[8]
" The King said ;- ‘Verily we stand in need of a man of sufficient
intelligence who is able to carry on the administration of the government,’ ‘
He replied ; -‘ It is a sign of sufficient intelligence not to engage in such
matters.' The Gulistan of Sa'adi.
It may be
questioned whether any more interesting experiment in administration was ever
undertaken than that initiated by the Pangkor Engagement in January, 1874.
Given a beautiful, fertile State, rich in minerals, splendidly watered, almost
within shout of the Equator : imagine it sparsely inhabited by a peculiar,
sensitive, courageous, superstitious, passionate, and conservative people ;
suppose that not six white men had penetrated into this country within memory ;
that there were only twelve miles of cart road in the State. and those only in
one Province where the Chinese outnumbered the Natives of the land by ten to
one ; add that these Chinese had for over a year been in open warfare with each
other ignoring every authority ; that they had burnt down every house ; that
all mining had ceased ; and that the only positions occupied were forts full of
armed men, and coast villages, the head quarters of pirates. Then, consider
that, in this country, there were two claimants to the chief authority, each of
whom had assumed the title of Sultan, while yet
THE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE RESIDENTIAL SYSTEM | About Perak
[9]
another claimant was in the field
with at least equal pretensions, and a fourth chief had for years been playing
a skilful game to secure the reversion of power to himself. Of wheels within
wheels the number was infinite, but it may be mentioned that Upper Perak was
the scene of an open conflict between two aspirants to the post of Sri Adika
Raja, while every Malay of any consideration in the State, who could muster twenty
followers, sat down on the bank of some river and exacted toll from every
passing boat.
Perhaps, it is
hardly surprising that, under these circumstances, Raja Abdullah asked for the
assistance of the Governor of the Straits Settlements to send him an Officer to
teach him how to rule this unruly country. It is more surprising to find the
task accepted with alacrity and each difficulty disposed of by one man's energy
and insistence, until the Chiefs, so long unaccustomed to any form of control,
rebelled against this white man's attempt to put an end to the infamies daily
brought before his eyes, and determined to get rid of him, in the firm belief
that no penalty would be exacted and that no successor would venture to trust
himself again to Perak hospitality.
When Mr. J. W. Birch first took up the post of
British Resident in Perak, the State was divided practically into two parts---
Larut, the place of tin mines and Chinese, and the valley of the Perak River
where, for ages, the Malay had lived unvisited by any step, and uncontrolled by
any voice from the outside world. Here, debt- slavery with all its attendant
horrors was an ever- spreading sore ; here, too, a Chinese life was of no more
account than that of
THE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE RESIDENTIAL SYSTEM | About Perak
[10]
a beast. Murders were unpunished,
robbery unnoticed, whole villages defied the authority of their own Rajas, and
the will of the strongest was the law of the land. It was specially with this
portion of the State that the first Resident concerned himself, and here he met
with many unpleasant experiences. Visiting one village, the inhabitants
threatened to shoot him if he landed ; at others, the sale of every kind of
food was declined not only to the Resident but also to all his party. Guides
and means of transport could never be found, distances and difficulties were
enormously exaggerated, and everything was done to keep him in the dark and
misrepresent the state of affairs, the position of places, the resources of the
country, and the real views and intentions of its people.
In Larut, the
Assistant Resideut, Captain Speedy, had a much easier task. A commission had
disposed of the Chinese difficulty and settled the boundaries of disputed
mining land. After months of fighting and privation, the Chinese were glad
enough to resume work, the mines were reopened, villages built, and at once a
new tide of prosperity, stronger than ever known before, flowed over the
Province of Larut.
At the time of
these events, the revenue of what was then called " Perak Besar," i.
e. the Perak River Valley, was about $80,000 a year, every import, each cup or
saucer, the most insignificant article as well as such things as rice, salt,
tobacco, opium etc. being subject to duty. In Larut, there was no revenue at
all. As the result of the first year of the Residential system. Larut yielded a
THE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE RESIDENTIAL SYSTEM | About Perak
[11]
revenue of $300,000, while Perak
gave its $80,000. Many of the most vexatious duties were soon abolished and, as
the revenue grew, a few European officers were appointed to assist Captain
Speedy in Larut. But, in Perak, the Resident was alone, except for a guard of
about 80 Indians, who gave him a good deal of trouble and proved unreliable
when asked to justify their existence.
In those ten
months during which the Resident lived in a boat, travelling about the State
and collecting materials to enable him to introduce measures for the better
government of the country, it was impossible for him to actually organize any
administrative reform. He had no material power to enforce an order, and, as
there were still two Sultans, each exercising a certain amount of authority in
different parts of the State and each utterly opposed to the other, any
concerted action was impossible. The position, to a man of energy and capacity,
was well nigh untenable. More might have been done had Sultan Abdullah loyally
supported the Officer sent to him by his own request, but he was too weak, too
shifty and untrustworthy, and too easily influenced by unscrupulous advisers,
who thought it their interest to thwart the Resident in every endeavour he made
to introduce order into bewildering chaos.
A few sadly
oppressed individuals obtained some amelioration of their lot by the assistance
of the Resident, some crimes were prevented perhaps, some "squeezes"
were put a stop to, but Mr. Birch's main achievement was the extraordinary
amount of information he collected, and the able measures he framed to lay the
foundations of a righteous government.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE RESIDENTIAL SYSTEM | About Perak
[12]
It is difficult
to speak of Perak alone in describing the gradual evolution of that system of
administration which now obtains throughout the Malay States; for, though the
circumstances of none of the other four States, now under British protection,
were similar to those I have described, yet, in the advancement that has taken
place in the past twenty years, each has learnt something from the other, and
to no State alone belongs the credit for all that it can boast of achievement
to-day.
It is certain
that the difficulties in Perak were exceptional. Our national pride would no
doubt say that, out of such unpromising material, no other nationality would
with a few men have carved so creditable a monument. There is Egypt, true, but
even Egypt, a magnificent testimony to British capacity for governing, was a
different place from a roadless Malay jungle, inhabited by a people of whose
eccentricities almost everything had to be learnt. What has been done in Egypt
is like the result obtained by a brilliant financier who had udertaken what
appeared to be a hopelessly bankrupt business, and proves what business
management can do. In the Malay States, something that did not exist has been
called into being under trying climatic circumstances ; where everything had to
be learnt, where there was no experience of any similar experiment to guide,
and where the success gained, though practically unknown in the west, is not a
little remarkable.
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