The fishing industry of Krian and Kurau, Perak
Arthur T. Dew, a British colonial official serving as Collector, Magistrate, and Harbour Master for Matang and Port Weld, Perak, published this detailed survey of the fishing industry in the Krian and Kurau districts in 1891 (text dated April 1888). Set against the backdrop of the early British Resident period in Perak, the article examines the economic conditions, fishing methods, and regulatory burdens facing Chinese and Malay fishing communities along the Perak coast, and proposes specific conservation measures in response to widespread complaints of declining catches.
Summary
Dew’s survey is structured as an administrative ethnography. He begins by cataloguing every fishing apparatus in use at Kwala Kurau—out-shore and in-shore blats (stake traps), pukat lengkong (seine nets), pukat hanyut (drift nets), siring and sungkar (hand prawn nets), the rawei (a long line of unbaited hooks), and the pompong—describing their construction, the species each takes, the number of men required, and the ritual protocols (involving a Pawang Laut) that govern the erection of large Malay-owned stakes. This technical inventory establishes the material basis for the economic analysis that follows.
The central problem Dew investigates is the fishermen’s complaint that fish, and especially prawns, have become scarce over the preceding two or three years. He cross-examines long-resident Hokkien fishermen at Kwala Kurau, Telok Rubiah, Tanjong Piandang, Sungei Bharu, and Bagan Tiang, and then tests their claims against the Customs Clerk’s export books for 1885–1887. The data reveal a complex picture: salt fish exports actually recovered in 1887 to exceed 1885 levels, but dried prawns—the single most valuable product—collapsed from 4,414 pikuls in 1886 to 971 pikuls in 1887. Dew concludes that the prawn decline is the genuine cause of economic distress, while the broader “fish scarcity” narrative is partly seasonal and partly exaggerated, though he acknowledges a corroborating report from Pangkor.
The regulatory dimension is equally important. Dew documents the transition from the Sultan’s light taxation (a single $8–$12 annual fee per pukat lengkong) to the colonial licensing regime introduced in December 1885 and revised in October 1887, showing how the new rules reduced total fees by 25 per cent but still generated resentment. He also exposes the unreliability of the export records themselves, citing a clerical error that understated a prawn shipment by a factor of ten, and notes that at Bagan Tiang most fish is sold fresh to Penang boats and never enters the export books at all.
Key Findings
- Export values (Kwala Kurau): Total fishery exports fell from $73,939.10 (1885) to $49,428.00 (1886) to $43,750.40 (1887). Dried prawns, the highest-value product at $7.50–$10.00 per pikul, dropped from 4,414 pikuls in 1886 to 971 pikuls in 1887, while salt fish recovered from 3,214 pikuls (1886) to 8,997.75 pikuls (1887) (pp. 110–111).
- Capital and labour costs: A complete Pukat Lengkong concern (house, net, boats, furniture) cost approximately $350; in good seasons one net yielded 50–60 pikuls of salt fish per month, in bad seasons only 8–10 pikuls. Each of the six men working a net held one share of the 7.5-share division, the owner holding an extra 1.5 shares (p. 107).
- Licensing regime: The December 1885 order imposed $10 per large stake, $8 per small stake, $8 per large pukat, $10 per small pukat, and $4.80 per prawn net (total $40.80). The October 1887 revision reduced this to $5 half-yearly per stake set plus 60 cents half-yearly per individual fisherman (total $30.80), a 25 per cent reduction, with breaches punishable by a fine up to $25 or three months’ rigorous imprisonment (pp. 109–110, 120–121).
- Village populations and gear: Telok Rubiah had approximately 35–40 Hokkien fishermen using only Pukat Hanyut and Blat Langei; Tanjong Piandang had 30–40 Te-Chiu prawn-catchers (down from 200 in Datoh Ali’s time); Bagan Tiang had 30 Chinese fishermen working six Pukat Lengkong alongside 19 Malay-operated Blat Jerumal, 3 Blat Kombang, and 1 Blat Telok (pp. 112–115).
- Dew’s proposed conservation regulations: Out-shore stakes limited to 3½ fathoms depth, minimum 400 fathoms spacing, maximum 300 fathoms length; in-shore stakes limited to 2½ fathoms depth, minimum 200 fathoms spacing, maximum 120 fathoms length; and the Rawei (a line carrying 1,000–2,000 unbaited hooks) to be made illegal (p. 118–119).
- Opium and ancillary taxation: The opium farmer at Kwala Kurau paid approximately $100 per annum to the Sultan in the old regime; under the new system the Telok Rubiah farmer paid $7 per ball (up from $1) and $25 per month for his chandoo licence, buying at $1.35 and selling at $1.50 per tael, selling only about 110 taels monthly and losing money (pp. 108, 113).
Conclusion
Dew’s definitive historical takeaway is that the Perak coast fishery in the late 1880s was experiencing a genuine but selective decline—concentrated in prawns rather than in fish overall—and that the appropriate response was not the abolition of licensing (which fishermen demanded) but the introduction of spatial and depth restrictions on stake placement, the banning of indiscriminate gear like the Rawei, and, if the prawn decline proved permanent over the following two or three years, the establishment of a close season. He frames this as a balance between protecting the capital investment of professional fishermen and preventing the “every man, woman and child” from depleting the resource without cost.
Context
- Dew wrote as a sitting British colonial magistrate and harbour master; the article is an administrative survey produced in the course of his official duties, and his recommendations (stake spacing, depth limits, the Rawei ban) were directed at the Assistant Resident C.V. Creagh, who had issued the licensing regulations Dew discusses.
- The primary sources are the Customs Clerk’s export books at Kwala Kurau, direct interviews with fishermen and farmers at five coastal villages, and the two government notifications (marked A and B) issued by Leech and Creagh. The article contributes to the small body of late-nineteenth-century British administrative ethnography of Perak’s coastal Chinese communities, and its export tables remain among the few quantitative records of the pre-World War I Perak fishery.