A Tales of Two Fortunes

8/3/2019 A Tales of Two Fortunes

1/6

HERIAGE ASIA JAN - MARCH 200814

A TALE OF TWO FORTUNESBy Dr. Ho Tak Ming

Malaya has always been knownas the land o rubber and tin,commodities that were the

twin pillars o its economy. However,coee and tin ormed an unusual back-drop o a saga at ambun, near Ipoh, in-

volving an English Inspector o Mines,FJB Dykes, and a Chinese tin miner,Leong Fee, at the close o the 19th cen-tury that had all the elements o a Greektragedy or one, and a airy tale with ahappy ending or the other.

Leong Fee @ Liang Pi Joo was bornin Mei Xian district, Guangdong prov-ince, China, in 1857 and came to Pen-ang at the age o 19, a penniless youngman trying to earn a living in this coun-try. Six months later he arrived in Ipoh

with 16 o his ellow countrymen, theparty then being the only Chinamen inIpoh. Ipoh was then a small settlementconsisting o a ew huts. He worked asa clerk and later opened a small shop,

while all the time prospecting or tin. Bythe late 1880s he was the principal minerin Ipoh. He was appointed a member othe Ipoh Sanitary Board in 1894 and amember o the Perak State Council theollowing year.

Dykes, on the other hand, wastrained at the Royal School o Mines,London, where he had been appointedGovernment Mining Prospector at KualaKangsar in 1893. wo years later, he wasappointed Demarcation Ocer, Kinta. It

was in connection with his mining activi-ties that Leong Fee got to know Dykes.At that time the price o coee was ris-ing rapidly, and the pair o miner andmining expert decided to become part-ners, buying a 358-acre piece o land at

ambun in 1896 to begin a coee plant-ing venture. Tey employed one Coghill,ormerly o Kamuning Estate in SungeiSiput, to manage the estate, which wassituated between ambun and anjong

Rambutan, where the soil was reputedto be very rich and eminently suitable orcoee. On 1st May 1896, Dykes resignedrom Government service. He took a ewmonths o to explore Pahang, and whenhe came back to Ipoh, threw a large party

to announce his new career as planter.Te Perak Pioneer reported:

Mr. Dykes, late Mining Inspector,Kuala Kangsar, who has been away inPahang since he severed his connection

with the Government service, is back atChangkat Pari and has invited nearlyeverybody in Kinta to dinner at his coeeestate at ambun. Te entertainment, itis understood, will beat everything o itskind in Kinta.Te ambun Coee Es-tate was one o the two largest coee es-

tates in Kinta. In 1897 it was describedthus, Te Manager is Mr.Coghill. Teproperty has a very considerable ront-age along the main road rom Ipoh to

anjong Rambutan. It comprises an

Early Tambun settlement.


2/6

HERIAGE ASIA JAN - MARCH 2008 15

area o 358 acres, o which 200 acresare planted up, and the remainder are inthe process o planting. Te older treeso about 16 months growth are healthyand already bear owers and berry. Teestate is well kept and appears to have a

prosperous uture.Kinta was in a recession due to de-

pressed prices o tin and the Govern-ment was encouraging the people toplant coee so as to diversiy its econo-my. However, rom mid-1896 onwards,the coee price too began its downwardspiral. Most o the smallholders aban-doned their holdings. Dykes was in adilemma. He had resigned rom Gov-ernment service less than a year ago, or-saking a steady and secure income, and

did not have deep enough pockets to acea prolonged recession. He tried to con-vert the agricultural land to mining, butailed. In desperation, he sold his shareo the estate to Leong Fee, reportedlyor $2,000. Te newspaper reported:

Mr. FJB Dykes will, we hear, shortlyrejoin the service in the capacity o In-spector o Mines, Selangor. It is seldom

we hear o an ocer rejoining the publicservice in these States ater resigning or

A coffee estate.

Tambun tin-mine.

Chung Hwa School, 1904. Leong Fee was a founder.


3/6


a more lucrative civil appointment but nodoubt the higher authorities knowing the

value o this excellent ocer have madeit worth his while to again cast in his lot

with the Government.Leong Fee was let to see the worth

o his coee estate dwindle to rock bot-tom. Dykes, meanwhile, ourished in hissecond stint as a Government ocial. He

was promoted to Acting District Ocero Jelebu in 1899, appointed Warden oMines or Negri Sembilan in 1900, Sen-

ior Warden o Mines, Perak in 1903 andfnally Senior Warden o Mines, Feder-ated Malay States. At the start o thenew century when the coee industry

was already moribund, Leong Fee hadthe estate prospected or tin and openedhis ambun Mine in 1902.

Even beore ambun Mine wasopened, wild rumours began circulatingin Ipoh as to the richness o the mine. It

was being whispered that about 100 tubs(1 tub = 2 piculs) were being worked daily,

giving the mine an output o about 6,000piculs a month, an unbelievable fgure.Another rumour was that the owner wasbeing oered three or our million dollarsor his mining concern. Finally the news-paper confrmed what had earlier beenrumored: It is confdently reported thatMr. Leong Fee has been oered a sumo eight million dollars or his ambunmining concern which was declined. enmillion was said to have been named asthe fgure worth consideration, and even

at that the easibility o an exchange oownership may possibly have now passedby, considering the present enormousoutruns at the mine. Our Chinese Mor-gan is to be congratulated.

In 1903, ambun Mines produc-tion o over 60,000 piculs o tin ore seta world record. It was worked in theold-ashioned Chinese shating system,but Leong Fee subsequently introducedmodern technology by employing the

mining engineering frm o Messrs Nut-ter and Pearse.

In March 1903, the Malay Maileatured FJB Dykes as its Man o the

Week, a rather mischievous thing to doat a time when the richness o ambunMine was the talk o the town:

Mr. Fretcheville Joseph BallantyneDykes, answering to the less cumbersomeepithet o Bertie, is too well known toneed much o an introduction, thoughunlike the poor, he is not always with us.

For he pays sundry mysterious visits, toNegri Sembilan and Pahang, sometimessetting out without being quite certain

where he is going, and rarely letting hisriends know his destination. Not thathis riends mind, at any rate they seemto bear up bravely under the suspense.He likes his letters addressed to WardenDykes, and has given out that anyoneholding an appointment in a class lowerthan his own must call him Sir.

Bolstered by the mystic symbols,

FGS, MIMM, and FCI, he has earnedthe reputation o being an expert in min-ing matters. I he has an ambition it is tobecome Federal Warden beore retiringon a pension, or being asked to resign.Much o his best work, including his im-portant Despatches, is done in the earlyhours o the morning, as he arms thathis brain is clearer then than at any otherpart o the day.

He has been known to dabble in rac-ing, his part-ownership o Alazee being

attended with a singular want o suc-cess. He will tell you that he has had arun or his money. Certainly Alazee didrun a great many times. He will also tell

you a great number o things i you havetime to listen. He was once mistaken oran incendiary, and had some dicultyin proving an alibi. He plays Bridge oc-casionally, and has been seen inside theSelangor Club.

It was altogether a portrait o a rath-

er sel-important man. But the last sen-tence gave the impression that this mightbe a mask to hide a deep eeling o dis-appointment, His clothes are not alwaysnew, but any defciencies in that respectare counterbalanced by the importanceo his manner, and the businesslike air

which he assumes on the slightest provo-cation. FJB Dykes might be the Sen-ior Warden o Mines, Federated Malay

Leong Fee as a young man. (Top)

Tambun tin-mine. (Bottom)


4/6


States, a mining expert whose opinion onmining matters the Government always

valued, but he would always regret hisdecision to sell his share o a coee estateunderneath which were tons o tin orethat he had ailed to oresee. He wouldbe orever remembered as the man wholet a ortune slip through his fngers or amere two thousand dollars.

For Leong Fee, abulous wealth ena-

bled him to pursue his political ambi-tions, limited though the opportunities

were in a colonial society. In 1903, he wasappointed Vice-Consul or the ChineseGovernment in Penang, responsible orprotecting Chinese nationals and theirbusiness interests. He made requent

visits to China in connection with his work, and also in connection with im-portant mining concerns in the prov-

ince o Guangxi. He raised unds or the

victims o disasters or amine in China.He became a philanthropist. In 1905 heoered to build and equip a Pasteur In-stitute or the Federated Malay States ata cost o $10,000, but since the Govern-ment had already started a PathologicalInstitute in Kuala Lumpur in 1900, it didnot take up the oer. He was one o theounders o the Chung Hwa ConucianSchool in Penang in 1904, the frst mod-ern Chinese school in Malaya teaching in

Mandarin. He started the Penang HakkaEducational Fund, giving a donation o$10,000 in 1908 to buy fve shophouses,the income generated by the rental beingused or scholarships and bursaries Hedonated $10,000 to the King Edward VIIMemorial Fund He built a fne mansionin Penang where he spent a large part ohis later lie. Te highlight o his career

was in 1909, when he was appointed thefrst Unocial Chinese Member o theFederal Council by the High Commis-sioner.

Leong Fees appointment was inrecognition o his contribution to the tinmining industry and o his philanthropicactivities. Both the Perak Members, F.Douglas Osborne, a consultant miningengineer, and Leong Fee, championedthe tin mining industry, regularly askingor a reduction in tin duty. Leong Feedid not speak English, and used Malayduring debates. Leong Fee remained theonly permanent Chinese Member o the

Federal Council until his death in 1912.As or Dykes, he perormed his du-

ties as Senior Warden o Mines appar-ently unconcerned with the goings-on in

ambun Mine. Although he visited nu-merous mines in Kinta, there is no men-tion o his visiting ambun Mine. As a

Warden o Mines, he was very strict, andin 1905 was responsible or issuing notic-es o cancellation o some 4,000 miningleases covering over 92,000 acres o min-ing land in Perak or non-compliance o

the labour regulations. Tese required onecoolie to be employed or every acre omining land held. It was a politically in-expedient move as there were not enoughmining labourers in the State to ulfll therequirements even i the miners wantedto. Te British Resident o Perak, EWBirch, delayed implementing the noticesuntil a ew years later when Dykes retiredin 1911 on grounds o ill health, and thematter was quietly orgotten. HA

No.7, Leith Street. Leong Fees mansion.


5/6


HOW LEONG FEE DISCOVEREDTIN DEPOSITS

Kong ai [Leong Fee] had every con-fdence in his coee growing venture.

Tere were already several thrivingplantations in the vicinity. Filled withoptimism, he watched his frst cropgrow rom the seedlings he had himselplanted into the earth. But while coeeplants elsewhere ourished, Kong aisseedlings grew into something stunted,ugly and deormed. He was completelybewildered. He had been so careul inpreparing the soil and planting theseedlings that he could not understand

what could have gone wrong....One morning, while standing in theplantation and contemplating his reak

crop, he began to curse his misortuneand started to rip up the plants, one ateranother. Suddenly, he stopped. Some-thing caught his eye. He picked up anuprooted plant and was surprised to seestrange specks o some oreign materialat the tips o its roots. He had no idea

what the mysterious materials was so hecollected a small sample and consulted aew riends. Te sample turned out to betin. Kong ai had, unwittingly, plantedhis coee seedlings on top o a tin de-posit! Te deposit turned out to be oneo the richest in Perak

Tere is another version o the story othe inception o the ambun Mines.

Mr Dykes was, in act, an Inspector oMines which meant that he should haveknown that the land which he and Kong

ai owned contained tin ore. However,the colonial government in the mid1890s was keen to encourage agricul-ture and granted land concessions orthe purpose o planting coee. It is like-ly that, i Kong ai and Dr Dykes hadmade an application to convert theirconcession to tin mining, it would havebeen reused. Mr Dykes could have de-cided to sell his share o the coee estateor that reason. Extract rom DaysGoneBy: Growing up in Penangby Christine

Wu Ramsay, p.12 [see Editors Choice]

Tambun tin-mine.


6/6


When Leong Fee received the prospect-ing results on his coee estate in 1902,he must have got a seismic shock. Teaverage value o the ground washed ortin was 26 katis per cubic yard, whereasthe average yield among Chinese minesat the time was only 4 to 5 katis per cu-bic yard, and a yield o 1 katis per cubic

yard was proftable to mine. Te tin price was then in the high range o around$90 per picul, reaching a peak o $100per picul in February 1903.

For the frst ew years, ambunMine was simply the greatest tin minein the world. As the Ipoh newspaper,the imes o Malaya, said in September1905, ambun Mine has made the or-tune o its Chinese owner, whose numer-

ous acts o public generosity and liberal-ity have made him a public beneactor.It is computed that within the last our

years owkay Leong Fee has receivedrom ambun a proft o not less than

160,000.It became a showpiece mine, visited

by countless numbers o British visitors,including the High Commissioner o theFederated Malay States. Some, no doubt,

were curious to see what Dykes hadmissed, and some were anxious to see itall at on its ace. Numerous experts ontin mining, perhaps out o deerence toDykes, predicted that it could not pos-sibly last. But ambun continued to con-ound the experts, and continued to earnprofts that were not to be sneezed at.

As a mine, it was not imposing, withlimited underground working in eachshat and a thousand Chinese cooliesproviding the hauling power. It was pos-itively hideous on the landscape justa huge swarming human anthill wheredirty red earth was converted to dollars.Although the extraordinary richness othe karang in the early years could notbe matched subsequently, still it exceed-ed eight katis per cubic yard rom 1907to1910, and our katis per cubic yardrom then on. In 1917 the operation othe mine was handed to a tributer, andthe mine closed in 1919, having pro-duced nearly 100,000 piculs o tin-orein the last 12 years o its operation, whenfgures were available.

A JEWEL OF A MINE

Tambun tin-mine.

A Tales of Two Fortunes

Documents

Transcript of A Tales of Two Fortunes