To prey on the defenceless population,
from whom, in the name of their Rajah-master, they extort whatever
there is to get, and on whom they sometimes visit those cruelties which
they have themselves already experienced.
This system of debtor bondage influences, then, the whole population,
not slightly but deeply, in ways it is hardly possible to credit except
when seen in a constant intercourse with all classes of Malay society.
The question at issue seems to be; how to deprive the Rajah of this
great power - an unscrupulous instrument in unscrupulous hands - how to
free the debtors from their bondage, the women from lives of forced
prostitution, the unoffending population from the robberies and
murderous freaks of Rajahs and their bondsmen.*
[*Some of these remarks apply specially to Selangor, in which State
slavery is now abolished. I. L. B.]
In Perak it is different; the debtor-bondage is one of the chief
customs - one of the "pillars of the State" - an abuse jealously guarded
by the Perak Rajahs and Chiefs, and especially by those who make the
worst uses of it.
I have often discussed this question of debt-slavery with the Malays
themselves, but they say they see no way under the rule of their Rajahs
to put down this curse of their country, with all the evils that follow
in its train. I have, etc.
(Signed) Frank A. Swettenham, (Now Asst. Colonial Secretary
at Singapore.)
The Honorable the Secretary for Native States, Singapore,
Straits Settlements.
APPENDIX C
No. I
From H.B.M.'s Resident, Perak, to Colonial Secretary, Straits
Settlements Residency, Kwala Kansa, December 14, 1878.
Sir - In reference to your letter of the 28th June last, directing, by
command of His Excellency the Governor, my particular attention to the
plan adopted in Selangor for the extinction of the claims against
slave-debtors, by a valuation of their services to their creditors
according to a fixed scale, and directing me to consider to His
Excellency with a view to its being afterward submitted for the
consideration of the Council of State:
1. I have the honor to state in reply that a copy of that letter and
its inclosure was supplied to the Assistant Resident of Perak, and its
contents communicated to the other magistrates, with instructions on
all occasions in which such cases should be brought before them, to
endeavor, with the consent of the creditors, to come to a settlement on
such a basis.
2. The Toh Puan Halimah, daughter of the exiled Laxamana of Perak, and
chief wife of the banished Mentri of the State, had invested most of
her private money in advances of this description, which, up to the
time of British interference, was the favorite form of security, and
she is now the largest claimant in the country for the repayment of her
money.
