128 
Mr. Gumming thought it a great pity. The Malacca Industry 
was quite young and perhaps rather liable to be headstrong. He 
thought they ought to place on record their regret. The Planters had 
always done their best to be united, and he did not think that the step 
was in their (the Malacca planters’) interest. For instance at this very 
moment, the P. AM. had got what it had never had before — direct 
communication with the highest authority in the country. 
11. CHINESE LABOUR. 
The Secretary placed on the table the following letter : 
e Chinese Protectorate, 
S.C.A. No. 9/I9H. Singapore, 7th February, 1911. 
Sir, 
I have the honour to forward for the information of the members 
of your association a memorandum on the procedure that should be 
followed by employers who wish to recruit free labour in China on 
the ‘ Kangany system.’ 
2. The Government and the planters alike look forward to the 
cessation of indentured labour. It is hoped that free labour recruited 
on this system will supplant it : the free labourer will be genuinely 
agricultural and it should be possible to put him on an estate at a 
cost of $25. If an employer can arrange with an agent in Hong- 
kong to pay expenses there and passage to Singapore, the cash 
advances to the recruiter will be materially reduced. He will not 
sign a contract, but will gradually repay the cost of bringing him 
fiom China out of his wages. It has been found that free la- 
bourers working on an estate at an adequate wage among their 
relations, friends and neighbours and under a mandore who is also a 
relation, friend or neighbour, have no wish to go elsewhere. 
I have, &c., 
_ C. J. Saunders, 
T ie il eC i retary ’ Secretary for Chinese Affairs. 
Malayan Planters’ Association, 
Kuala Lumpur. 
MEMORANDUM. 
I. While the Hongkong authorities are anxious to encourage 
employers of labour (including labour-contractors) in the 
Federated Malay States to recruit free labour in China for 
their own Estates (or for the Estates on which they have a 
laboui-contiact) through the medium of recruiters sent 
back by them to China for the purpose, those authorities 
are unable to help or even to countenance such recruiting, 
if it is conducted in an underhand way, i.e., if the labourers 
recruited are smuggled through Hongkong as free emi- 
grants although they are in fact assisted emigrants. 
