( 4 ) 
Thus one of the official witnesses before the com- 
mission of 1890 states in his evidence “ I certainly think 
it is the duty of Government to aid in procuring an 
adequate labour supply especially in the case of a 
young Colony, it should offer every inducement to 
facilitate a cooly labour supply and should give free 
passages and free grants' of land to bona fide 
settlers/’ 
There is a latent fallacy in this argument for it is 
practically impossible for a man to be a peasant 
proprietor and a permanent labourer on an estate or 
Government works at the same time — so that no 
settlement either of Javanese or Tamils on the land 
would help the situation until you reached the con- 
ditions of India and Java where the peasant popula- 
tion became too numerous for the land to support 
and the younger generation had to go out and earn 
a living as day labourers. 
6. As’ far as Indian labour is. concerned the 
problem for Malaya was solved by the institution of the 
Indian Immigration Fund, which has secured a 
constant supply of imported labour directly available 
for work on estates and public works. 
But for the foresight which introduced this unique 
system before the great boom of 1910 Malaya would 
not have enjoyed the comparative freedon which it 
since has from labour difficulties and the development 
of the great rubber plantation industry would probably 
have been seriously impeded. 
7. Before describing the working of the Fund as 
it exists to-day it will be as well to review shortly the 
growth and development of the Indian connection. 
