Grasping the nettle: first successes in the struggle to govern the Chinese in Malaya
R.N. Jackson’s 1967 article in the Journal of the Malaysian Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society examines how the Straits Settlements colonial government, through the agency of W.A. Pickering, moved from a position of virtual powerlessness over its Chinese population to effective direct governance between 1877 and 1888. The central thesis is that this transformation was achieved not through grand constitutional design but through a series of ad hoc measures—immigration control, secret society registration, and informal dispute arbitration—that collectively created the first sustained channel of communication between the colonial state and the Chinese community.
Summary
The Chinese immigrant population of Singapore and the Straits Settlements in the mid-nineteenth century was, in Jackson’s account, effectively ungoverned by the colonial administration. By 1876, sixty per cent of the Chinese population were sworn members of secret societies (branches of the Ghee Hin), and the remaining forty per cent were strongly under their influence (p. 130). The societies functioned as parallel governments: they adjudicated internal disputes, enforced judgments, settled inter-society conflicts by force, and inducted new arrivals as a matter of course. The colonial government, staffed by officials who could not speak Chinese and whose proclamations were rendered in the Chinese-language press as “red-haired barbarians,” was aware of the situation but unable to intervene meaningfully (p. 131).
The turning point came with the 1876 Labour Commission, which exposed the complete absence of government contact with Chinese immigrants from the moment of landing through their entire period of employment (p. 134). Two laws passed in 1877 created the posts of Protector of Immigrants and Protector of Emigrants, both filled by Pickering, the only European officer in the Straits service who could speak Chinese (p. 135). Pickering’s immediate effect was to place every new arrival under direct government supervision at the critical moment of entry: ships were boarded, immigrants questioned, contracts registered, and each man informed that the Government existed and was available to hear complaints (p. 136). When the clerical work of society registration was transferred to his office for convenience, Pickering seized the opportunity to take the initiative in governing the secret societies themselves, insisting on a comprehensive re-registration and then exercising day-to-day control over the headmen, who now faced the threat of deportation if they failed to keep their members in order (p. 137).
The result was a self-reinforcing system. The headmen, whose power and substance depended on their continued presence in the colony, became incentivised to prevent inter-society violence and to refer disputes to Pickering for arbitration. The Protectorate simultaneously became a venue where ordinary Chinese could bring grievances and receive a free, fair hearing from an official who understood their language and customs—settling approximately 3,000 cases annually without formal legal sanction (p. 137). By 1879 Pickering asserted that the secret societies had been reduced to “nothing more than large Friendly Societies” (p. 137).
Key Findings
- By 1876, 60% of the Chinese population in the Straits Settlements were sworn members of secret societies, with the remaining 40% strongly under their influence; the colonial government had no competent interpreter and no direct channel of communication (p. 130).
- The 1876 Labour Commission found that the vast majority of Chinese labourers returned to China “not knowing clearly whether there is a Government in them or not,” having never been brought into contact with any government officer during their entire sojourn (p. 134).
- Pickering’s immigration controls—boarding ships, questioning arrivals, registering employment contracts, and informing each immigrant of his legal rights—created the first point of direct government contact with the individual Chinese at the moment of entry (p. 136).
- The threat of deportation or banishment gave society headmen “for the first time the strongest incentive to co-operate with the Government,” converting their self-interest to the state’s side and enabling Pickering to arbitrate inter-society disputes that had previously erupted as street battles (p. 137).
- The Protectorate settled approximately 3,000 cases per year through informal adjudication and conciliation, providing an accessible alternative to courts whose fees, language barriers, and ignorance of Chinese custom made them effectively closed to ordinary Chinese litigants (pp. 137–138).
- In 1890 the secret societies were declared illegal and formally dissolved; Jackson notes that while the political problem was thereby solved, the residual police problem of splintered subordinate groups running protection rackets over prostitution and gambling persisted (p. 138).
Conclusion
Jackson’s definitive takeaway is that effective colonial governance of the Chinese in the Straits Settlements was achieved not through a coherent policy or legislative programme but through the convergence of circumstance and individual agency: Pickering was “the right man in the right place at the right time” (p. 139). His ad hoc measures—immigration control, society registration, informal arbitration—were co-ordinated only in his own mind, yet they produced a durable institutional pattern (the Chinese Protectorate) that established the principle of direct government contact with the Chinese population and rendered the secret societies politically impotent within a decade.
Context
- The article draws on primary sources including the 1869 Committee report on secret societies, the 1872 Commission into the Singapore riots, the 1876 Labour Commission Report, and Pickering’s own 1876 essay “The Chinese in the Straits of Malacca” in Frazer’s Magazine (pp. 131–134).
- Jackson’s account situates the Straits Settlements experience within a broader comparative framework, noting that the Dutch, Spanish, and French colonies in the Far East had adopted modified systems of Chinese headman rule that were impracticable in the Straits due to the proportion of Chinese to other races and the “liberal spirit” of British law (pp. 135–136).