403 
had no money to start a cleaning and sorting factory, it occurred 
to me that this work might well be done at the Lunatic Asylum or 
gaol, so that the Malays could collect and deliver the raw material 
to one of these establishments which could prepare it for the mar- 
ket at home. Accordingly a quantity was obtained and an appa- 
ratus of a simple nature designed for the work, but on the material 
and apparatus being sent to the lunatic asylum, it was pronounced 
that the work was Loo difficult for the lunatics, while the Superin- 
tendent of the Gaol on the other hand decided it was too easy for 
the prisoners. Eventually the Malay lost money in advances to 
people to collect the fibre for him, and as he had no friends to clean 
the fibre himself and ship it to Liverpool, the business dropped, 
nor could I induce any other Malays to take it up. So that the 
Kabong fibre lias not yet found its way into the hands of the 
brush-makers, as I had hoped it would. In a case like this in which 
there was a regular demand in England, and a plentiful supply of 
the product in the Straits Settlements had it been possible for the 
Government to act as an intermediary between the producer and 
the buyer a trade of considerable importance to the country on the 
one hand and the brush-makers on the other might have been esta- 
blished, and when fairly started would doubtlessly have gone on 
of itself. 
Another instance of a somewhat similar kind was afforded by 
the fibre of the common plant curculigo known as Lumbah. This 
plant has a broad leaf which contains a fibre used by the Dyaks 
for fishing-nets, and a firm of fibre dealers in England were much 
struck by the fibre and desirous of obtaining it in quantity, but it was 
found impossible to get any natives to collect and prepare the fibre, 
an easy process, because there was no means of their getting the 
product to the home firms, except at a large preliminary expense 
which they were unable to undergo. 
In such cases of the introduction of a new or almost new product 
we may hope to be assisted by the Imperial Institute, but it would 
be necessary for the Government to give assistance to the native 
in the first instance, to get the trade well started at least. 
In respect of minor cultivations too, much could be done by 
judicious aid, it seems really absurd that we should annually import 
large quantities of dried chilis for native consumption, when the 
plant not only grows here with great readiness, but has even run 
wild in some places. 
The position of rice cultivation has been commented on in Rajah 
Bot's letter published in Bulletin Vol. I Page 582 and has indeed 
been the subject of discussion at the Federal conference in July of 
this year. 
The importance of the native population being independent of 
other countries in the production of their own food-stuffs where pos- 
sible cannot be over-rated. 
In the matter of major products sucli as Coffee, Tapioca, Sago, 
Ramie, &c., the native agriculturist should he be in the neighbour- 
