The daily morning journal and courier., 1899-09-25
SULTAN AND BUDAH RAJAS
HARD LOT OF PE4SA NTS IN THE
 NATITE MALAY STATES.
Complicated Feudal System That Called for Many Arbitrary Taxes es-Sultan's Education-The Raja's Body Guard Scourse to the eCountIy-Peasants Pay for All.

MT. Hugh Clifford, British Resident
 at Pahang, recently read, before the
 Royal Colonial Institute, an account of
 his experiences from which what fol-
 lows is taken.
 In the Malayan States, as we found
 them when first we began to set about
 the task of moulding their history for
 ourselves, the Sultan was theoretically
 the owner of the whole country and all
 that 1t contained. The country was
 divided up into number of districts,
 each of which was held in lief from the
 King by an Orang Besar, or great
 Baron The power which each of these
 men held in his own district was prac-
 dozen years ago each of the great
 chiefs, of whom there were four, had
 the power of life and death over all the
 people residing in his territories, and
 the unWritten law or custom went fur
 ther for It defined the exact manner
 in which each of these chiefs must car
 ry out the executions he might order,
 Under the four great chiefs, or barons,
 there was the chiefs of the Council of
 Eight These men were related to
 the greater barone in precisely the
 same manner as the latter were re-
 lated to their sul!an-that is to say,
 that they owed them fealty, and were
 bound to folloy them in time of war
 Under the eight chiefs, each of whom
 had 'ihis ub-diotrict, were the Chiefs of the Council of -squires who owned few clusters of villages,
 holding them in lief from one or an- other of the Council of Eight. Under them, again were the Thirty-two and the Sixty-four, who existed more in theory than In reality, for no man in all the country knew its internal econ- omy with sufficient intimacy to be able to name more than a few of them, and the little village headmen who claimed to belong to one Council or another were probably not sufficiently numerous to make up the required total of ninety-six. Under the village headmen, the Ka-tuaan, or elders, as they were usually termed, were the free Raayat, or villagers. These men held land of their own, upon which | their houses stood. Beneath the free raayat again were the slave debtors | and below them again were the bought | slaves and their descendants, who | formed the lowest class of Malayan | society. ,-
 It must be fully realized that the | Sultan was the main pivot upon which | all things in this country turned. His | lightest word brought death, swift and | inevitable. Hn was also law to him. self, and wha discover he might elect to do, those about him would be certain to approve with loudmouthed cordial ity such as princes love. The training which he had passed before he obtained to the throne was of a kind | which would most certainly ruin the strongest European character. From the time that he first suffered to set foot upon Mother Earth, with little shoes of beaten gold upon hie tiny l brown feet-which event was marked by feastings and public rejoicings- the young raja found himself hedged about by sycophants and courtiers, whose sole desire was to please him and to win his favor. Even in their daily speech they did homage. AS he grew older women who crammed the dirty little native Court vied with one another to lead inc child astray; the youths hattered him, prasing his poor skill in field sports, encouraging him n every act of brutality which he night be tempted to commit, and laud- ng him to the skies for his cruelty l md injustice. Never in all his life did l le sec ausht in the possession of an- ,ther, were it inanimate object, beast | if bearden, or comedy wife or daugh l CT, but his followers urged him to | eZe it for his own. Can there be l 'oom for wonder that with such an lp-bringing the young raja developed l nto something not unlike Nero? The | ,nly check which was ever exercised lpon young raja during his early ears was that applied by his father; { ,ut so long as the child did not come nto direct opposition to his sire upon l ome matter connected with the lat [ CTS intimate pleasures the royal pa- ] l