121 
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No. 2 in 923/1912. 
The Secretary; Taiping, 
Planters’ Association of Malaya, 13th February, 1912. 
Kuala Lumpur. 
Dear Sir, — I am directed to acknowledge the receipt of your 
letter of 6th February current, forwarding a resolution passed at a 
Meeting of the Planters’ Association of Malaya held on January /th. 
I have etc., 
(Sd.) W. E. PEPYS, 
for Ag. Secretary to Resident, Perak. 
The Secretary, Kuala Lumpur, 
Planters’ Association of Malaya, 22nd February, 1912. 
Kuala Lumpur. 
Dear Sir, — I beg to acknowledge receipt of your letter of February 
6th referring to section 9 of the minutes of your Meeting held on 
January 7th 1912. 
2 . I quite agree that the precipitancy with which this Labour 
Enactment was passed through the Council is to be deprecated. 
Another member and myself expressed this opinion in Council. I 
asked if there was no existing legal power to enable the Government 
to deal with what was obviously, on humanitarian grounds, a matter 
of urgency. The reply given was that the Legal Adviser had been 
consulted and that the answer was in the negative. 
3. In view of all the circumstances and the fact that your own 
representative on the Council offered no opposition, I did not feel 
justified in voting against the Enactment. 
4. Your letter raises rather an interesting point. It may be read 
as an expression of disapproval on the part of your Association that 
I did not vote against this particular Enactment. Had I voted against 
a proposal, affecting planting interests, endorsed by your own repre- 
sentative on the council, I could not complain if your Association 
thought fit to express disapproval. But so long as the selected re- 
presentative of the Planting Community, who is your own elected 
chairman, is present at a Council Meeting, you can hardly in fair- 
ness blame the other un-official members for taking any sort of 
action which meets with the planting member’s approval. 
5. It is so obviously to the interests of the general public that 
the small unofficial minority On the Council should be united that I 
think you will find the other un-official members supporting the 
planting representative even when not altogether in favour of some 
specific detail. For instance, personally I objected to two sections 
in a recent enactment which compel employers of labour to keep a 
check roll showing names, clays worked and rate of pay drawn by 
