731 MINERAL PRODUCTIONS OF THE TENASSERIM PROVINCES, 
deposits, those on the Pak-chan, being rarely visited by native 
traders beyond the smallest description of boats from Mergui, and 
those to the north of Mergui without a resident population are 
therefore but little known. 
2. The absence of capital in the provinces, both with European 
and other merchants, to apply to any source of investment out of 
their immediate control, and as the timber trade of Maulmain 
engrosses the attention of all classes to this staple branch of its 
commerce, all operations involving a circulation of capital are 
necessarily concentrated in that quarter and in that article. 
3. The absence of wealthy Chinese residents in those provinces, 
as in the Straits, with available means for the amelioration of the 
condition of their poorer countrymen, by advances to enable them 
to commence some undertaking (mining or agricultural,) as a means 
of subsistence:—those Chinese emigrants who find their way to 
this coast I have found from dear bought experience, to consist of 
the lowest in the scale of even that low class of Chinese which the 
teeming population of that Empire distributes yearly through the 
Malayan Archipelago; exceptions are very rare amongst them of 
individuals who are not victims to that pernicious habit of opium 
smoking which characterises their nation ; and of those individuals 
who find their way to the lower provinces, the majority are content¬ 
ed to drag through a miserable existence on terms extorted from 
them by the heads of the “ Kongsis,” which their habits induce ; 
and consequently, with but one object in view, that of passing this 
life in unrestricted indulgence of the drug oblivious of passing 
cares ; dead to all that inspires an emulation with their fellow- 
men ; these wretched creatures becomes isolated and shamed by 
those of their own class who have still a spark of ambition left to 
urge them to rise superior to the brute creation. 
In the foregoing I have endeavoured to point out the causes of 
the sterility of production from this “ El Dorado” of mineral wealth, 
and when the fact be considered that government restriction exists 
to retard a progressive success to any operations of the nature im¬ 
plied, it will be a matter of surprise to the casual observer that the 
attention of capitalists has not been directed thitherward; the reason 
is, simply because the information now brought to light has never 
met the publicity it claims. 
It now remains to be shewn how the undertaking could be effect¬ 
ed, the means to be applied, and the probable return of an invest¬ 
ment of capital therein. 
The present period offers peculiar facilities for procuring labor 
to any extent, in the numbers of Chinese who would gladly remove 
" into these provinces from Siam, did any inducement offer. It may 
not be generally known that upwards of 50,000 Chinese (in con¬ 
sequence of the late revolt of that class against the Siamese govern¬ 
ment, caused by the oppressive measures of the king in his monopo¬ 
ly of the sugar trade), have been completely ruined, an inconside- 
