He had requested the Straits Government to furnish him with their views; and the then Governor had produced in triumph, for the first time, two orders under Abdullah's hand and seal, directing the death of the Resident. The Secretary of State dryly remarked on the belated appearance of these compromising documents-and they seem really to have been specimens of the blank forms, bearing the genuine State chaup or seal, which were kept and issued by the Sultan to his officers for official use, like stamped paper. The Governor further quoted, for the Secretary's benefit, the statement of "a Malay chief, a man of the highest rank and character," who had "lately affirmed that Abdullah's guilt was incontestable." Colonel Stanley, perhaps, was not much impressed by the testimony of this anonymous magnifico. He did not accede to Abdullah's request to return, but the Colonial Office was apparently somewhat struck by the unsatisfactory nature of the case against the ex-Sultan; and as already stated, the latter was returned in 1891 to Singapore, though not to Pêrak.

In Selangor and Sungei Ujong no such difficulties arose. Selangor had been virtually depopulated, and the docile Sultan was a willing instrument in the hands of his advisers. The Datu Klana, the ruler of Sungei Ujong, was no less ready to further the views of the Resident. Circulars were sent out, in 1876 and 1878, to the Residents impressing on them the information that they were advisers merely and not rulers. The Home Government had insisted so strongly, after the Pêrak disturbances, on this being made clear, that the Singapore authorities could not decently do less. But they did not succeed in doing more-perhaps they did not try to do more.

Here it may be proper to say that by no word would one wish to diminish the credit justly due to officers like Low, Murray, Lister, and others still in active employment, whose behaviour in the delicate circumstances in question

has been beyond all praise, conciliating native sentiment, and introducing at the same time enormous improvements. It would not be becoming to expatiate on the value of officials who are still in harness. But it is enough to say that there is probably no better Civil Service existing. Their work eventually induced the shy people of the Negri Sembilan to accept a Resident. Previously they had been so averse to foreign interference, that they uniformly turned back travellers. "Where the needle comes," they sensibly remarked, "the thread will follow." This was in or about 1886.

In 1888 a Chinese British subject was killed at Pekan, the chief town of Pahang. This was the occasion of correspondence, which ended in the Sultan's rather pitiable letter asking for a Resident.

"Our enlightened friend, the Maharaja of Johor,”1 the devotion to British interests of at least one of whose predecessors is well known, has succeeded in avoiding the appointment of such an officer, and the administration of the State appears to be in his hands. You cannot treat a sovereign who writes to you "My dear Governor," in quite the same way as is proper when he is obliged to adopt the quaint forms of Oriental politeness, and addresses you as "our friend" in the third person.

The States (Johor included) were federated in 1895, and a Residen-General appointed, who does not seem to interfere in the administration of particular States. The present able and tactful occupant of the post is Sir F. A. Swettenham, whose work must shortly be referred to.

When British officials, under the circumstances which have been above detailed, went to reside in the Protected States, they found a system existing which scandalised them extremely. This was in the early seventies, it must be remembered. Moreover, they found it first at its worst

1 P.p. 1876, LIV. p. 77.

in Pêrak.

This was the system, already incidentally referred to, of debt-slavery. "The Malays," observes Sir P. B. Maxwell, "did not, like the fathers of their civilising friends, build jails and immure those who owed money for a term which might be life-long, at the discretion of their creditors; but their customary law, engrafted on the Mohammedan, gave the creditor the right to the labour of the debtor, who became his bondsman. Forgetting. that their own fathers had long maintained a much more hateful form of [slavery] for the good of trade [the new authorities] were for putting down the evil with a high hand, in breach of their own engagements."1 Converts are always so enthusiastic! Captain Speedy, the Assistant Resident stationed at Lârût, wrote in language of which the emotion overwhelms the grammar

"One terribly unjust and cruel custom, which from the earliest times has existed, and, I regret extremely to say, still exists throughout Pêrak and Larût, may be given as an instance of the imperfections of Malay rule. It is that called barutang, or slave-debtor.

"A Malay, on being unable to pay a fine to which he may be sentenced, becomes the slave of his creditor for years, perhaps even for life; for the special injustice consists in the fact that, even should he be subsequently in a position to pay for his ransom, the creditor is not bound to receive it; and should the money not be paid, although the debtor is willing and able to pay it, not only himself but his family and descendants become slaves for ever to the creditor and his descendants.

"Another phase of the custom, more grossly wicked, possible, than that above described, is that, should a man have borrowed money for a given time, and be at the

1 Our Malay Conquests, 3. (1878: King, Westminster.)
P.p. 1875 [C. 1320]. LIII. p. 76.

expiration of the period unable to pay, he and his family in like manner become debtors [slaves?] for life.

"One instance of this custom may suffice-."

Captain Speedy then relates a story retailed in a somewhat condensed form by Miss Bird.' "The aunt of a Malay policeman in Larût, passing near a village, met an acquaintance, and taking a stone from the roadside, sat down upon it while she stopped to talk, and on getting up forgot to remove it. An hour later a village child tripped over the stone and slightly cut its forehead. The placing the stone in the pathway was traced to the woman, who was arrested and sentenced to pay a fine of 25 dols., and being unable to pay it, she and her children became slavedebtors to the father of the child which had been hurt.

"I sent to the village to inquire correctly into the case, and found it exactly as the man had stated, and, moreover, I discovered that this was an instance in which the creditor wished to exercise his prerogative of claiming the family as his rightful slaves instead of accepting the fine, for he repeatedly refused to do so-even when it was offered; and it was not until I threatened him severely that he consented to accept it.

"I beg to state that this circumstance took place before I accepted service under H.M. Government in Larût; but the custom still exists, though I earnestly hope it may soon be a thing of the past.

"The Oriental custom by which a debtor becomes the slave of his creditor until he has liquidated his debt may be admissible; but that this should degenerate into the possibility of enslaving a whole family, and not only for an error, but for accidents which, like the above, [?] may happen merely through mischance, is a most unwarrantable perversion of the term 'justice.'

The Golden Chersonese, p. 360.

"In this manner about three-fourths of the Malay population are bound over to the remaining one-fourth."1

In this early mention of the custom there are, as was natural, some inaccuracies. Two monographs, by Sir F. A. Swettenham and the late Sir W. E. Maxwell (then Mr. Swettenham and Mr. Maxwell), respectively, give more detailed and accurate information, which may be supplemented by a despatch from the Pêrak Resident to the Secretary of Singapore, dated 28th July, 1875.

In Malay society the bulk of the people are poor. The wealth is concentrated in the hands of the rajas, who by means of forced loans would soon despoil a subject of any extra riches he might acquire. Consequently, any want of money makes it necessary for a subject to apply to the raja for funds. The loan is well secured. If unable to pay back the goods or money, the debtor is foreclosed upon by the creditor, and is "liable to be taken up (not by any process of law, but mero motu), treated as a slave, and made to work in any way that the creditor chooses the debtor's earnings go for nothing, but are the property of the creditor, who gives no wages for the work done, and allows no credit towards the reduction of the debt."

One might almost be reading a commentary on the Roman institution of nexal indebtedness. As, for instance, Muirhead tells us :

"The right of a nexal creditor, whose debtor was in default, was at his own hand, and without any judgment affirming the existence of the debt, to apprehend him, and detain him, and put him to service until the loan was repaid."

1 The proportion was really very much lower.

2 Pp. 1882 [c. 342] xlvi. p. 9.

8 Ibid. 1882 [c. 342] xlvi. p. 16.

4 Pp. 1882 [c. 342] xlvi. p. 6.