June 1, 1899.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
845 
ably, while there-construction of the Factory se- 
riously interfered, during 9 months of the year, 
with the manufacture of good tea. 
The expenditure on Capital account of £3,790 17s 
2d includes the reconstruction of Naseby Factory; 
building an extension to the Withering House on 
Pedro ; and erecting on dift'erent estates 10.3 new 
line rooms of a permanent character, besides the 
necessary cost of Nurseries and supplying new 
tea. 
The present acreage of the Company's Estates is 
constituted as follows : — 
Acres. Acres. 
Tea in full bearing ... ... 1,861 
,, ,, leased lands ... 90 
,, partial bearing ... ... 384 
,, ,, leased lands ... 8 
,, not yet in bearing ... ... 264 
Total land under cultivation with Tea 2,607 
Jungle, Patna and Scrub, and Fuel Trees, &c. 440 
3,047 
The total acreage under Tea differs by 25 acres 
from that given in the last Report which is 
accounted for by the inclusion of acres pro.iected 
clearings which have not been opened, and by 20 
acres of inferior tea land having been planted up 
witli Fuel trees this year. 
The thanks of the Company are due to the Co- 
lombo Agents for a modification in their scale of 
charges to tlie advantage of the Company, which 
has been accepted by the Directors. 
The Directors retiring are Mr. Alexander Thom- 
son and Mr. W. Megginson, who being eligible, 
offer themselves for re-election. 
C. A. W. Camjerox, Oiairman. 
London, 12th April. 
^ AGIUCULTUUE AND THE CONC4E3TED 
"EAST INDIANS" OF EUKMA. 
(By a practical man.) 
Sib, — There is in Rangoon, Burma, a large 
congested population of East Indians (officially termed 
" Eurasians " although natives and the class them- 
selves invariably uso the term '' East Indian.") 
Blany are born in Burma, but large numbers come 
to it from India, mostly from J\ladras presidency, 
in search of employment, Burma, to these latter, 
being a kind of El Dorado until they get to it. 
They are as a class not physically robust, but in 
a warm climate are capable of considerable endur- 
ance and when judiciously handled are willing enough 
workers. All of them have at least the usual smatter- 
ing of education, are intelligent and of more or less 
European ambitions. The most active and capable I 
have found to be those from the Madras presidency — 
mixed European and Tamil or of old Portuguese descent. 
These East Indians, from their peculiar position 
and the force of circumstances, are, nine-tenths of 
them, in a state bordering a chronic starvation ; 
only the bountifulness of the nature and the cheap- 
ness with which body and soul may be held together, 
keep thf-m from hupeless starvation. They have no 
trade or profession as a rule, and the majority of 
them live by odd jobs as clerks, petition-writers and 
hangers-ou lit the Customs and wharves where they 
may find casual work at tallying, cVo. 
Even among those few who learn a trade, as for 
instance Engineering, many drift into the mass of 
hangers-on either because they are outclassed by 
Europeans (it is not plain why this should be in a 
tropical country) or because natives can be found 
to work for Ichs and have no social ambitions. 
I have had an almost unique experience of 10 years 
of these East Indians, having in Burma employed 
many hundreds of them, watched tlicir ebaracteristics 
anil can tlierefore eBtiniato their capabilities. Thcjy 
are nobody's children — Iho Govcrnnicnt rxerci.^cs its 
paternal solicitude only for the pure native — and la 
uouDtry where the social conditions are so peculiar 
" )ieae people are ^ll9wed W <^ilH outei(]e the pftl<| 
of both European and native. Yet from my know- 
ledge of them, I have confidence that given considerate 
and judicious treatment, were they put to agricultural 
work, they would do well, and though there might 
be difficulty at first in getting them to move from 
their fan^iliar haunts that could be overcome, more 
easily with the llangoon East Indians since they, 
for the most part, have already travelled long 
distances from their native places. It may seem strange 
that in Burma, the one province in India where popula- 
tion is wanted, suitable lands of which there are vast un- 
occupied acres— for such product as coffee, tea, ginger 
find even cacao — are not taken up. But it is the 
fact that the Government places all restrictions it 
can in the way of these lands being taken up by 
Europeans under the plea and policy of preserving 
Burma for the Burmans ; although the Burman en- 
tirely confines himself to growing the rice of the 
deltas and has not the necessary energy (the Bur- 
mese are the most easy-going of races) or intelli- 
gence to grow coffee, tea, or any product requiring 
forethought, skill and patience. Thus the door is 
practically closed in Burma to other than rice which, 
from tlie nature of its growth, will always be in the 
hands of the native agriculturist. "Were the policy of 
the Government not so, there would indeed be a 
splendid field in Burma wherein to make the experi- 
ment with the congested East Indians. For with 
European initiative, money and management, I have 
not personally a doubt but that he would succeed as 
a worker in a coffee, tea, cacao or ginger plantation 
and be content with no more remuneration that 
w^ould be given to imported native labour from India. 
I have mentioned the two latter (cacao and ginger) 
because the conditions for their successful cultiva- 
tion exist in Burma also, although, with the exception 
of ginger, cacao is quite untried. 
It is the custom to generalise the East Indian as a 
casual and unstable worker and that his innate con- 
ceit would stand in the way of his becoming an 
" agricultural labourer" for long. As to his instability 
that is more or less forced upon him by his untoward 
circumstances. Ho has no feeling of security in his 
position (he does not know the moment he may be 
supplanted by a native) and is therefore restless and 
continually on the look out for something else to do. 
His conceit is a weakness which would disappear by 
contact with more manly occupation and in the tro- 
pics where nature is dominant, the wooing of her is far 
less a labor than in austerer climates. It is really 
in the tropics a passionate instinct which must be 
latent also in the East Indian were he given the 
chance to develop it. 
A step in this direction has already been taken in 
Burma by tho American Methodist Mission who, 
owning some land at Thandaung, near Toungoo, some 
2,600 feet up in the Pegu Yomahs, have transferred 
their school for orphan Barman and Eurasian lads 
there and have planted some 30 acres or so with 
coffee, the work being entirely done by the lada 
under tho supervision of one of the Mission who has 
himself a knowledge of agriculture. When tho coffee 
plants are in bearing, tho Mission is to be self-support- 
ing. This is excellent and practical work and the Ame* 
ricans are to be congratulated on either hood- 
winking or ignoring tho (iovermcnt of lUirma in 
so far that the latter iiave not yet contested their 
right to use tho land, which they owned before, for 
this purpose or imposed impossible stipulations as 
it has hitherto done on planting ventures, so smother- 
ing them at ihcir birth. 
I havo seen with regret and shame this enforced 
idleness — literally ti ausforming tliom into vagrants — 
of many hundreds of intelligent, willing and sober 
East Indians in a country thinly populated and with 
rich lands, lying unused and waste, that I cannot 
bat fesl there is somehow a serious wrong committed 
in allowing this to be. It is all very well to say that 
the Ciovcrnmont help those who help themselves »nd 
that this class of pf opln arc liolpUss. Tho artiticinl 
social conditions whicli obtain are the risult of our 
presence and rule and it is under tlicso uiiinitnral 
cuuditi;»us thiU £aH( lu^iau hfts b«(.-u produc«c| 
