404 
hood of a good trade centre or of large estates of European or 
Chinese planters can often manage to dispose of his produce at a 
reasonable price, and this will be easier as the Peninsula becomes 
more opened up by rail and road and more thickly populated, but 
even in this case there are often difficulties in disposing of the 
produce. 
The energy of the Javanese in Agriculture in the Dutch East 
Indies contrasts strongly with the indolence of the Malays of the 
Peninsula, and perhaps this is due in some measure to the over- 
crowding and consequent competition for the food supply in Java, 
but it must be remembered that the Dutch factory system has been 
long in work there, and that the Javanese were practically com- 
pelled lo become agriculturists, and had a purchaser at hand for 
their produce so that although the system led to a great deal of 
hardship at times it certainly produced a nation of agriculturists. 
It would have been impossible to do this without making it a cer- 
tainty that the grower could dispose of his produce. 
I have so far dealt with the question of the market only, which 
is the second part of Mr. Arden’s scheme, because it will be 
most important first to get the Malays to cultivate and sell 
their produce. In many of the minor products especially, but 
little machinery or expensive apparatus is required, but with some 
crops it is very different. For the heavy oils, such as those 
of Ground-nuts, Castor and Sesamum, the machinery may be very 
simple, unless the manufacture is done on a large scale, and it 
would be best then for the mills to be erected in one central place, 
where the cultivators could easily send their produce. Essential 
oils on the other hand usually require apparatus on the spot, and 
the cultivation of these by Malay agriculturists would certainly be 
encouraged by a scheme such as is proposed. But before any grant 
was voted for special machinery, it would be necessary (i) to make 
sure that the crop proposed to be grown was one for which there 
was a good demand, and one likely to continue, and (>) that there 
were enough cultivators in the district willing to take up the cultiva- 
tion, and able to supply the mill when it starts work. 
If enough agriculturists could be got to take up any such cultiva- 
tion then the Government might with advantage to itself, and still 
more to the community erect £he machinery and so develop the 
cultivation. When once this plan proved successful, more cultiva- 
tors would doubtless join in the cultivation. This system would 
I think, go a long way towards evolving a nation of agriculturists. 
There will come a time sooner or later, when the Peninsula will 
have to depend on agriculture for its main support, and it would be 
strongly desirable that we should by then have our plant resources 
sufficiently well exploited to form a means of subsistence for our 
large population, 1 may say that I cannot recall at present any 
country that has attempted to develop its agriculture in exactly the 
way suggested, though to a certain extent one might compare with 
the proposed system, the Government Cinchona Plantation in India 
which have proved so successful, and the Dutch compulsory system 
