soil; and he was at least a free man, and so long as he could keep out of debt would remain so. Slavery existed in all the native states of the Peninsula; the slaves being either imported negroes purchased from Arabian merchants by those who had made the pilgrimage to the Holy City, or aborigines captured in war, or Malays who had sold themselves into slavery to extinguish a debt. So, roughly, the thing stood, a true type of Oriental despotism—the Sultan and the dominant chiefs bent only on personal indulgences, clad in fine raiment and absorbed in Palace intrigues, and at the other end of the scale the peasantry whose sole function it was to supply the necessary funds.

When the British went to Perak in 1874 they knew as little of the interior of the Peninsula as Americans in 1897 knew of the Philippines. There were no maps of the country and no books worth studying. In the minds of the colonists at the coast the Peninsula figured as a place where fighting was always going on, and as little else. Even the names of the different states and the titles of their rulers were barely known. Add to this that the new administrators were white men going where, except for an occasional sportsman or explorer, white men had never been before; that they were Christians dumped down among a Mohammedan populace; that they came to alter and pull down in the midst of a people whose favorite proverb is, "Let our children rather than our customs die "; that they represented all the horror of the new and unknown in a country whose inhabitants had a detestation of change bred into their very bones; and, finally, that they went unarmed and with no visible support in the background into territories ablaze with anarchy, where the poorest native habitually carried from three to five weapons.

From the peasantry, who looked upon them as a fresh scourge rather than as deliverers, the newcomers received no support; while the chieftains, whose actions they were there to supervise, openly and sincerely thwarted them. The first British Resident appointed to Perak was murdered within a year, and a "punitive expedition" was despatched to avenge him. No attempt was made to occupy the entire state. The main rivers only were held, and the natives were incessantly assured that the occupation would last only until the murderers and the men behind them were surrendered. In eighteen months justice had been done, every British soldier had left the state, and the Malays had learned two things: first, that there was a force in the background; and second, that the English officers could be trusted to keep their word. It is something in dealing with Asiatics to have taught either lesson, but for final and comprehensive success both are needed. The Dutch, after

nearly thirty years of struggle, have impressed neither upon the Acheenese. The Americans, it is to be feared, have so far only partially succeeded in impressing the first upon the Filipinos; the second, and more difficult, has yet to be brought home.

What happened in Perak happened more or less in the other native states that came under British protection. There were no more outrages to exact punishment for and no more actual hostilities; but everywhere the state of mind was the same the same suspiciousness, the same anxious and resentful forebodings. Then, slowly, came a hard-won confidence, and, on the heels of it, a few cautious reforms, laying the foundations of better things. And here it seems right to summarize rapidly the bloodless revolution wrought by this handful of Englishmen in the Peninsula, reserving to a later paragraph some examination of their methods. In 1875 the total revenue of Perak was estimated at $113,116; it is now almost $4,000,000. In 1875 that of Selangor was $57,825; it is now nearly $3,500,000. The combined revenue of the four states in 1889, when Pahang came under British protection, was, roughly, $2,500,000; at this moment it is slightly over $8,000,000. The first year for which trustworthy figures of trade values for Perak, Selangor, and Negri Sembilan are available is 1882. The imports and exports of these three states amounted then to $5,600,000; in 1900 they were valued at over $48,000,000. These figures may be more conveniently summarized thus: under British protection the revenue of the states has multiplied forty times over, and the value of their import and export trade has within the last twenty years risen 900 per cent.

In 1875 there was not a single mile of cart road; there are now 1,500 miles, and over 1,000 miles of bridle paths. In 1875 there were no railroads; before the present year is out there will be 364 miles in working order. Education under native rule was confined to learning to read the Koran by rote, and a Malay who could read or write was a curiosity. There are now 193 vernacular and state-aided schools, with 8,092 scholars. Hospitals were formerly unknown institutions, and cholera and smallpox ran their course unchecked. There are to-day government free hospitals throughout the states, exclusive of jail hospitals and lunatic asylums; and cholera and smallpox have been practically extinguished. The population has increased over 60 per cent in the last ten years; the Malays alone having risen from 230,090 in 1891 to 313,763 in 1901. A regular police force nearly 2,000 strong, officered by about 40 Europeans, has taken the place of the predatory bodyguard of the old days; and a highly efficient regiment of Malay State

Guides, consisting of 12 European officers and 632 natives, is in constant training.

As there are still many Americans who do not understand the principles on which the British Empire is run, it may be as well to remark, in passing, that Great Britain derives from these results no benefit that may not be shared in by any other nation on equal terms; that English traders have no preferential advantages over German or American traders in entering Malay ports; that all the revenue derived from the Peninsula is spent on the Peninsula; that no "tribute" of any kind is exacted; and that the cost of the Civil Establishment that is to say, of the salaries of the British Residents and their staff is less than fourteen per cent of the total revenue. But the results indicated above in no way exhaust the list, which might be extended to cover almost all the material necessities of a well-regulated state wharves, harbors, drainage, irrigation works, government offices, prisons, and so on.

It is not, however, by such things that the British protectorate is solely to be judged. What has been its effect on the people, from the peasant to the Sultan? The reply is that it has brought to the rulers an entirely new sense of their duties; that they are no longer cruel and selfish voluptuaries, but recognize that they owe something to their subjects a something that can be best discharged by showing a personal interest in their lot and furthering the good works promoted by their British advisers. And to the peasant, the raiat, "the real Malay," British rule has given a security of life and property of which in the old days he knew nothing. It has given him a permanent title to his land. By road and rail it has opened up undreamed-of markets for his labor and his produce. It offers him free education for his children, free hospital treatment and medicines in illness, and banks where he may deposit at interest his small earnings. It has abolished slavery and piracy. It has practically put an end to the scourges of smallpox and cholera; it has established the reign of law and equity throughout the land; it has made the raiat the equal of his rajah in the eyes of the court. It helps him to drain and irrigate his paddy fields; it contributes to the cost of erecting his mosque; it has opened to him offices in the government service with fixed salaries and pensions attached; and it has freed him from arbitrary taxation, forced levies, and compulsory labor.

In return, the peasant contributes merely an annual quit-rent of about twenty-five cents an acre. If he is not a landowner, and regards the Law of the Prophet to the extent of abstaining from opium and spirits, he pays neither direct nor indirect taxes. His tobacco, clothes, ma

chinery, and so forth, reach him duty free, and no duty is levied on his exportation of paddy. In short, the only complaint he can in fairness bring against his British rulers is that they have not made him work; and that is a complaint no Malay would bring against any one.

And how has it all been done? The secret is not wholly communicable, for largely it is a matter of individuals and of individual characters. System at first had very little to do with the redemption of the Malay Peninsula. The foundations were laid by the good sense, tact, and patience of perhaps half a dozen Englishmen who were set down on the Peninsula as one might throw a dog into the sea, and left to sink or swim. They knew nothing of the country, and had only a vague idea of the work before them. Herein they had no advantage over American administrators in the Philippines; but they had learned, what Americans have had no opportunity of learning, the general principles of governing natives. They were versed in Asiatic lore, and in other posts they had proved themselves the men for rulership.

Moreover, without exception these men were gentlemen, both in the right and in the conventional sense. It is said that the Malays are all gentlemen; certainly no one who is not a gentleman need try to win their confidence. The British Residents were one and all men of refinement and good manners, who would no more think of swaggering before Malays than in an English drawing-room; who had that power of dramatic sympathy which enables its possessor to enter into the feelings and thoughts of all with whom he has to deal; who went among the people they were to lead out of the darkness not despising them or their customs, but with all prejudices of blood and race laid aside, just treating them as human beings who, given the chance, would gradually respond like any others to firmness, tact, and a friendly hand.

These men lived for their work; not a few died for it. They learned the language of the people, and made their ways and beliefs and idiosyncrasies their first study. They lived among them alone, seeing no white faces except those of their subordinates, and putting all the recreations and pleasures of civilized life far from them. They threw themselves into the task of making Malaya as a business man throws himself into making money; and they trained the officers under them to do likewise. They were given a free hand; and while, of course, they knew that, except for proved incapacity, their position was secure and that they might look forward to a pension at the end of their career, and possibly a knighthood and a G.C.M.G., what really braced them up and

carried them through was sheer love of the work and determination to make it a success.

Men of this kind are not to be manufactured off-hand; and Americans, no doubt, will make many experiments and many changes before they get the right men for the responsible posts in the Philippines. When they are found, they should be made irremovable - if English experience is to go for anything—except for fully proved offences. They should be allowed to solve the problems before them in their own way, with as little interference as possible from Manila, and none at all from Washington; and they should be assured of the certainty of an adequate pension. There should be at the same time set up in the United States a stable, competitive, high-salaried, absolutely non-political colonial service that would attract the best men from Harvard, Yale, and other universities, and send across the Pacific successive batches of recruits to learn their business at the feet of their superiors.

But it is not enough to get the best men; they must work along sound lines. Their policy, in other words, as well as their personality must commend itself to the native mind if success is to be the result; and under this heading there is not a little worth the study of Americans in British rule in Malaya. Long experience in the Orient had taught the English Residents that you cannot "hustle" the East; and this, perhaps, is the first and most difficult lesson that Americans will have to learn. They were in no hurry to reform; and if they had any notions about "educating the Malayans in self-government," they wisely kept them to themselves. Instead they began, very quietly and without fuss, to deal out an even-handed and inflexible justice. This is the greatest novelty that can be offered to an Oriental, but it is one he quickly appreciates. Crime of every serious kind, whether committed by a peasant or a village headman or a baron or at the instigation of the Sultan, was rigorously punished; and the peasantry slowly came to realize that, thanks to the white men, they could no longer be plundered. That brought the bulk of the people over to the side of the Resident.

At the same time the dignity of the Sultan and his officers was most carefully consulted; and the peasant quickly learned that, even under the new régime, the usual ceremonies of respect had still to be paid to his old rulers. The native potentates were confirmed in their positions, and a liberal income was allowed them. The fiction that the Englishmen were only there to "advise" has never to this day been torn aside. All orders, proclamations, and laws are still issued in the Sultan's name; and no chief has had reason to complain of being ignored or slighted,