Page:The further side of silence (IA furthersideofsil00clifiala).pdf/234

 at last I understood, and her passionate distress moved me intensely.

As a matter of fact, the question of the necessity for segregating lepers in the Malay States under British protection had shortly before been under discussion, but so far as Pahang was concerned, I had succeeded in persuading the Federal Government that the country was not yet ripe for any such action. Administration, all the world over, is from first to last a matter of compromise, compromise between what is right and what is expedient, what is for the material welfare of the population and what is ad- visable and politic in existing circumstances; and in dealing with a new, raw country, whose people prior to our coming had been living, to all intents and purposes, in the twelfth century, great caution had to be exercised by those of us who were engaged in the delicate task of transferring them bodily into a nineteenth-century atmosphere. Leper asylums in the tropics are, at best, deplorable institutions. One may admit their necessity, but the perennial dis- content and unhappiness of their inmates are prover- bial, and even the devoted service rendered to the unfortunates by so many European women belonging to religious orders, fails greatly to ameliorate their lot. When lepers are consigned to the charge of ordinary paid attendants, the results are even more depressing. It was with a feeling of keen relief, therefore, that I was now able to reassure Minah.

"Have no fear, sister," I said, making use of the kindly Malayan vocative which makes all the workl