57 
RENT. 
Ample as the above-described profit may be considered, yet the money-rent of 
land is not always proportioned to it. We have been viewing the proprietor and ryot 
in one person. Disjoin the two and the state of the case is disproportionately altered. 
The highest rate of money-rent as yet does not exceed 4 Spanish dollars an 
orlong { i| of an acre) the average being about 2 1 dollars. But when the rent is paid 
in kind, its amount is frequently nearly doubled. Money-rent is almost invariably 
paid in advance, while rent in kind is paid after the harvest. In the latter instance, 
a poor tenant can give no other security than that of the expected crop, unless indeed 
he mortgages his land. To this subject I will revert hereafter. But a proprietor will 
best consult his own advantage by taking a far less usurious one. 
A ryot's labor for six months, were he only to employ himself in his nice cultiva- 
tion, would be about 13 Spanish dollars value. But he is not confined entirely to it, 
for his family can watch it while he is employed in other labour. In fact he hardly 
feels this part of the cultivation to be any expense. Should the proprietor of good 
land get one-third of the gross produce value as rent, then he would receive, under 
the ploughing system, 140 Spanish dollars for 20 orlongs of land, and his tenant would 
have 204 dollars after deducting the wages of labor. Under the tajak method his rent 
would be the same, while his tenant would get 143 dollars, assuming that the rate of 
productiveness is the same in both cases; the difference in profits arising from a saving 
of labor and not from increase of produce. In both cases the landlord would receive 
a disproportionate share of the produce of his land, while the tenant would have high 
profits. 
Under such a rate of profits, arising too from a small outlay of capital on the part 
of the farmer, the landlord, it might be said, should have afar larger share in shape of 
rent. But although it is highly probable that his rents will rise, it is also pretty cer- 
tain that the risks attending cultivation will cause that rise to be slow. Perhaps if 
prices of produce do not fall much, or labour becomes dear, he may hereafter be able 
to obtain a third of the gross produce as rent. 
The foregoing remarks rest on ascertained data, but from the nature of the coun- 
try and the population they may not always be invariably applicable. 
If four dollars be taken as the average money-rent per orlong of good grain land 
the corresponding number of years’ purchase would be, on an average, about six years. 
An average of prices will not determine this point; for they will depend on the capi- 
tal which confined profits in other channels may compel the holders to invest in land. 
!f this were to be the rule, then instances could be adduced of sales at ten years’ pur- 
chase. The competition for fresh rice-land is now so great that the disposable quantity 
will most probably, within a very few years, have been given away. The Malays take 
the best land first if conveniently situated, but otherwise they take that which is most 
easily accessible, if it will yield a return for the labour to be bestowed on it. It will 
not perhaps be until all the remaining lands yet lying under jungle shall have been 
occupied and cultivated that the true value of grain cultivation to the several classes 
concerned, the landlord, tenant and labourer will be fulfy ascertained. 
* * * * * ' * ’ * 
With few exceptions, the Malays decline to cultivate dry land permanently, 
unless it be conjoined with flooded rice-land. In the latter case, the dry land forms 
the kamfiong or garden with the owner's house in the centre, and in it he plants 
cocoanuts, plantains, and other fruit trees; sugar-cane, indigo, tobacco, pulses, and 
sweet potatoes I he proportions in which these two descriptions of land have been 
occupied may be about one of dry to ten of wet. It is the want of flooded rice-land 
whirl) is now drawing away to Province Wellesley many of our Penang Malays, and 
probably the remaining quantity may serve to meet the demand for a moderate period. 
VVnen all the wet land shall have been located, there will yet remain several tracts of 
dyv land, unloss more capital shall have been employed on it than hitherto for the rai- 
sing of produce adapted to foreign consumption. 
******* 
As a sort of general rule for present purposes, the quantity of 640 gantangs has 
been assumed as the highest rate which ryots allow, under ordinary circumstances may 
be obtained from one orlong of land. But no correct information can be got from 
either landlord or cultivators. Actual experiment has therefore been resorted to, or 
rather a minute investigation of the ripe crops, and the results have been so far satis- 
factory as to prove that double the above quantity at least, or about 5,424^ lbs., could 
be raised on one orlong , provided the whole field could be made equally productive 
with the portion submitted to test , and this would, if only double, be equal to 187! 
bushels, or 139^ bushels by measure, to the acre. It may be observed that the grain 
was not selected out of a field for examination, but was taken in the straw at random. 
But cultivation is subjected to so many accidents, that granting the possibility of such 
