Page 33 - Malaysia by John Russel Denyes

migrants are mostly Tamils, because the Govern-
ment of British India permits recruiting agents
seeking labor for the estates in Malaysia to pay
the passages of Tamils, but of no other class. The
children of the Indian laborer find their way into
the English schools and from there into clerical
work for mercantile firms and into government
service in connection with the courts, the rail-
ways, post-ofl5ces, telegraphs, and telephones.
From The Chinese, on the other hand, prefer
China to go into business on their own account.
It is the Chinese who gather up all the
produce of the native peoples and prepare it for
the European markets. In turn the Chinese are
the shopkeepers and distributing agents for Eu-
ropean goods into the villages everywhere. The
European has little commercial intercourse with
the native peoples and little retail trade. All this
is done by the enterprising Chinese. The Chinese
laborer commands wages from fifty to a hundred
percent higher than any other class of laborers.
But the Chinese do not long remain laborers. Their
natural capacity for business soon places them in
the merchant class. Many of them have accumu-
lated great fortunes, and many of their homes are
palatial.