After the murder of Mr. Birch there was a hubbub. The
Maharaja Lela came from his house down to the river and ordered his followers
to fire on the deceased's boats and kill all the sepoys and boatmen. He then
divided the Resident's belongings between the murderers. There was no more than
$50 in cash, so that Seputum the man who slashed at Mr. Birch with a sword, got
only a creese belonging to his victim instead of the $30 he had been promised;
and he went home with a head-ache and slept. Stockades were hastily thrown up
and there was feasting for two days. On the day after the murder some Bugis
recovered the body of the Resident and the Maharaja Lela took two rings off the
fingers, one a snake ring, and presented them to his wife. News of the
assassination was sent to 'Abdu'llah and to Isma'il at Blanja. On 4 November
Mr. (now Sir Frank) Swettenham coming from Kuala Kangsar called at Blanja,
heard of the murder, refused to be enticed to spend the night ashore and though
chased contrived to reach the Residency safe and undetected. 'Abdu'llah had
hurried there already with a fleet of armed boats, offering assistance: he had
vetoed an attack on the Residency by the Maharaja Lela's men, as he was on the
spot and wished not to appear involved in the business: Mr. Swettenham
distrustful told him that his assistance was not required. On 5 November
Lieutenant Abbot and his fifty sepoys were reinforced by sixty men of the
1-10th regiment under Captain Innes, acting Commissioner of Perak, and by some
police. Two days later they burnt Bandar Tua, a sight that made the Maharaja
Lela weep publicly for the probable fate of his own house, but Captain Innes
and two soldiers were killed and the attack on Pasir Salak was dropped.
'Abdullah was surprised and delighted." If a hundred thousand whites
come," he exclaimed, " the Maharaja Lela will kill them all." On
9 November the Governor arrived with 150 troops whereupon the Sultan, Laksamana
and Shahbandar met him with professions of loyalty. The Laksamana warned the
Malays that he would cut the tongue out of any one who revealed their
complicity with the Maharaja Lela. The Maharaja Lela was persuaded to flee
upriver to Isma'il but To' Sagor refused to budge, saying that he had no food
and would be eaten by mosquitos and hunted down by Sayid Masshor, as in fact he
was a few months later, though ostensibly he was brought in by Sultan
'Abdu'llah! On 15 November Pasir Salak was captured. Across the river the Dato'
Sagor, terribly afraid, trembled in his stockade. The country was occupied by
British troops and a guerilla campaign ensued which has been described by Major
McNair and by Sir Frank Swettenham and vividly and amusingly by Sir George
Scott (of Burma fame but then a war correspondent) in a story called "
Needs explaining " in his book " Cursed Luck." As late as June
1876 the new
115
A History of Perak. Page 116
Resident, James Guthrie Davidson,
suggested that he should settle in a stockade near Kota Lama with fifty or
sixty troops, though the Governor vetoed such action as an undignified
confession of failure. But oppressed by the Rajas, the bulk of the Malay
peasants had neither desire nor means to fight the English. All the murderers
were hunted down. The " common " fellow Seputum was brought in by
Sultan 'Abdu'llah and was the first to hang. Sultan Ismail, innocent of
breaking a treaty he had never signed, was removed for the good of his country
to Johor where he arrived on 27 March 1876*.
After trial before two Malay judges with two British assessors, the Maharaja
Lela (who surrendered in July 1876) and Dato' Sagor were hanged at Matang on 20
January 1877. By August 1876 the evidence against 'Abdu'llah was so strong that
he was summoned to Singapore for an enquiry not whether he was guilty of crime
but whether treachery had made it inexpedient to allow him to retain his
throne. In spite of the belated defence of a spurious royal seal used in his
name, the evidence was damning. In fact all but three or four of the Perak
chiefs were involved though clemency was extended to everybody except
'Abdu'llah, the Mantri, the Laksamana and the Shahbandar, all of whom on the
recommendation of the Governor and the Executive Council of the Straits
Settlements were banished to the Seychelles. The finding of the Executive
Council was fair: " It must be admitted that provocation was given to the
Sultan and his chiefs. The late Mr. Birch was a most zealous and conscientious
officer. He was, however, much thwarted from the outset, and there is reason to
believe that his manner may at times have been overbearing. It must also be
admitted in some instances he showed a want of respect for Malay custom. It was
also injudicious to interfere with local taxes before the general scale of
allowances had been fixed in lieu of them." A brave honourable though
indiscreet man, allotted an impossible task, but, as Sir Frank Swettenham has
written with scrupulous moderation, " by the action which his death made
necessary, the State of Perak gained in twelve months what ten years of '
advice ' could hardly have accomplished," debt-slavery was abolished and
the poor and oppressed, of whom James Wheeler Woodford Birch was ever the
friend and champion, came under a government before which all men are free and
all men are under the law equal.
The war hardly made administration easier. Davidson found
Perak bankrupt. Within the armed camps he was a nonentity beside the Generals;
outside the armed camps the whole people was sullenly hostile. He could not
afford to go on paying troops to overawe the country, yet their departure might
mean a return to anarchy. The troops could not stay indefinitely. In September
1876 it was proposed to replace them by a strong police force.
* He settled at Sekudai and there died on 4 September,
1889.
Protection. Page 117
On 25 September Davidson
wrote:—" We are to have a police-force about 800 strong for Perak and
Larut to be composed partly of Sikhs and the greater part of Malays. The
Headquarters will be here (Kuala Kangsar) where the officer in charge will
reside. There will be an assistant and two European Inspectors in Larut, a
European Inspector or other officer in Kinta, and another Inspector at Bandar
Baharu. These are all the European officers proposed with the exception of one
at Kuala Kangsar to drill and take immediate charge of the men there."
But there was a difficulty. On 4 October Davidson wrote:—
" I believe it has been resolved to raise a police-force for Perak, but it
does not seem at all settled where the money is to come from, and this is the
slight difficulty that blocks the way."
Davidson had every reason to be alarmed. Finance is the
foundation of all government. The need of revenue had forced Birch to take the
measures which had brought about the Perak war. The new Resident had to face
all the difficulties that had overwhelmed his predecessor and the further
difficulty created by the need of maintaining a strong force to overawe the
country. Not till January 1877 could he dispose with troops in Kinta. A month
later he resigned the service and retired from a very unpleasant position.
He was succeeded by Mr.—afterwards Sir Hugh—Low, the real
author of the prosperity of Perak and incidentally of the other Malay States.
The policy of this great Resident is worthy of the most careful study even if
the policy adopted was sketched by a Governor whose advisers had learnt
wisdom—writers on Malaya have never given Sir Hugh the meed of honour that is
his due.
Low was confronted with all the revenue-difficulties of
Birch, with a heavy war debt, with the need of replacing military forces by a
costly constabulary and with a discontented population under many turbulent
leaders. His position seemed almost hopeless. He recognized that any attempt to
govern a people by overawing them was unsound on financial grounds if on no
others. He reduced the cost of the police by giving police duties to native
headmen and relieving many villages of their police-stations. He settled the
question of the feudal revenues of the chiefs by making them local headmen and
giving them a substantial percentage of all Government dues collected by them
in their districts. He secured a very useful addition to the revenue by
substituting a definite land-tax for the indefinite right possessed by the
State to the forced labour of its people. He created a State Council of leading
men whom he consulted on all important issues; and he took the views of the people
before appointing a local chief. He had the satisfaction of seeing the Perak
debt paid off in a few years and the abolition
Page 118 A History of Perak.
of debt-slavery by the end of 1883.
Students of administration will find much to interest them in such measures as
his appointment of Chinese to the State Council; his introduction of
cultivation-clauses and building-clauses into land-tenure; his system of
dealing with water-rights, forests and revenue-farms; and his policy of
economic development by means of roads and railways.
The population, estimated in 1879 at 81,084 souls rose by
1891 to 214,254.
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