britain, siam, and malaya 1875 1885

Britain, Siam, and Malaya: 1875-1885Author(s): V. G. KiernanSource: The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 28, No. 1 (Mar., 1956), pp. 1-20Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1875783Accessed: 01/11/2008 00:42

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THE JOURNAL OF

M O D E R N H I S T O R Y

Volume XXVIII MARCH 1956 Number I

BRITAIN, SIAM, AND MALAYA: 1875-1885

V. G. KIERNAN

BETWEEN 1875 and 1885 Europe en- tered on its great modern period of empire building. Three already

established empires, British, French, and Russian, were expanding their limits, while two new prospectors, Germany and Italy, were appearing on the scene. Per- haps the most striking single episode was Britain's occupation of Egypt in 1882; but the biggest area of competition lay in the Far East. Here a whole series of criti- cal situations arose. There was a Russo- Chinese crisis in 1880, a Russo-British crisis in 1885. France, not yet the ally of Russia but equally the enemy of Britain, by entering Tonking involved herself in the undeclared war of 1883-85 with China, which at times threatened to involve Britain also.

In the vast region of Indochina the rivalry between Britain and France in- tensified as their spheres of influence crept closer to each other. France, established since 1862 at Saigon, was pushing out westward and northward from Co- chin-China and strengthening the pro- tectorates she had gained over Cambodia in 1867 and Annam in 1874. Britain's bases were, on the west, Rangoon with Lower Burma, annexed in 1852, and on the south, Singapore, which with its out-

posts of Malacca and Penang on the western coast of the Malay Peninsula made up the "Straits Settlements." Lo- cal wealth, such as the coal of Tonking and the tin of Malaya, lured them on, and in the background was the powerful magnet of the markets of south China. Neither rival could make a move without the other trying to forestall or counter it. Thus the British occupation of Upper Burma in 1886 was partly a reply to the French seizure of Tonking, partly a measure to keep French influence out of Mandalay. From then on Siam was left as the only buffer state between them, and the grave Anglo-French crisis of 1893 was not far away. But a keen competition for influence at Bangkok had been going on for years before this.

Siam was a country whose chances of survival were still uncertain when King Mongkut, who had started it on the road to modernization, was succeeded in 1868 by his son Chulalongkorn. Apart -from the domestic problems of an ill-knit and still largely feudal kingdom, there was the pressure of France on the undefined frontiers to the east, soon to be followed by British pressure, less menacing but still unwelcome, on the south. Here Sia- mese suzerainty extended far down into

1

2 V. G. KIERNAN

the Malay Peninsula with its congeries of small, feeble principalities. Where exactly it ended was hard to say, and when British ascendancy began to expand northward from Singapore friction was bound to ensue. In addition, British Burma like Siam extended downward into the peninsula; it incorporated the western coast as far as the narrowest point, the Kra Isthmus. If Siamese claims below this point should ever be eliminated, it would be possible for Ran- goon and Singapore to be joined by one continuous stretch of British territory-a result that was never in fact to be quite achieved.

Apart from British possessions, the peninsula as it was about 1870 can be divided for convenience into five zones. Beginning from the north, along the east coast adjoining the British territory and then across the whole width for some dis- tance south of Kra was a region composed of fiefs and provinces, such as Senggora, essentially Siamese in allegiance and for the most part in culture. Next on the south came two states of a mixed Siamese and Malay character but under Siamese tutelage: Kedah, with its dependancy of Perlis, on the west coast and Petani on the east. Thirdly, south- ward from Petani lay Kelantan and Trengganu, Malay states regarded by the Siamese as being likewise subject to them and by the British, or some of them, as independent. (In 1909 Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan, and Trengganu were to become, with Johore, the "Unfederated States" of British Malaya.) Fourthly came a group of four Malay principalities which could fairly be viewed as independent and could therefore be encroached upon by Britain without direct injury to Siam: on the east coast Pahang, and on the west Perak, Selangor, and Negri Sembilan. (These four were destined to

become in 1896 the "Federated States" of British Malaya.) Finally, at the bot- tom lay the big Malay state of Johore, which through its proximity to Singapore had been coming under a degree of Brit- ish influence since the fifties.

French colonial activity after 1871 may be seen as a struggle to make up for ground lost in Europe to the Germans. British activity may be seen as connected fundamentally with the trade depression that marked the closing decades of the century. From 1874 to 1880 a Conserva- tive government in England was moving toward the new philosophy of imperial- ism; its successor, the Gladstone ministry of 1880 to 1885, continued in the same direction, though with more hesitation because liberalism believed in principle in the peaceful coexistence of all nations great and small. Egypt provided the grand test; but there were many others, including the question of whether or not to advance in Malaya. New Guinea of- fered an analogous problem. Farther south in the Pacific the Australians were putting forward demands for annexations that Lord Derby, colonial secretary from 1882 to 1885, thought "mere rav- ing."' Gladstone agreed with him and put the brakes on the annexationists wherever he could. But the men on the spot were often too strong for the men in Downing Street. It was always the trump card of the former to show that some other power had designs on the area they wanted to take; by this means the most barren desert could be made irresistibly attractive. In the case of Malaya the "other power" was easy to find.

Much of the peninsula under its petty 1 P. KNAPLTJND, Gladstone's foreign policy (New

York, 1935), pp. 103-5, 107. Lord Derby, like Lord Carnarvon, had resigned from the Tory administration in 1878 as a protest against its adventurous foreign policy. One of his maxims was: "We don't want any more black men."

BRITAIN, SIAM, AND MALAYA: 1875-1885 3

chieftains was in a chronic state of dis- orderliness, easily depicted by critics as "anarchy" which it would be a service to civilization to step in and suppress. It was among the merchants of Singapore that a desire for action of this kind first awakened. When they agitated for ad- ministrative separation from India-this was granted in 1867-one of their griev- ances was that the Indian authorities showed too little concern about Malaya. By the seventies there was much talk of improving and expanding rubber cultiva- tion there.2 The "Heaven-sent Chinese coolie" was iiT-great supply,3 and it was no use for heaven to send him if there was no one's pocket but his own for him to fill. On the other hand, the business- men of Singapore were not proposing to invest in Malaya until their path was made straight for them by their government. They were looking for guarantees of profits without risks, such as their unpopular Governor Ord brusquely refused to give them in 1872. "British capi- talists declined to risk even small sums in the Malay States till years after the enterprise and industry of the Chinese had established and developed the mines, and the Government had, in their experi- mental plantations, proved the capabili- ties of the soil." 4

It was left then to off.cials rather than

merchants to take the initiative and set out to turn pipe dreams into realities. They were often keen young men like Frank Swettenham, who came out in 1870 as a cadet and ended thirty years later as governor, men with a genuine appreciation of the qualities of the Malay people, men who saw themselves as knights-errant ridding the land of feudal dragons.5 In his 1942 auto- biography, near the close of a long life, Swettenham maintained that the Ma- layan policy embarked on in 1874 was not inspired by mercantile greed but was a genuinely "new departure" aimed at the well-being of the native peoples.6 There was enough truth in this view for it to be held sincerely by such men at the time. Another of them, Major McNair, wrote in 1878: "It may be taken for granted that amongst the more enlight- ened Malays there is a disposition to wel- come the English."7

There were obvious evils in the old Malaya, some of which could be put an end to quickly by orderly administration. Nonetheless, belief in a "civilising mission" always has its dangers, and keen young officers at Singapore, like their cousins at Saigon, were not immune from the professional impulse to enlarge

2 See W. MAKEPEACE, G. E. BROOKE, and R. St. J. BRADDELL (eds.), One hundred years of Singapore (London, 1921), II, 91-96. Gutta-percha. had pre- ceded rubber and still drew much interest; see J. CAMERON, Our tropical possessions in Malayan India (London, 1865), pp. 157-60, and L. WRAY, "Gutta-producing trees," in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Straits Branch (hereafter cited as J.R.A.S.S.B.), XII (1884), 207. But tin and gold were still the chief attractions; cf. D. D. DALY, "Metalliferous formation of the peninsula," ibid., II (1878), 195.

3 Sir F. A. SWETTENHAM, British Malaya (Lon- don, 1906), p. 292.

4 Ibid., p. 262.

I Swettenham was assistant resident in Selangor (1874), secretary for Malay affairs (1877), resident in Selangor (1882), resident in Perak (1889), resident-general (1896), and governor of the Straits Set- tlements (1901). On the oppressiveness of the old Malay society see B. LASKER, Human bondage in southeast Asia (Chapel Hill, 1950), pp. 99-102; and for an American traveler's favorable impression of Selangor in the early days of British tutelage, W. T. HORNADAY, Two years in the jungle (London; 1885), p. 310.

6 Footprints in Malaya (London, 1942), pp. 30, 81; cf. Sir R. 0. WINSTEDT, Malaya and its history (London, 1950), pp. 64-65: complaints from Chinese merchants in the Straits, "not any grasping imperial- ism," brought about the new policy.

7F. McNAIR, Perak and the Malays (London, 1878), p. 415. He had gone to Perak as chief commissioner in 1875.

4 V. G. KIERNAN

their sphere of action and multiply the posts within their reach. Their ideas did not pass unchallenged. In 1878 Sir P. Benson Maxwell published his trenchant pamphlet, Our Malay conquests. He ar- gued that the alleged anarchy of the peninsula was being exaggerated in order to inspire in new governors of the Straits a sense of "a divine mission to improve the Malays." And what was the motive behind all this restless meddling? "To suppose that the country or Parliament desired accretions to our Empire from the mangroves of the Malays is too ab- surd to raise a smile": it was simply the cupidity of local interests and the ambi- tion of local officers that were at work.8

Stamford Raffles, who started Singa- pore on its career, had been interested in Malaya too, but this interest seemed to have disappeared with him, and for many decades knowledge of Malaya remained scanty and indistinct. "But," a later en- thusiast was to write, "though for a while in the background, the dream of Raffles, the purpose of his successors, was still alive. All that was required now was the man.... Good fortune sent Sir Andrew Clarke."9 This new governor, appointed in 1873, came with instructions from the colonial office to take into consideration the disorders prevailing in various of the states above Johore. The plan he adopted, in 1874, was to install residents-with not very clear advisory functions-in Negri Sembilan, Selangor, and Perak. His move was hailed with sat- isfaction by the Straits chamber of commerce, which declared that all the "so- called independent states" ought to be

8 Sir P. Benson MAXWELL, Our Malay conquests - (London, 1878), pp. 5, 7, 51, 109-11. He had been chief justice of the Straits Settlements. Cf. Lord Stanley of Alderley's protest against encroachments in Malaya in the house of lords, May 19, 1874 (Great Britain, 3 Hansard, CCXIX [1874], 467-78).

9 MAKEPEAcE et al., I, 97.

brought under British control; it was welcomed by the big Chinese merchants of the colony, a factor of some weight, as well as by the British.10

Clarke himself was no fire-eater. He was to express a strong distaste for the "useless, expensive and demoralising small wars" too often started by British administrators." Still, he had inserted the thin end of a long wedge. The French took due note. When he paid a visit to Bangkok, the French consul there, Gar- nier, suspected him of angling for a rich tin concession in Kelantan and Petani for an English company. "Sir Andrew Clarke," Garnier reported to Paris, "... a reussi, pendant son sejour de moins de deux ans a Singapore, a faire passer sous le protectorat de l'Angleterre, grace a des dissensions intestines habilement ex- ploitees, quatre petites provinces ma- laises jusque-la ind'pendantes."'2 To the governor of Cochin he wrote that the policy of Singapore was to swallow up the whole of Malaya.'3 Britain had now at all events put herself in contact with the Siamese sphere of influence, and Clarke's successor, Sir William Jervois, began by inviting T. G. Knox, British consul-general at Bangkok, to visit Singapore for a discussion of Malayan affairs.

Knox's report to London of this discussion reads oddly in the light of some of the official writings of a few years later. "As the Provinces tributary to Siam especially those on the East coast contrast favourably so far as good order and the material interest of their in-

10 SWETTENHAM, British Malaya, p. 102; Lieu- tenant-General Sir Andrew Clarke, The Straits Set- tlements ("British Empire Series," Vol. I [London, 1899]), pp. 453, 460'.

1CLARKE, pp. 451-52. 12 Archives des Affaires etrangeres, Paris, Direc-

tion politique, Siam, Vol. VII, No. 23, Consul Gar- nier to the Duc Decazes, Jan. 6, 1875.

13 Ibid., Garnier to Duperre, Mar. 25, 1875.


habitants are concerned with those now under British protection, His Excellency agreed with me that there was no neces- sity to interfere with them." Knox did no more than persuade the Siamese to alleviate some cramping trade monopo- lies in those regions.'4 Consul Garnier, who was keeping his eye on the Straits Times organ of the Singapore business community-and finding it alarmingly annexationist, misinterpreted Knox's journey: he took it for a move in a forward policy fully endorsed by London. He had been told, he said, by the foreign minister at Bangkok that Siam was fully aware of the British designs and deter- mined to resist them. Garnier was also collecting information about the east coast states and heard that some of them had been flattered by Jervois' coming to visit them early in his period of office. In Trengganu the chief merchant was the sultan; Senggora was ruled by a Siamese official, hereditary as Siamese officials tended to be, whom the British miscalled a "rajah." "Le Rajah de Kalantan, vieil- lard spirituel et d'humeur joviale, inter- dit a ses sujets le jeu et les combats de coqs."'5

In the area where British residents had been posted and where several of them were awkwardly situated among warring factions, Jervois seems to have been inclined to go further and faster than Clarke; and when Birch, the resident in Perak, was murdered near the end of 1875, Jervois sent a strong punitive expedition.'6 This affair too was noted by

14 Public Record Office, London, Foreign office records, Class 69, Siam, Vol. LXII (hereafter cited as F.O. 69/62), No. 31, Knox to Lord Derby, Aug. 24, 1875. Swettenham (British Malaya, p. 310) admits that Kedah at least was doing well. For an impression of its able ruler at that time see J. THOM- SON, The straits of Malacca, Indo-China and China (London, 1875), p. 26.

11 Garnier to Decazes, Aug. 14, 1875, loc. cit.

Garnier, and details forwarded to Paris.)7 The Siamese government, for its part, did not yet show much concern. When Knox requested on behalf of Singapore that the states tributary to Siam and bordering on Perak should be forbidden to supply arms or-he admitted that Britain had no right to ask for this-give refuge to Britain's enemies, he was informed that orders to this effect had already been issued by the kralahome.i8 This great dignitary, a kind of Lord High Everything Else, was minister of war and of marine, and had charge of the western and peninsular provinces; Knox was inclined to give him the credit for what he regarded as the satisfactory con- dition of the latter.

Jervois' action in Perak was not ap- proved by London; and after correspondence with him in 1876 Lord Car- narvon, the colonial secretary, refused to enlarge the policy of influencing the native states into one of occupying them. His final instructions were that residents must confine themselves to giving advice. At Singapore his attitude was felt to be absurdly academic: these instructions, the only ones ever issued from London on the duties of residents, amounted-as Swettenham was to complain-to telling a single man to reduce a turbulent state

160n the episode of Birch's death and the Perak war see: Great Britain, Parliamentary papers, 1875, Vol. LIII, Cmd. 1320; 1876, Vol. LIV, Cmd. 1505, Cmd. 1510, and Cmd. 1512; 1877, Vol. LXI, Cmnd. 1709, "Further correspondence as to the affairs of certain native states in the Malay peninsula." See also Fraser's magazine, Dec. 1875, "The Malay out- break" (unsigned; strongly interventionist); SWET- TENHAM, Footprints in Malaya, chaps. viii, ix; A. WRIGHT and T. H,. REID, The Malay peninsula (London, 1912), pp. 130 ff.; V. PURCELL, The Chi- nese in Malaya (London, 1948), chap. v.

'7 Garnier to Decazes, Nov. 27, 1875, lOc. cit., No. 34.

18 Knox to Derby, Dec. 28, 1875, F.O. 69/62, No. 41.

6 V. G. KIERNAN

to order by pure tact."9 In practice residents took the risk of a reprimand, and set out to acquire effective control. By 1880 Sir Richard Temple, a lately-retired governor of Bombay, was expecting that friction in Malaya between the "wild aborigines" and civilization might at any moment lead to a fresh call, as in 1875, for Indian troops,20 those maids-of-all- work of the empire. The zealous Swetten- ham was by this time convinced that further measures would have to be taken in Perak, where the sultan who had been set up was not toeing the line.21 Swetten- ham was thinking about Siamese as well as Malay complications, since he was de- veloping the view-which he always clung to later-that Siam's game was to make up for her eastern losses to France by pushing further south into Malaya, reckoning that Britain would not stop her for fear of France taking advantage of the situation.22 And French economic enterprise, usually more sluggish than British, showed symptoms of unwelcome activity. A French "scientific mission" was on the scene in 1881, and one of its members wrote with enthusiasm about Perak's minerals.23 Next year a French company began tin mining.

After Jervois there had been Sir C. F.

'9 SWETTENHAM, British Malaya, p. 214; cf. H. L. HALL, The colonial office. A history (London, 1937), pp. 240-43. See also in Parliamentary papers, 1878-79, Vol. LI, Cmd. 2410, "Instructions to the British residents and other papers relating to the protected Malay states." On the progress of these states tunder the residency system, which was soon felt in London to be producing excellent results, see ibid., 1881, Vol. LXV, Cmd. 3095, "Papers relating to the protected Malay states," and their continuations (1884, Cmd. 4192; 1887, Cmd. 4958; 1888, Cmd. 5566; 1889, Cmd. 5884).

20 Sir R. TJEMPLE, India in 1880 (Lonidon, 1880), p. 418.

21 "Some account of the independent states," in J.R.A.S.S.B., VI (1880), 161 fF.

22 SWETTENHAM, British Malaya, p. 324. 23 DE LA CROIX, in J.R.A.S.S.B., VII, 1.

Robinson, who never visited a Malay state during his tenure of office, and then Frederick Weld, who held office from 1880 to 1887. He proved himself the man Singapore had been waiting for. He de- voted himself essentially to the Malayan question and spent much time touring the peninsula. He would sometimes be kept waiting for hours to interview a ruler while the latter finished a gambling bout.24 This, and the gout he suffered from, may have helped to fan his ardor for a new dispensation in Malaya.

The first new issue that drew his at- tention concerned Kedah. This state, Perak's northern neighbor, had been in- vaded by the Siamese in 1821. At that time the East India Company, which earlier had obtained Penang Island from Kedah, did nothing to protect the state. Some had considered this a betrayal, but Siam seemed formidable in those far-off days: Anderson, the E.I.C. representative, spoke of Siam's ruler as a Louis XIV.25 Late in 1879 the rajah of Kedah died, and Siam at once asserted her suzerainty by sending certain relatives of the dead man to take charge of the administration. Out of regard apparently for the faint old British connection, the kralahome told Vice-Consul Newman at Bangkok that these individuals would consult with him on the affairs of Kedah, and explained that their function was to act as "protectors and advisers" to the state.26 Ths incident would seem to have

24 SWETTENHAM, Footprints in Malaya, p. 80; and see the copious extracts from Weld's diaries and letters in Alice M. FRASER (Lady Lovat), The Life of Sir Frederick Weld, a pioneer of empire (London, 1914).

26 Anderson's report is reproduced in a memoir of 1882 by Swettenham, "An account of the origin and progress of Siamese influence in the Malay peninsula 1785-1882," pp. 3-44, in F.O. 69/82.

26 Newman's correspondence on this affair with the kralahome and with the Straits government is in F.O. 69/75.


been in Weld's mind when he raised the whole question of peninsular policy in a dispatch to the colonial office in 1880. There were, he said, only three alterna- tives: to withdraw little by little from Malaya, to annex, or "gradually and gently" to acquire further influence. It was the third course that he advocated, and the colonial office agreed: "more inti- mate friendship" with the states was desirable, though no radical change should be pressed for, and there should be no interference unless the peace of Malaya were in jeopardy.27

By 1882 the time seemed ripe for another installment of friendship. Early in that year the ruler of Trengganu died; the nobles elected one of his sons to suc- ceed him and notified Bangkok, and a Siamese commissioner was sent to induct their nominee. This was regarded at Singapore as a challenge, and in March Swettenham, as secretary for Malay affairs, produced a classic memorandum, which was forwarded to London by Weld with high praise. Its argument may be reduced to a few basic points. First (though not most convincing) was the contention that the tribute offering of Bunga Mas [golden flowers] to Siam at various times by Kedah, Perak, Treng- ganu, Kelantan, and Petani did not prove vassalage on their part, for Siam herself used to make the same offering to China. Second, Siam had lately been taking measures to assert herself in the western states and would have to be watched in the eastern states also, especially in view of the Kra Canal project. Siamese power was now absolute in Kedah, with which until lately Britain had had direct

27 Lord Kimberley (colonial secretary 1880-82) to Weld, Confidential, Feb. 11, 1881, copy with colonial office to foreign office, June 30, 1881, F.O. 69/82. Weld's dispatch to Kimberley, dated 21 Oct., 1880, is printed in A. M. FRASER, pp. 312-18. Weld had lately visited Kedah.

relations instead of through the Siamese consul at Penang. Thirdly, the Malays feared and resented this Siamese pressure, though since the Kedah affair of 1821 they had distrusted England's power or will to protect them from it. Fourthly, Trengganu must be reckoned an independent state, as Governor Cave- nagh had laid down in 1862-63; because at that time Britain had made an armed demonstration there without reference to Siam. Governor Ord was in error in 1867 in viewing Trengganu as a vassal of Siam; the same applied to Kelantan and Petani.28

Weld asked W. G. Palgrave, who was now the agent and consul-general at Bangkok, to protest against Siam's interference in Trengganu, on the ground that the triennial offering from the state did not imply any political subordination.29 Palgrave made a visit to Singapore, where he was not much impressed either by what he heard or by Swettenham's memoir, which he criticized freely in two dispatches to the foreign office on April 26. The king, he said, had lately told him that Trengganu was "autonomous but dependent," its foreign relations being controlled by Siam. To act as Weld desired would deeply offend the Siamese. More important still, these Malay states were not strong enough to stand on their Own, and if Britain ousted Siamese authority she would have to protect and ultimately to annex them herself. She would thus be Dlaving the same game as

28 Swettenham's memoir (n. 25 above), and Weld to Kimberley, Confidential, Mar. 14, 1882, in F.O. 69/82. On Cavenagh's small bombardment of Treng- ganu, see WRIGIIT and RiDm, pp. 146-48; and on the panic caused by it at Bangkok, M. M. LANDON,

Anna and the king of Siam (New York, 1943), chap. xvii. French schemes for a canal across the Kra Isthmus were among the complications of this period which there is no space here to discuss.

29 Palgrave to Lord Granville (foreign secretary 1880-85), Apr. 26, 1882, F.O. 69/81, No. 30.

8 V. G. KIERNAN

France-the press of Saigon was clamor- ous, and Consul Harmand at Bangkok was using "a tone of menacing dictator- ship"- and throwing away the chance of gaining Siam's confidence.30 These ideas, passed on by the foreign office to Lord Kimberley at the colonial office, carried conviction. Weld was informed that no protest was to be made about Trengganu, and nothing was to be done to disturb good relations with Siam.3"

Bunga Mas continued to find its way from Trengganu to Bangkok. It expressed a form of political relationship which had many analogies in the Far East-for instance in the connection between Korea and China-but which did not lend itself to Western modes of clas- sification. Meanwhile on the British side the incident had caused some unpleasant- ness because Palgrave's language when he was at Singapore left Weld laboring under the belief that they were in perfect accord, and feelings were strained when this proved to be a delusion. In Decem- ber Palgrave was writing privately to an acquaintance in the foreign office, with an aside from Tennyson about "venom- ous worms": "Ever since I frustrated Sir F. Weld's attempt on Tringannu, he and his subordinates . .. have let go by no opportunity of annoying me." The foreign office thought Palgrave to blame and censured the disrespectful tone of some of his letters to Weld;32 Palgrave was a person notoriously erratic and awkward to deal with.

30 Palgrave to Granville, F.O. 69/81, No. 30; and No. 31, Confidential, Apr. 26, 1882. Visits to Singa- pore were also made by several Siamese princes about this time (FRASER, pp. 336-42).

31 Kimberley to Weld, Confidential, June 30, 1882; copy with C.O. to F.O., June 30, 1882, F.O. 69/82.

32 Weld to Kimberley, Confidential, Aug. 18, 1882; copy with C.O. to F.O., Oct. 6, 1882, F.O. 69/82; Palgrave to Jervoise, Dec. 22, 1882, ibid.; Granville to Palgrave, Nov. 14, 1882, F.O. 69/80, No. 79.

By this time a fresh and much more complicated and- vexatious issue had arisen, that of the Perak boundary claim.

Perak, first assisted by Britain in 1826, was no sooner brought under British tutelage in 1874 than it began asking for help in recovering a piece of territory lost, it alleged, through a gradual drifting across the frontier of people from the neighboring state of Reman, which was part of Petani and was under Siam.33 At first this claim had not been taken very seriously at Singapore. It was incapable of verification, for, though immense pains were later to be lavished on archae- ological evidence, the early boundaries of the Malay states were not fixed lines; it would be as easy to draw maps of the sea's waves. By 1882 the atmosphere had changed, and Singapore now felt a call to champion the rights of Perak-in much the same way as Saigon was championing the shadowy claims of Cambodia on the eastern marches of Siam. Perak's revenue and population were rapidly expanding under British protection, and in the disputed territory were valuable tin mines, first opened it was said by a Malay of Perak and since then the cause of much faction-fighting, largely among Chinese miners. There was also gold; and some at Singapore considered that to support the Perak claim would be the simplest way of getting at these minerals.34

When, therefore, in April 1882 the rajah regent of Perak put the boundary claim before Hugh Low, the distin- guished resident from 1877 to 1889, and

33 SWETTENHAM, British Malaya, pp. 313-14. As originally understood at London the Perak complaint was that Siam had never withdrawn as far as she ought to have done under the treaty of 1826: Granville to Palgrave, Aug. 22, 1882, F.O. 69/80, No. 51.

34 W. E. MAXWELL, "Journey on foot to the Patani frontier in 1876," in J.R.A.S.S.B., IX (1882), 1-69.


Low took up the matter with alacrity, Governor Weld at once wrote to the colonial office requesting that tactful representations be made at Bangkok.35 The foreign office was approached in turn, and in August it instructed Palgrave, in cautious terms, to smooth out the dispute and ascertain what frontier line Siam claimed. At the same time the foreign office admitted that the encroachments alleged by Perak seemed to be antique and time-honored.36

Palgrave was sailing for home in Janu- ary 1883, enfeebled in health and under an official clkbud, leaving in charge the staid old Vice-Consul Newman; and during this year the Perak case made little headway. Newman, who was primed with data by Weld, reported that Siam was trumping up a counterclaim along the Krian River on behalf of her protege Kedah against Perak. The king told him in confidence, during an elephant drive, that he meant to give way over the issue, but that he would have to move carefully for fear of encouraging similar demands from the French. Newman tried to meet the difficulty by suggesting arbitration, with the governor of the Straits as um- pire; not unnaturally the Siamese rejected this as "a most dangerous precedent." Later on, Bangkok announced its intention of sending a commission, including an English employee named McCarthy, to survey the ground.37 An- other surveyor, Mr. Drew, was being dis- patched by Low to find a route for a highway to "tap the disputed territory" when recovered. Drew set off with thirty porters through unknown labyrinths, where he saw streams "simply a mass of

35Weld to Kimberley, No. 222, June 3, 1882; copy with C.O. to F.O., July 26, 1882, F.O. 69/82.

36 Granville to Palgrave, Aug. 22, 1882, F.O. 69/80, No. 51.

87 Newman to Granville, June 13, 1883, F.O. 69/84, No. 49.

tin.""8 Even the canny investors at Singapore must have pricked up their ears at this.

With 1884, feelings began to be more seriously ruffled. In January the foreign minister of Siam rejected Perak's claims in toto; they amounted by now to 2,300 square miles, and would enlarge Perak by one third.89 Weld complained loudly, though he told Perak not to try to re- occupy the area unless Siam's actions should make this necessary. Low prepared a memorandum, urging that the area had been so misgoverned that only a bare thousand souls remained in it. He and a member of the ruling family were about to make a pilgrimage to London with their evidence.4" Siam brought up a new countercharge, that it was really Perak subjects who were encroaching on tin mines in Reman.4' Weld, denying this, remarked to the colonial office that Siamese arguments must be received with skepticism, as they had never had a resident officer in the area. "I lay no stress at all," he added significantly, "on the fact that it is rumoured that the Siamese have spent money with a view to create disturbances in Perak through Chinese societies." On March 21 he forwarded another ponderous broadside from Low and emphasized the "very great importance" of the question.42 He had brought out an eminent cartogra- pher, De Morgan-a Frenchman, rather curiously-to map the Perak valley.

38 A. T. DREW, "Exploring expedition," J.R.A.S.S.B., XIX (1887), 105 ff.

3g Newman to Granville, Jan. 24, 1884, F.O. 69/89, No. 5.

40 Weld to Satow (British agent at Bangkok), Mar. 11, 1884; copy with Satow to Granville, Mar. 20J 1884, F.O. 69/89, No. 8.

41 Satow to Granville, Mar. 20, 1884, F.O. 69/89, No. 9.

e Weld to Derby, Mar. 10, 1884, No. 91, and Mar. 21, 1884, No. 103; copies with C.O. to F.O., Apr. 17 and 26, 1884, F.O. 69/92.

10 V. G. KIERNAN

Weld himself was going to England, leaving his colonial secretary. C. C. Smith, as acting governor. On June 8 he conferred at the foreign office with two senior permanent officials: Sir Julian Pauncefote, permanent under-secretary, and Philip Currie, assistant under-secretary, who was being put in charge of the case.43 A suggestion came up that a little ready cash might help to adjust things- "Perak can pay a handsome sum to grease the Siamese wheels in yielding their claim."44 These confabulations were broken in upon in July by a dispatch from the new agent at Bangkok, Ernest Satow. The latter was dubious as to whether Perak's losses could be shown to have taken place since 1826, the date of the Anglo-Siamese treaty relating to Perak. Was it even safe, he asked, to go back beyond 1874? Would not such "shadowy" and "antiquated" claims stimulate French claims in the name of Cambodia, and would they not seem to the Siamese to herald the partition of their country?45 To these queries the colonial office rejoined that it could see no connection between its policy and French revendications but added that it did not seek extreme measures and that Perak would pay full compensation.A6

While the Bangkok agency was advo-

43 Note from Pauncefote to Currie, July 15, 1884, F.O. 69/92. Sir Cecil Smith succeeded Weld as governor in 1887.

44 Memorandum by the Hon. R. H. Meade (assistant under-secretary at the C.O.), undated, F.O. 69/92. Cash compensation to Siam had been discussed first in 1883 by Low and Weld.

46 Satow to Granville, June 9, 1884, F.O. 69/89, No. 35; copy sent with F.O. to C.O., Immediate and Confidential, July 23, 1884, F.O. 69/92. Cf. Satow's letter to Weld of June 21, 1884, remarking that French claims in the name of Cambodia had led him to study the Perak claim afresh: "I cannot help coming to the conclusion that there is a close parallel between the two cases" (Public Record Office, Class P.R.O., No. 30/33, the private papers of Sir Ernest Satow, Part 2 [hereafter cited as P.R.O. 30/33 (2)]). Satow was promoted to minister in 1885.

cating the same line as earlier, the advo- cacy of the man now in charge there was bound to have much greater weight than that of the irresponsible and unbearable Palgrave. Satow reached Bangkok on March 6, fresh from a remarkable period of service in Japan. He had especially applied for this new post, though inclined to regret responsibilities that partly cut him off from his darling studies.47 In his new work Malayan complexities ap- pealed to him more than anything else, and he was exactly the right man to cope with them.

He had leisure to master their details, because the Perak case was moving slug- gishly. Low reached London and on Au- gust 9 conferred with the Siamese minister, whom he found evasive.48 He filled in his time by composing fresh memoranda, full of antiquarian zeal, in a handwriting as impenetrable as a Malay jungle. Weld, now also in England, wrote in Oc- tober from Yorkshire to Lord Derby at the colonial office: "I attach very great importance to this question, as the Ma- lays look upon it as a test of our power and willingness to protect them, and the measure of our influence must greatly de- pend upon its solution."49 At the foreign office maps and documents were being assiduously compiled. Satow's views, however, continued to develop in the contrary direction; and in December after a visit to Singapore he wrote privately to Currie:

I could see that generally among the colonial officials there is a disposition to dispute the rights of Siam to the Malay peninsula, which they justify by the apprehensions they have of

46 CO. to F.O., Immediate and Confidential, July 25, 1884, F.O. 69/92.

47 B. M. ALLEN, Right Hon. Sir Ernest Satow; a memoir (London, 1933), p. 114.

48 Memo by Low, and Low to Currie, Sept. 22, 1884, F.O. 69/93.

49 Weld to Derby, Oct. 1884, F.O. 69/93.


French encroachments there. Sir F. Weld in par- ticular thinks the French are hankering after Siam proper, and fears that when they have swallowed her up, they will forestall us in the Peninsula. However, from all I have read and heard, I think that France does not contem- plate annexing the valley of the Menam. They always recognise that our interests are too strong here. What they do want is to take the valley of the Mekong.... I consequently believe Sir F. Weld's apprehensions to be un- founded, at least as far as the present is concerned, and that we need be in no great hurry to snatch at our share of the spoils. It is more important I venture to think that we should en- deavour to inspire Siam with confidence in our intentions. If the policy is to keep her as a buffer between ourselves and Asiatic France, it would be suicidal to nibble at her territory or weaken her prestige with her tributaries. I find Singa- pore disposed to contest the Suzerainty of Siam over Kelantan and Trengganu in the Malay Peninsula, and may perhaps have to write of- ficially, if the representations I have privately made to the Acting Governor and Colonial Secretary have no effect.50

Singapore was unrepentant. Another of its side lines at present was Pahang, where Cecil Smith and Swettenham were trying to get the ruler to swallow a treaty with Britain.5' They had made a concession to Siam this year by agreeing not to let gunpowder be exported to Siamese territory without license from the Sia- mese consul; now, asserting once more that Trengganu was independent, they decided that gunpowder could be sold to that state without restriction. Satow found that the Siamese were "sore" about this, and while he was at Singapore he fruitlessly urged the authorities to give way over this issue. After his return, King Chulalongkorn's private secretary remarked to Satow that "Mr. Smith and

'0 Satow to Currie, Dec. 23, 1884, F.O. 69/90.

61 The ruler of this state was not brought into line until 1887; see text of agreement of Oct. 8, 1887, in Parliamentary papers, 1888, Vol. LXXIII, Cmd. 5352, and W. LINEHAM, "History of Pahang," in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Malayan Branch, Vol. XIV (1936), Part 2, pp. 102-57.

some of the members of council (at Singapore) want to turn us out of the Malay peninsula." Thereupon he sent off another long private letter to Currie. He wrote:

I am not far wrong when I say that Sir F. Weld looks to the ultimate absorption of Siam by France, and thinks it would be politic to forestall them in any possible designs on the Malay States of Siam; that we ought in fact to secure the reversion of that part of the inheritance. For my own part I do not believe the French would touch Bangkok if they were not provoked. Siam proper they will keep their hands off, unless they want to quarrel seriously. Our trade here and that of the Germans is very large. Much larger than what the Annual Re- turns show, owing to the systematic underrating of imports. I see that Lord Kimberley wrote very strongly to Singapore in former years, dis- approving of attempts at further extension, but despatches are easily forgotten, and they want a reminder down in the Straits. Colonial people all over the world seem to be bitten with the mania of annexing at the expense of the British taxpayer, and even the general at Hongkong took an opportunity the other day when Sir Geo. Bowen was away of advising the annexation of a good slice behind Hongkong.52

Next day, on the twenty-third of Jan- uary 1885, Satow put his views into an official dispatch by agreement with Smith who was also writing to London about gunpowder and Trengganu, so that the government could have both sides of the case before it. Smith's view of it was simple. Did we want to see Siamese influence in Malaya strength- ened or did we not? "In the cause of hu- manity and good order in the Peninsula, it will be prudent to weaken and not

52Satow to Currie, Jan. 22, 1885, F.O. 69/99. Lord Kimberley had been colonial secretary in 1870- 74 as well as 1880-82. Cf. Satow's remark in a later dispatch about the debates of the Singapore legisla- tive council being published in the local press and "eagerly scrutinized by those members of the Sia- mese government who are acquainted with the Eng- lish language, in order to discover anything that may appear to affect the interests of the King" (Satow to Salisbury, Feb. 22, 1887, Confidential, F.O. 69/115, No. 18).

12 V. G. KIERNAN

strengthen that influence." Siamese com- missioners were "corrupt to the highest degree," and sooner or later their rule must provoke revolts. He enclosed a letter from a subordinate, which made the point that steamships were enabling Siam to intermeddle in Malayan affairs more frequently than in earlier days.53

Satow, whom Smith had supplied with a copy of his dispatch, wrote: "I under- stand that it is not desired by Her Ma- jesty's Indian Government that the frontiers of Her Majesty's Indian Em- pire should become coterminous with those of French Indo-China and that consequently the maintenance of Siam as an independent power is of paramount importance, in comparison with the extension of British influence over the Ma- lay States intervening between Province Wellesley and Lower Burmah. The latter operation would indeed alone become feasible by the disruption of the Siamese Kingdom, with which certain of these States are absolutely incorporated." If Siam was to survive she must consolidate her influence over her dependencies; this she could not do unless Britain took up a benevolent attitude. Siamese leaders, naturally supposing the policy of Singa- pore to be the policy of London, had grown distrustful; particularly the anti- progressive wing lately headed by the former regent. The king himself was still sound, but even in his entourage sus- picion of Britain was rife. Smith ap- peared to think that motives of human- ity required the British to take charge of Trengganu: the same excellent motives might very well prescribe the taking over of Siam altogether. But the British government, "I venture to think, desire rather to see Siam strong, united and in-

63 Satow to Granville, Confidential, Jan. 23, 1885, with copy of Smith's dispatch, F.O. 69/99, No. 13; cf. Smith to Satow, private, Jan. 5, 1885, P.R.O. 30/33 (2).

dependent. This is a policy which admits of no half-measures. It cannot be success- fully carried out by supporting Siam in one direction and by endeavouring at the same time to undermine her in another." Many Siamese functionaries in Malaya might indeed have been corrupt, but they had all been underlings of the former regent, and if the royal reforms in Siam prospered, administration in the peninsular provinces also would improve. Kelantan and Trengganu, he ended by repeating once more, belonged to Siam.54

Whilst the rival theses were on their way to London, the Siamese minister there lodged a complaint about the gunpowder business and said that a great quantity of powder was finding its way through the Petani hills, and into Pa- hang, for no good purposes.55 Bangkok followed this up at the end of February by announcing that it meant to forbid, as it was authorized by treaty to do, all imports of arms and powder into Siam. England did not relish this reprisal but did not try to obstruct it;56 and when Satow's dispatch arrived, a suitable importance was attached to it, as the minutes on it show, and consultation was opened with other departments. A fresh blast of the Singapore trumpet was sounded by Weld (who had now reached, Dorset) in a letter of March 12 to the colonial office. He insisted that in 1821 by failing to protect Kedah Britain had acted "weakly and I might almost say

"Ibid.; cf. Satow to D. M. Wallace, private secretary to the governor-general of India, Mar. 14, 1885: "I want Siam to feel that she is quite safe on the side of Great Britain.... I look on Siam as an important outwork, and consider it would be dis- astrous to withdraw within our own lines and to give up the hope of defending her" (P.R.O. 30/33 [2]).

55 H. R. H. Prince Krom Mun Naresrajawararid- hi (who had succeeded Prince Prisdang at London at the end of 1883) to Granville, Feb. 4, 1885, F.O. 69/102. He was one of the king's many brothers.

6Satow to Granville, Feb. 28, 1885, F.O. 69/99, No. 27, and June 16, 1885, F.O. 69/100, No. 56.


treacherously," and unwisely also, for the omission was still remembered and condemned by Malay opinion. If Britain failed now to protect Perak for fear of driving Siam into the arms of France, it would be the same over again. The In- dian empire was drifting into the same state as the continental powers, always armed to the teeth yet always in dread of attack; keen vigilance was necessary. Three years before, he recalled, he had pointed to movements of French and Russian warships in Malayan waters, which were calculated to impress native opinion. Britain must establish such a grip on the peninsula that the French could not dream of dislodging it even if they absorbed Siam. Of what use was it to talk of propping up Siam? Britain could do nothing for Siam unless by "making it an Eastern Afghanistan, and further, by going to war, if necessary," to protect it. Failing that, it was inconceiv- able that Siam, and whatever Siam might have held on to in the peninsula, should not fall under France. "Moreover, in 'backing' Siam, we are backing one of the weakest, and, in its outlying Malay Provinces at least, one of the most corrupt, tyrannical and profligate Governments in the world." To give way over Perak, he wound up, would lose Britain the respect of Siamese as well as of Malays; they would have more regard for French vigor than for British gentleness. "Be just and firm," was his policy with backward peoples. "Such is the result of my study of native races."57 (He had studied them chiefly during his dealings, military and otherwise, with the Maoris, while minister for native affairs in New Zealand.)

Weld did not stand alone. Lord Kim- berley, consulted about his old statement

E7 Weld to Derby, Mar. 12, 1885; copy with C.O. to F.O., Confidential, Mar. 19, 1885, F.O. 69/103. "Just and firm'} recurs in the eulogy of Weld in G. H. Scholefield's A dictionary of New Zealand biography.

of the classical policy, minuted: "When I wrote against further annexations the French did not threaten Siam. Speaking generally I should now be disposed to argue with Sir F. Weld and to secure the reversion. I have no faith in Siam being kept long out of French hands." And in April he wrote formally on behalf of the India office that, while appreciating the advantage of keeping Siam independent, he judged it inexpedient to strengthen the Siamese connection with Malaya. He would not offend Bangkok just now by upsetting the status quo, but on the whole he was on the side of Singapore.58

Five days later was received a confidential report on Indo-China for which the foreign office had asked Holt Hallett, a fellow-explorer of the well-known traveler (and all-round annexationist) A. R. Colquhoun. Hallett gave it as his opinion that the four Malay states still tributary to Siam could not expect any real help from her. "Annexation is becoming a rage in this part of the world, and any day these States might be annexed by Germany or France." If Britain took them it would be usefully linking up British Burma with the Straits and thwarting the French hope of interposing a Kra Canal. At present they were "having their fetters tightened by Siam," if only "gradually and slyly." Hallett was surveying much wider horizons than these. He proposed that England should dictate a general partition of Indo-China on lines that would give it nine million new subjects and France only one and a half millions-"It is better to keep the possible French recruiting-ground in Indo-China as small as we can." Thus the far eastern armies of Russia and France would be kept apart; the war, in- evitable if France attacked Upper Bur-

58 Minute by Kimberley (secretary for India, 1882-85), Mar. 25, 1885, F.O. 69/99; and India office to foreign office, Apr. 15, 1885, F.O. 69/103.

14 V. G. KIERNAN

ma, would be averted; and Britain would be left with the only good route into South China.

Hallett's call was, in short, for "a firm and complete policy." For such policies when practiced by other countries he had quite a different eye. "Let us hope for the sake of all parties," he told the London chamber of commerce, "that the insane earth-hunger of the French in this part of the world will now be quelled, and a deaf ear turned to the misleading songs of the official sirens of French Cochin-China."59 It was a good instance of the inability of empire builders to see themselves as they saw one another.

On May 6 the colonial office ranged itself alongside of the India office, and the foreign office then formulated its de- cisions in a dispatch to Satow of May 25.60 It was desirable, it laid down, to keep Siam independent and friendly, but Britain in view of her "special interests" in the peninsula could not allow the connection between Siam and any Malay state to strengthen itself; and while there was no intention at present of disturbing the status quo, the program of Weld and Smith was the one to be pursued.

Controversy might now have been ex- pected to end; but Satow, though iso- lated, was undaunted, and when a copy of Weld's letter of March was sent to him he answered it in a lengthy and mas- terly commentary which shows his qualities at their best.

It was, he began by pointing out, a delusion to describe everything between British Burma and the Straits as "Ma- lay." North of Satun, along the west coast, the population was more Chinese than anything else; on the east it was

59 Report, and copy of speech (printed in Chacm- ber of commerce journal, Supplement of May 5, 1885), in F.O. 69/103.

60 C,O, to F.O., May 6, 1885, F.O. 69/103; Granville to Satow, May 25, 1885, F.O. 69/98.

Siamese as far down as Ligor. That the non-Malay states of those regions, at any rate, were subject to Bangkok was per- fectly certain. Weld was anxious to have enough control over the peninsula to be able to warn off the French if they took Siam. But since part of Siam proper lay in the peninsula to keep out the French in that case nothing less than a full protectorate would be needed. To gain this, Britain would have to do what France was suspected of meaning to do. "It is we who are to inaugurate a policy, the only result of which will be the partition of Siam." The claims made on behalf of Perak would not meet Britain's alleged need for security: they left hundreds of miles of the northern peninsula still unaccounted for. Those miles could not be covered without a good deal of local fighting. Even Britain's present status in Perak had required "a little war." "Our past experience must lead us to believe that English administration is not every- where welcomed with enthusiasm by the native inhabitants. If we have been so fortunate as to obtain their consent in the first instance by pacific methods, we have always had to encounter their armed resistance afterwards, to conquer their obedience and to chastise them sorely before they have accepted the good we intended for them.'' Besides all this, it would be an error to suppose that Siam would "quietly submit to see some of her subjects transferred to another power." And every step taken would be followed by a step on the part of France, until the two nations fell into a race for territory. Satow went on:

For my part, if this thing is to be done at all, I see no reason why we should content ourselves with the Peninsula, which beyond its tin de- posits possesses no resources of importance.. Its population is so small that without the influx of a large number of Chinese, the country can never be properly developed. Experience teaches


us that the peopling of tropical lands under our rule by Chinese tends more to the enrichment of the Yellow Races than to the advantage of the European.. The delta of the Menam river, on the other hand, extending for hundreds of miles in every direction round Bangkok, is ex- tremely fertile and thickly populated, is capable of yielding an enormous surplus of rice, to say nothing of other produce, and the river itself is the highway by which the teak-rafts of the north are floated down to the sea.... If we are to look forward to a division of Siam and her subject territories between England and France, why should we abandon the most valuable portion to our rivals, and allow our extensive trade to be exposed to the burdens which would be imposed on it by the commercial jealousy of another nation? The difficulty of annexing the Menam valley as well as the Peninsula would not be much greater than that of the latter alone, and the Northern Laos states would also become ours by natural gravitation. We should thus be making a really valuable acquisition, instead of abandoning to others the profitable portion of the carcass, while reserving to ourselves nothing but the offal.

He made it clear that he was not proposing, as Weld seemed to think, a Brit- ish guarantee of Siam. There could be no guaranteeing unknown frontiers, and to embark on any such plan would make annexation only a question of time. "The Siamese should not, in my opinion, be led to expect from us more than a merely moral support in their relations with other foreign powers. The King should learn that 'every herring must hang by its own head,' and I have reason to believe that he is contented to rely on his own efforts." France, for her part, would long be occupied in Tonking. What was requisite was simply that Britain should gain the confidence of the Siamese government, keep in touch through it with the progress of French designs, and so be always ready for action. "The policy I advocate is that of carefully avoiding any step that might lead the King to suspect that we desire to deprive him of territory , . , and in this the hearty con-

currence of the officials of British Bur- mah and the Straits Settlements is necessary. "61

Weld replied to this in his turn, pro- testing with a shade of unreality that Satow was only looking at the Perak claim from the standpoint of utility, he of justice. To keep the French off Ma- laya, he maintained, no full protectorate would be required. They would never have let Britain meddle in Tonking, where they had much less than a protectorate to justify them. And was it really the case that so much resistance need be feared from the natives we were going to protect? "It is true that some years ago we had a 'little war' in Perak. but that was when the Malays did not know us." Tact and care should no doubt be practiced, but after all the British had their Sikhs and their mountain guns to fall back on. Satow, again, was unfairly contrasting the material possibilities of Siam and Malaya: Perak alone had a bigger trade than all Siam.62 Weld received from Smith a paper composed by the Straits attorney-general, Hon. T. Braddell, who had been out since 1843. Senggora, according to Braddell, might indeed be reckoned a Siamese province, and Petani had lately been reduced to one. There Siamese influence should end; and the best plan would be a partition into -two spheres, leaving all the purely Malay regions of the peninsula to Brit- ain.63 At Singapore, Smith was earmark- ing $2,500.00 in next year's budget for exploring unknown Malaya.64

61 Satow, memo on the Malayan question, June 20, 1885, F.O. 69/103.

62Memo on the foregoing, with C.O. to F.O., Pressing, Oct. 29, 1885, F.O. 69/104.

63 Braddell to Swettenham, Mar. 12, 1885; with C.O. to F.O., July 8, 1885, F.O. 69/104.

64 Smith to Colonel Stanley (colonial secretary), Confidential, Sept. 30, 1885; copy with C.O. to F.O., Nov. 10,1885, F.O. 69/104.

16 V. G. KIERNAN

While the controversy raged, there was still the Perak boundary case to add its complications. Perak State, with British support, was still pressing for restitution of the territory said to have been taken from it by Siamese-protected Reman. On April 8 the foreign office in London wrote to Prince Nares, the Sia- mese minister, that it was desirous of a friendly settlement as soon as might be; on July 10 he had an interview with Lord Salisbury, who had lately replaced Lord Granville as foreign secretary.65 On Au- gust 11 the colonial office expressed the opinion that it was time to insist: Siam must give up the territory, but by way of compensation for it, since it had been occupied for so long by her vassal Reman, Perak should offer to pay a lump sum. Nares was accordingly invited to discuss with Low, the Perak resident who had come to England to press the matter, the amount of money that Siam might accept from Perak on behalf of Reman in return for the restitution of the disputed territory.66 Four days later Low called on the prince, whom he found not at all disposed to have matters thus unceremoni- ously settled. An English employee of the legation, Edgecumbe, gave Low to un- derstand that Siam was fearful lest French encroachments should follow and would like a quid pro quo in the shape of a promise of British support.67

Currie, the foreign office man in charge of the case, reflected that Nares would apparently have to be pressed hard and made to realize thatBritain intended to get what it wanted: "The Siamese have got very presumptuous of late and Mr. Ver-

65 Granville to Prince Nares, Apr. 8, 1885, F.O. 69/102; memo by Nares, ibid.

66 C.O. to F.O., Aug. 11, 1885, F.O. 69/104; Salis- bury to Nares, Aug. 22, 1885, F.O. 69/102.

67 Note by W. A. C. [Cockerell], Aug. 26, 1885, F.O. 69/104.

ney their English Secretary who is a silly mischievous fellow encourages them. On the whole I think a little bullying would do them good." Yet now when it came to the point, he could not help wondering whether the issue was important enough to warrant a quarrel with Siam that would afford France so useful a precedent. What decided him in favor of taking the risk was the shibboleth of prestige. Weld had persuaded a good many people that in taking up Perak's case Britain had staked her prestige in the peninsula: there could be no drawing back.68

Nares went on stonewalling; and at Bangkok, when the foreign minister Prince Devawongse was asked to accept a cash payment from Perak and restore the territory claimed by the latter, "His Royal Highness answered that they would not be able to consent to the pro- posal as it would be a bad example to France." Satow tried to counter this by remarking that Kergaradec, who was now the French representative at Bang- kok, disclaimed any designs on Siamese territory; to which Devawongse rejoined that the ministry of the moment in Paris might have no evil designs, but things might easily change again.69 Low went on trying to shake up Nares. and Currie went on calling for action: he had adopted Weld's conviction that the Sia- mese would respect Britain more if it took a firm line, and he wanted Lord Salisbury to tell Nares that an immediate settlement was essential if good relations were to be preserved.70

68Memo by Currie, Aug. 27, 1885, F.O. 69/104.

69 Nares to Salisbury, Sept. 30, 1885, F.O. 69/102; Satow to Salisbury, Oct. 3, 1885, F.O. 69/100, No. 86.

70 Low to Currie, Oct. 16, 1885, F.O. 69/104; minute by Currie on enclosures with C.O. to F.O., Oct. 29, 1885, KO. 69/104.


Salisbury declined this advice, pre- ferring to wait and see how the new French government would behave over Malaya. He had already refused to take Currie's talk of prestige very seriously, showing a robust indifference to what the "wild aborigines" of Malaya might think about Britain. Also, he had foreseen ticklish diplomatic encounters with the French in Upper Burma and wanted to get these cleared out of the way rather than "fight over this bit of desert.""7 His attitude was reinforced in September by a remarkable change of front on the part of the Indiad ofice. Lord Randolph Churchill, who was now in the saddle there, had been putting himself abreast of affairs and while doing so had come across Satow's memorandum of June 20 and been deeply impressed by it. He asked the foreign office to address an in- quiry to the India office as to whether its views were the same as before the fall of the Liberal ministry iD June. He then formally pronounced that he considered Satow to be right and that Siam ought to be given a general support and not threatened with any loss of territory.72

Next the foreign office inquired from the colonial office whether it still wished to insist about Perak. Colonel Stanley, the new minister, stood by the former line, though he added-without explain- ing how it was to be done-that the Perak problem ought to be kept apart from the general'question of Malayan policy.73 But Smith at Singapore was quick to realize how much things had

71 Minutes by Salisbury on those of Currie re- ferred to above. In April 1885 the expansionist French government headed by Jules Ferry fell, owing to a reverse in Tonking, and the more pacific Freycinet became foreign minister.

72I.O. to F.O., Confidential, Sept. 17, 1885, F.O. 69/104.

73 C.O. to F.O., Pressing, Oct. 29, 1885, F.O. 69/104.

altered: "The game is up," he commented philosophically, "and the Boundary question is one of those cases of which the present generation of officials will hear nothing further."74 Smith was being transferred to Ceylon; Weld was less ready to admit defeat. He returned to his post late in 1885, and in February 1886 visited Perak and had one of his fits of gout. On March 14 when he interviewed the kralahome, who was also on a visit to the peninsula, Weld complained loudly about alleged ill-treatment of some Perak traders.75 He had much to say in his dispatches about these and other Siamese "outrages," which he said might provoke a Malay rising.76 He maintained that Britain had been put in "a most contemptible position," and that the Perak question must not be allowed to slumber.77

By this time the Liberals had returned to power. The colonial office, now headed by Lord Granville, rejected Weld's sug- gestions of active measures and warned him to "observe the utmost discretion."78

74Smith to Satow, Private, Oct. 30,1885, P.R.O. 30/33 (2).

71 C.O. to F.O., Apr. 26, 1886, F.O. 69/112, en- closes Weld's report of the interview, dated Mar. 17, 1886, and C.O. memoranda on it. Satow pointed out that the kralahome was inclined to be obstructive in peninsular matters because he was on bad terms with the king and disliked the royal policy of cen- tralization (Satow to Weld, Nov. 14, 1885, P.R.O. 30/33 [2]).

76 Weld to E. H. Trench, acting charg6 at Bang- kok, Confidential, Mar. 17, 1886, P.R.O. 30/33 (2). Some of Weld's letters of this year are printed in A. M. Fraser (pp. 383-87). An instance of how far he carried his conviction of Siamese villainy was his belief that they poisoned first the son of the rajah of Reman, and then the old rajah himself, for being too friendly to the British; see Weld to Newman, Dec. 31, 1883, and Weld to Satow, Jan. 24, 1887, in P.R.O. 30/33 (2).

77 Weld to Satow, Private, Mar. 25, 1886, P.R.O. 30/33 (2).

78 Granville to Weld, Confidential, Apr. 30, 1886; copy with C.O. to F.O., May 19, 1886, F.O. 69/112.

18 V. G. KIERNAN

It did however propose to take up the Perak claim afresh, and, when the foreign office showed reluctance, emphasized that its general opinion on the case was still unchanged.79 Part of the foreign office's unwillingness to go further must have been inspired by distrust of Weld, whose language was too often inflammatory. Satow reported that he had to take care not to let Weld and the Siamese know of one another's more violent utterances, and Lord Rosebery as foreign secretary noted: "Sir F. Weld is evidently an intemperate official, and is not to be trusted to carry on negotiations. He should be snubbed by the C.O."80 Told of this unofficially the colonial office replied that Weld was indeed intemperate, "but we have already pulled him up short . . . he by this time has got our plain directions to keep a civil tongue in his head."'81 The foreign office was further assured that the culprit would be kept well in hand and not allowed to go on from Perak to further expansionism at Siam's expense.82

Low had returned to Malaya, and Swettenham replaced him as Perak's spokesman in London. Currie reported

79 C.O. to F.O., Apr. 6, 1886; F.O. to C.O., Con- fidential, May 8, 1886; C.O. to FO., Confidential, May 20, 1886, F.O. 69/112.

80 Satow to Rosebery, Confidential, May 19, 1886, No. 42, and minute, F.O. 69/109.

81 R. H. Meade to Currie, Private, July 19, 1886, F.O. 69/109. Meade added: "I have been anxious not to supply Satow and Weld too freely with copies of each other's despatches so that these Potentates might not quarrel more than is necessary from the high positions they respectively occupy." But the private letters between Satow and Singapore were in a more good-humored vein. Smith was on cordial terms with him as well as with Weld, and even the latter could scribble playfully in the margin of a dispatch informing Satow that he was about to visit Malaya: "I will do nothing to embarrass the Siamese (so don't be alarmed!!)" (May 30, 1886, P.R.O. 30/33 [21).

82 Meade to Currie, Private, Sept. 16, 1886, F.O. 69/113.

that Swettenham "appears sensible and moderate in his views, and does not consider the claim of Perak a very strong one.... He confirmed my impression that Sir F. Weld and Sir H. Low were rather inclined to try and bring matters to a crisis, which he thought unwise."83 So of course did Satow, who warned, Weld that the French charge at Bangkok.. would be delighted to see the Perak claim enforced because that would give France a pretext for similar action. "The Siamese," he added, "believe that it is your policy, as they-have frequently said to me, to turn them out of the Malay states. That is why they will resist to the uttermost the first beginnings.' 84

Captain Verney of the Siamese legation in London suggested in talks with Swettenham that. the disputed area might be administered by Perak under Siamese sovereignty, much as Cyprus had been abandoned by Turkey to Brit- ish administration.88 Before the end of 1886 Satow was: trying to get Siam to agree to lease the territory to Perak for twenty years in return for money pay-. ments. Prince Devawongse talked dis- couragingly of French repercussions and of the bad habit of British-leased areas like Penang of turning into British possessions. King Chulalongkorn was not re- assured by the precedent of Cyprus and was evasive when Satow interviewed him.86 A council meeting presided over by the king in March 1887 was adverse, and Satow told Devawongse how much he regretted that friendly relations "should thus be endangered by the unwillingness

83 Memo by Currie, Apr. 28, 1886, F.O. 69/112. 84 Satow to Weld, July 20, 1886, P.R.O. 30/33 (2). 85 C.O. to F.O., May 31, 1886, with memoranda

from Swettenham, F.O. 69/112.

88Satow to Lord Iddesleigh (foreign secretary), Nov. 14, 1886, No. 82, F.O. 69/110, and Dec. 2, 1886, No. 85.


of the Siamese Government to come to terms."87

In April Siam relented and accepted in principle the idea of a lease, on concli- tions to .be further discussed by Deva- wongse in London.88 He was going there to attend the Queen's Jubilee, and Satow went with him, having been granted leave on account of his health. Swetten- ham and Satow now went over the question together in detail and drew up a protocol.89 Next Currie invited Deva- wongse to a conference, after artfully suggesting to Lord Salisbury (now again foreign secretary): "Perhaps a K.C.M.G. might be hinted at as the reward if the Prince settles the question."90 Whether or not such a hint was dropped. when the conference took place on July 1 Deva- wongse disgusted the English negotiators by declaring that he must "absolutely refuse" the lease arrangement. When re- minded of his consent to it in April he took refuge behind the rajah of Reman, who he said was "old and very ob- stinate" and had come to Bangkok to protest against any lease.9'

Nothing was left, since the idea of using force had been abandoned, but to declare that the Perak case "must re- main open to be dealt with whenever a favourable opportunity arises.' '92 Atten- tion was shifting northward, following the annexation of Upper Burma in 1886,

87 Satow to Salisbury (foreign secretary), Mar. 22, 1887, F.O. 69/115, No. 28.

88 Satow to Salisbury, Apr. 11, 1887, F.O. 69/116, No. 40.

89 C.O. to F.O., June 7, 1887, with enclosures from Swettenham, and memoranda by Currie on these, F.O: 69/119.

90 Memo of June 23, 1887, F.O. 69/118. 91 C.O. to F.O., July 18, 1887, with memoranda

by Swettenham, F.O. 69/120; Salisbury to E. B. Gould, acting charg6 at Bangkok, July 7, 1887, F.O. 69/114, No. 40.

92 F.O. to C.O., July 7, 1887, F.O. 69/120.

to the parallel problem of the petty Shan states whose allegiance was disputed between Bangkok and Mandalay. In 1891 Currie and Swettenham, now resident in Perak, took up the boundary case once more, but Siam was as tenacious as ever of its rights in the peninsula and kept politely out of reach.93 Not until 1909, when the Anglo-Siamese treaty gave Britain the protectorate over the neighboring states, was the flag of Perak at last hoisted over the long-disputed region.94

It seems on the face of it curious that the change from a Liberal to a Tory administration in 1885 should have slowed down a movement of imperial expansion. The fact is that the men who took office in June 1885 were grasping at more, not less, than the Singapore party. This ap- plies particularly to Lord Randolph Churchill, who was soon preparing for the annexation of Burma and who cher- ished a grandiose conception of Britain's role as paramount power in Indo-China. Weld, as regards Siam, was ready to throw in his hand. He saw Bangkok as the destined prey of France. So widely does this view appear to have been shared on the British side that it seems possible the French would not have met much opposition if they had had the audacity to seize Siam and leave Britain to content itself with Burma. Churchill and Satow did not share Weld's pessi- mism, the former because he was ready to resist any French advance at any time, the latter because he thought the French would be too busy with Tonking.

93SWETTENHAM, Footprints in Malaya, pp. 100- 101.

94 See account by E. W. BIRCH in J.R.A.S.S.B., LIV (1909), 137 ff. Sir J. Crosby (in Siam: the cross- roads [London, 1945], pp. 57-58) maintains that "there was no irredentist feeling discernible against us on the part of the Siamese" until it was stirred up thirty years later by Japan.

20 V. G. KIERNAN

It was however quite in the cards that if Weld got his way in Malaya Siam might put itself under French protection. To obviate this London was prepared to make "sacrifices." In 1885 the potential wealth of the peninsula was of course not fully recognized; its later emergence as the world's richest colony makes Satow's picture of it as the "offal" of the Sia- mese inheritance look odd. Another motive for restraint after 1885 was, perhaps, the long-drawn-out guerrilla fighting in Upper Burma to which the policy of occupation led.

The best testimony to the success of Britain's new strategy may be found in a dispatch to Paris from Kergaradec, consul at Bangkok, in May 1887. He discussed at length the growth of British influence in the peninsula, dwelling on the Perak case and saying that the new ambitions which had sprouted at Singa- pore since 1874 were likely to end in the complete annexation of Malaya. With equal insight he pointed out Siam's fears that to give way over Perak would be the signal for many similar demands both from Britain and from France, and from this he guessed at Britain's purpose in

not going too fast. "Il faut reconnaltre d'ailleurs que l'action des agents britan- niques s'est exercee jusqu'ici avec autant de prudence que de perseverance; pour chaque pas en avant, ils ont su attendre avec patience le moment favorable."95 Six years later came the Anglo-French crisis of 1893 over Siam; and in 1894 the "new policy" of 1885 was restated in the instructions given to the new representative then being posted to Bangkok. He was told that Britain wished Siam to subsist as a buffer state and that, so long as no other power was allowed to set foot in the peninsula, Britain had no desire to subvert whatever remained there of Sia- mese authority.96 The Anglo-Siamese treaty of 1909 marked a change; but by then England and France were allies. UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

95 Kergaradec to Flourens, May 24, 1887, No. 52, Archives des Affaires ftrang&res, Siam, Vol. X; cf. No. 72, Oct. 21, 1887, ibid., and the lecture given by De Morgan to a patriotic body in Paris (printed copy in F.O. 69/113) in 1886, on exploration in Malaya, dwelling on Britain's ambitious and successful activity there and jealousy of France.

96 E. T. S. DUGDALE, Maurice de Bunsen (Lon- don, 1934), p. 117.

britain, siam, and malaya 1875 1885

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