606 
AN ACCOUNT OF THE ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF 
Such a guaranty would always require a large body of troops to 
be at hand to carry it into effect, not only where extraneous causes 
should require them, but to repress wars amongst, these states 
themselves, when one or other ot the contending parties might 
and most probably would, call in the aid ot the Siamese j which 
aid would assuredly be afforded if we may judge from the events 
of the past.. 
It has been suggested that by a subsidizing policy the British 
would be able to keep the Siamese at a greater distance from their 
colonies in the Straits than they now are. If that people were 
possessed of power and military resources commensurate with the 
extent of their territory, then this argument would be apposite, 
but the contrary is fortunately true of thenf. Protected Malayan 
states, all internally in a rapid decline, both morally and physically, 
would ever prove but a weak barrier to Siamese ambition—and 
this barrier would be always ready to snap asunder on the slightest 
tension. The proximity of the Siamese territory to along, although 
partially discontinuous, line of British frontier from the upper part 
of the Sauluen river in Martaban, to the north bank of the Krean 
river on the Peninsula, is probably the best guarantee for the 
preservation of peace by the former. 
Let us look however to the moral effect which has actually been 
produced on the Malayan states which are situated near to British 
colonies. There can be little doubt that the absolute chiefs who 
rule them, feel themselves checked and to some extent overawed 
by the presence of a race the extent of whose pervasion they cannot 
estimate, and whose civilization they cannot expect ever to attain 
to or even to imitate. But if the British have not by a chivalric 
policy tried to experiment on the normal ethnics of the people 
of the Malayan principalities, they have by throwing widely 
open the long closed avenues to unrestricted trade induced many 
Malays to settle in these colonies, and have thus secured to future 
generations the chance of being raised to a higher portion in the 
civilized world. 
That a larger population has not been attracted from these 
Malayan countries to the British settlements, may be easily 
accounted for, but a full exposition of the counteracting causes 
would not.be very encouraging to philanthropists, [a] 
[a] The population of the Peninsula, excluding the British posses¬ 
sions, may probably stand thus at the utmost: 
Independent. 
Johore and its dependencies ^ ufif) 
and Pahang.. y .* ’ 
Tringanu..... 30,000 
Calantan . 40,000 
Perak ...... ...... 25,000 
Salangore.. 1. 3,000 
138,000 
