150 
Posts and Telegraphs. 
The Establishment of local offices in Districts where there are a 
sufficient number of Residents both European and Native has already 
formed the subject of correspondence between your Committee and 
Government, but so far the necessary facilities have not been con- 
ceded. Selangor is fairiv well equipped as to telephonic communi- 
cation, but Perak and Negri Sembilan are still without it. We 
enumerate a few of the needed Postal Reforms (a) quicker despatch 
of the European and Indian Mails on arrival at Penang where they 
are frequently detained 18-24 hours quite unnecessarily, (b) the 
landing of Singapore Mails for Kuala Lumpur, etc. at Malacca 
whereby a saving of 20 hours or more may be effected, ( c ) a better 
service on the Seremban-Port Dickson line (this service being much 
slower now than formerly when letters were handed out at stations 
to the Station Master) as there is no possibility of a direct com- 
munication with Port Diction other than the Railway. 
loans to Planters. 
These have proved of real advantage to many smaller capitalists 
and have enabled the borrowers to improve thier properties and to 
tide over the hard times. We trust that Government will in no case 
find its confidence misplaced. 
Land Rules. 
A very serious step was taken by the Government of the F. M. S. 
by raising, as from the 8th of December, 1905, the quit rent of 
Agricultural land from $1 to $4 for first quality land and to $3 for 
second quality land after the first six years. 
No doubt an industry as flourishing, as rubber planting is just 
at present, can reasonably be expected to contribute towards the 
revenue of the country in which it is produced. Whoever framed 
the Rules for increased quit rent however, cannot have realized that 
an increased tax on land generally not only affects one produce, 
but all, without distinction. Rubber under its present extremely 
lucrative conditions, no doubt can stand an increase \d. per lb. 
in its cost of production : but what, if rubber cultivation becomes 
less remunerative ; and, particularly, what of other products ? For 
the cultivation of coconuts for instance, a sound industry, that surely 
should receive all possible support from Government, it is quite safe 
to predict that in future no further land will be taken up, unless the 
present rates of quit rent are again reduced. 
To handicap, one and all, agricultural products so heavily, would 
seem all the more unjustifiable, when quite as big a revenue could 
easily have been obtained from rubber through an export duty on a 
sliding scale, similar to the one now in force in respect of tin and 
coffee. 
The whole policy seems all the more grasping, when it is remem- 
bered that only three weeks after the publication of these increased 
quit rents, the export duty was gazetted as raised from to 
Measures like these are bound to have an unfortunate effect on 
capital, which is only too easily frightened away. Granted all the 
