facility 
which could be required for the successful cultiva- 
tion of all tropical agricultural products. 
Having some knowledge myself of such matters, 
I am able confidently to assure His Excellency that 
none of these advantages were over-estimated, and the 
gentlemen from Ceylon, who saw the padi crops at 
Krian, were astonished at the productiveness of the 
soil, which gives, year after year, without manure 
and with little cultivation, an average of S00 to 
1,000 gantangs per orlong, and reaches, in good 
seasons, to as much as 1,900, being an increase of 
250 to 300 fold on the seed sown. 
The only drawbacks to Perak, as ' a field of in- 
vestment for British enterprise, were that it was 
not British territory, and that free immigration of 
coolies from India was not permitted. 
The planters from Ceylon did not seem to think 
so much of the first of these difficulties as the : 
British merchants of the Straits Settlements, and I 
do not think it would have deterred them from the 
adventure, but the question of labour was of far more 
gravity, and all concerned were sanguine that, con-'; 
sidering the rapid progress of this State towards com- 
plete security and settlement, Her Majesty's Govern- 
ment would assist in the solution of this difficulty. 
I have no special knowledge of the present condi- 
tion of the other States of the Peninsula, but I fear 
that, in this matter, the interests of Perak may have 
suffered from having been considered in connection 
with Johore, the circumstances of which are very 
different aud by no means so favourable to the health 
of the labourer, and the attainment of the object 
in view. 
At the present moment, two gentlemen of enter- 
prise and capital have settled from Ceylon in the 
Slim l iver, and have cleared about 150 acres of land; 
another from Province Wellesley has commenced 
estate in the Throng district ; above 120 acres have 
been cleared by two gentlemen on the eastern face 
of the range of mountains, half way between the 
port of Matang and Kwala Kangsa, and the Govern- 
ment experimental plantation is in the same neigh' 
bourhood with nurseries at Kwala Kangsa. 
In the Krian district four or five thousand acr< 
of land have been taken up, and sugar eultivatioi 
commenced by influential members of the Chines< 
