From the Kelantan side Mason reported that; "Thousands of Malays have left Tabal district and are now being settled in the upper reaches of the Golok
30 31
in Kelantan territory,.," "I am settling them as well as I can".
The principle that "no man should be made to suffer..for preferring his old allegiance" was incorporated into the treaty with specific regard to sub jects of his Siamese Majesty who might wish to remove themselves from Malay
32
rule or British protection in the ceded territories. It was certainly not anticipated on the British side that there would be a mass exodus nor that any British Adviser would ever contemplate restraining such voluntary migration if it occurred. The clause was included in the treaty for a reason extraneous to Kelantan;
"The provision regulating the rights of persons in the ceded territories appears at first sight somewhat unnecessary but X learn that some question in this connection arose on the cession of Krat to France in 1904. Apparently the Siamese population in the Province of Krat commenced to migrate in large numbers into Siamese territory. ThiBs led to an accusation, by the French
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authorities that this migration was due to Siamese machinations and attempts were made to arrest the exodus. Under the circumstances the King of Siam has desired that this subject shall be specially referred to in the present Treaty." 33
Did the Thai of Kelantan perceive Malay rule as a disaster in the way the Malays of Legeh and Tabal (Taag Baj) perceived the approach of Siamese rule? The evidence of Graham would suggest that they did, for he claims a
34 35
Thai population of ’about 15,00 0’ in 1907, and the 1911 census found a meagre 5,355. Of course we can reject Graham's estimate as one unsupported
36
by a count, just as we reject Pallegoix’s fantastic claim for Patani and shall reject the Thai Consul’s claim of ’about 12,00 0’ Thai in Kelantan
37 today.
In fact, if the Thais did stay put in Kelantan this would not amount un ambiguously to a choice of Malay rule. The state of Kelantan had become in the course of the last seven years something different from either a Malay state or a Siamese state, namely an outpost of wholesome European influence, felt in the form of improved security and an increasing economic activity (if Graham is to be believed). The choice was not, by now, one between Malay rule and Thai protection, but between British-protected rule of which the residents of Kelantan had some experience and Thai rule of which they still had none. To say this is not to deny what was argued above; that before 1902
the government of Kelantan was Malay government. The point is that if the Kelantan Thais were aware of the withdrawal of Siamese suzerainty (probably
they were not aware) the alternative was not any longer, by 1909, Malay rule pure and simple.
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have fled. It is certain that none left Samttttrag» if they had, the village would have far more links with Thailand than it now does. If villages nearer the border had packed up and deserted the state, one might have expected to read about it in the official correspondence. But as of 2nd April 1910, as
38
we have seen, the situation was that "no ICelantan men have entered Legeh." A little deduction from simple principles may help us. The Thais had their land in Kelantan and were comparatively prosperous. Today, as security is threatened, there is no inclination to desert the land their forefathers
first cleared and occupied. Why should there by mass desertion at a time when security was palpably improving? It is, also, questionable whether awareness of the change of rule would have been comiuunicated to the mass of the peasantry anyway. (The Thais of Semerak are in a state of extreme vagueness as to what month and in what year Malaya became independent. Momentous events make their impact slowly in the countryside even under modern conditions.) Additionally, it is not demonstrated that the Kelantan Thai were conscious of being in a Siamese state at all before 19G9. At least the Kelantan Malays of ICuala Tabal had no such idea about their territory before 1909.
Thus British influence cane to Kelantan quietly and in two stages, and Siam's influence, which had been nominal, slipped unlamented away. The lack of political upheaval however did not mean that the new presence did not make itself steadily felt thereafter in the lives of the people. The real ICelantan- ese revolution, a revolution of modernisation and economic development, was now to begin.
We have surmised that the seven years of Graham's advisership brought minimal security and the first small upsurge of economic activity. The ripples from these changes at the capital, round Tumpat port and in Duff territory, may hardly have reached Semerak by 1909» but it was no later than that year - it might have been a year or two earlier - that European planters entered the Semerak district with Ceyloni clerks and overseers to plant coconuts. For the first time the Thais of Semerak could go out and earn cash which was a
terribly hard come-by commodity before that time. Men and women now in their sixties and seventies invariably recount how they went out to open the heaths along the shore and south of Cherang Ruku for the copra plantations. To' Thid Nppn never tires of telling how he became Tuan Owen's 'boy'* There is a
feeling that these plantations, which have now reverted to the state, are in some way 'Thai* too because the Thais did all the work. There were too few Malays in the immediate vicinity at the time.
But word spread among the Malay community at large that the European
planters were weak and vulnerable because they walked around unarmed and didn't lock their houses. This led the Malays to march on Pasir Puteh in 1915 led by the fanatical To' Janggut, and the planters at Semerak packed up in a
39
hurry. The next development was the arrival of a gunboat off Semerak which fired shells on Pasir Puteh. So began the 'first war* for the Thais of Semerak more frightening by far than the second, which largeljr passed them by. The shells whined high over the village and the women and children fled to Pog Kiang. In the wake of the barrage a detachment of Sikhs, packed shoulder to shoulder, passed in motor boats on the river, advancing on Pasir Puteh. After
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the death of Janggut’his photograph was taken by the British and displayed around the countryside. Then the Europeans returned to their estates and stayed until the second war. ■
The Jahggut affair - or the 'Pasir Pueh riot' as Mr, K, J. Farrer nicely 40
called it - turned out ignominiously for the Malays, and the Seme rale Thais were suitably impressed. The Europeans gave employment and patronised the h9raa on their estates. They had squashed Malay revivalism with military tech nology. And they administered efficiently and fairly from the new District Office at Pasir Puteh. One of the first fruits of the new administration was the land survey and issue of title, followed by the new and equitable cash rent in place of tithe. In 1922 the metalled road reached Cherang Ruku and Besut
41