Crime Of Any Kind In The Malay Districts
Is Very Rare.
The "village system" works well, and the courts of law
conduct their business with an efficiency and economy which
Compare
favorably with the transactions of our colonial courts; English law is
being gradually introduced and gives general satisfaction, and the
native Rajahs are being trained to administer even-handed justice
according to its provisions, and at the same time without trenching
upon Malay religion and custom. Slavery and debt bondage, which, as
hitherto practiced in Perak, have involved evils and cruelties which
are unknown to any but those who have actually lived in the State,
will, it is hoped, be abolished by equitable arrangement in 1883.
Various difficulties remain to be settled; the large Chinese element,
with its criminal tendencies, requires great firmness of dealing, and
the introduction of foreign capital and an additional form of alien
labor may lead to new perplexities; but on the whole the outlook for
Perak and its people is a favorable one, especially if the present
Resident, Mr. Hugh Low, is able to remain to continue his task of
developing the resources, settling the difficulties, and consolidating
the well-being of the State.
Nothing is known of the early settlement of Perak. It was formerly
tributary to the Malay sovereigns of Malacca, and afterward to those of
Acheen, to whom the Perak Sultans sent gold and silver flowers as
tribute. Siam has also at different times asserted sovereign rights and
demanded tribute, but the Siamese were expelled in 1822 with the help
of Rajah Ibrahim, the warlike chief of the neighboring State of
Selangor. The Government was a despotism, administered during the last
three centuries by Sultans who were connected with the ruling dynasties
of Johore and Acheen.
Our connection with Perak began in 1818 by a commercial treaty between
the East India Company and the Sultan, the chief object of which was to
circumvent the Dutch on the subject of tin. By another treaty, in 1826,
it was agreed that the Sultan should govern his country according to
his own will; that no force should be sent either by Siam to "molest,
attack, or disturb" Perak; and while it was stipulated that the Siamese
should not attack or disturb Selangor, the English engaged not to allow
Selangor to attack or disturb Perak.
So things jogged along till 1871, when the Sultan died, and the Rajahs,
passing over two men who by blood were nearest to the throne, elected
Ismail, an old and somewhat inoffensive man. Three years of intrigue
followed, and many singular complications, which would be quite
uninteresting to the general reader, and they furnished no excuse for
English interference.
It is singular that the fall of Perak as an independent State was
brought about by what may be called a civil war among the Chinese, who
in 1871 were estimated at thirty thousand, and were principally engaged
in tin-mining in Larut. These Chinamen were divided into two
sections - the Go Kwans and the Si Kwans; and a few months after Sultan
Ismail was elected, a dispute arose between the factions. Both parties
flew to arms, and were aided with guns, ammunition, military stores,
and food from Pinang, Pinang Chinese having previously supplied the
capital needed for working the mines. The settlement was kept in
perpetual hot water, its trade languished, and in return for military
equipments the Chinese of Larut sent over two thousand wounded and
starving men. The Mentri, the Malay "Governor" of Larut, although aided
by Captain Speedy and a force of well-drilled troops recruited by him
in India, and possessing four Krupp guns, was powerless to restore
order, and Larut was destroyed, being absolutely turned into a
wilderness, in which all but three houses had been burned, and, while
the Malays had fled, the surviving Si Kwans were living behind
stockades, while those of the faction opposed to that with which the
Mentri and his Commander-in-Chief, Captain Speedy, had allied
themselves, were living on the products of orchards from which their
owners had been driven, and on booty, won by a wholesale system of
piracy and murder, practiced not only on the Perak waters but on the
high seas.
The war waged between the two parties threatened to become a war of
extermination; horrible atrocities were perpetrated on both sides; and
it is said and believed that as many as three thousand belligerents
were slain on one day early in the disturbances. If the course of
prohibiting the export of munitions of war had been persevered the
strife would have died a natural death; but the Mentri made
representations which induced the authorities of the Straits to accord
a certain degree of support to himself and the Si Kwans, by limiting
the prohibition to his enemies the Go Kwans. Things at last became so
intolerable in Larut, and as a consequence in Pinang, that the Governor
of the Straits Settlements, Sir A. Clarke, thought it was time to
interfere. During these disturbances in Larut, Lower Perak and the
Malays generally were living peaceably under Ismail, their elected
Sultan. Abdullah, who was regarded as his rival, was a fugitive, with
neither followers, money, nor credit. He had, however, friends in
Singapore, to one of whom, Kim Cheng, a well-known Chinaman, he had
promised a lucrative appointment if he would prevail on the Straits
authorities to recognize him as Sultan. Lord Kimberley had previously
instructed the Governor to consider the expediency of introducing the
"Residential system" into "any of the Malay States," and the occasion
soon presented itself.
An English merchant in Singapore and Kim Cheng drafted a letter to the
Governor, which Abdullah signed, in which this chief expressed his
desire to place Perak under British protection,* and "to have a man of
sufficient abilities to show him a good system of government." Sir A.
Clarke, thus appealed to, went to Pulo Pangkor, off the Perak coast,
summoned the Chinese head men and the Malay chiefs to meet him there,
and so effectively reconciled the former, who were bound over to keep
the peace, that they were not again heard of.
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