A sound system of taxation, with the
consequent development of the general resources of the country, and the
supervision of the collection of the revenue so as to insure the
receipt of funds necessary to carry out the principal engagements of
the Government, and to pay for the cost of British officers and
whatever establishments may be found necessary to support them." Lord
Carnarvon in the same dispatch states: "Neither annexation nor the
government of the country by British officers in the name of the Sultan
[a measure very little removed from annexation] could be allowed;" and
elsewhere he says: "It should be our present policy to find and train
up some chief or chiefs of sufficient capacity and enlightenment to
appreciate the advantages of a civilized government, and to render some
effectual assistance in the government of the country."
The treaty of Pangkor provides "that the Resident's advice must be
asked and acted upon (in Perak) on all questions other than those
relating to Malay religion and custom, and that the collection and
control of all revenue and the general administration of the country
must be regulated under the advice of these Residents." It was on the
same terms that Residents were appointed at Selangor and Sungei Ujong.
APPENDIX B
Slavery in the Malay States.
Langat, 30th June, 1875.
Sir - When on board the Colonial steamer Pluto last week, accompanying
His Excellency the Governor in a tour to some of the native States, His
Excellency made inquiry of me with regard to the present state of
debt-slavery in the Peninsula.
This was a subject so large and important as hardly to admit of
thorough explanation in a conversation; I therefore asked His
Excellency's leave to report upon it.
I now beg to give you a detailed account of the circumstances of
debt-slavery as known to me personally.
In treating the question under its present condition - I mean under
Malay rule - it is necessary to consider the all-but slavery of the
debtors and the difficulty of making any arrangement between debtor and
creditor which while it frees the one will satisfy the other, and still
be in keeping with the "adat Malayu," as interpreted in these States.
The relative positions of debtor and creditor in the Western States,
more especially in Perak, involve evils which are, I believe, quite
unknown to Europeans, even those living so near as Singapore.
The evils to which I refer have hitherto been regarded as unavoidable,
and a part of the ordinary relations between Rajahs and subjects.
I may premise by saying that though the system of "debt-slavery," as
it has been called, exists to some extent in all the States, it is only
seen in its worst light where a Rajah or chief is the creditor and a
subject the debtor.
