The Journal of the Siam Society Vol. LXXII, Part 1-2, 1984 - Khamkoo

96 k obkua Suwaooathat-Pian
and the British since the commencement of official relations between the two countries
in 1826. . The significance of the 1902 Siamese-Kelantan Treaty cannot be overstated,
though perhaps it had not quite been realised at the time, or since the signing of the
treaty in spite of the strong and exhaustive diplomatic fight put up by Bangkok on the
one hand, and the joint pressure brought to bear upon Siam by the Colonial and Foreign
Offices on the other. This was probably due to the fact that the Adviser system, the
principal aspect of the new era which was implemented in Kelantan, did not seem
to have either satisfied the expectations of the British, particularly the colonialists in
the Federated Malay States, or completely ruined the Siamese position in the Malay
Peninsula as feared by Bangkok.
Yet the 1902 Treaty brought to an end the traditional relations between the
two Southeast Asian States, which had long exist~d within the established framework
of regional political system. It will not be inaccurate to state that the Siamese-Kelantan
relations during the Bangkok period was in fact a model of contemporary relationship
between any two Southeast Asian States of not equal status. This political relationship,
symbolised by the gold and silver flowers- the famous bunga mas dan perak- was the
sole political system within the traditional context known to the peoples of this region
that ensured the survival of a weak and smaller state facing the threats and designs of
the more powerful and bigger one. 4 It was also the only system that allowed the
existence of friendship and alliance, on unequal terms naturally, in this part of the
world which understood well the privileges of strength, the world which confirmed that
might was virtue and right. In 1902 Siam had been somewhat forced to sign the first
treaty with one of her tributaries which had willingly acquired an unofficial protection
from her rival in order to be free from her. The Treaty set up a new administrative
4. Captain Henry Burney ·explained about the practice of sending of bung a mas as follows:
" Among the Indo-Chinese nations, the badge or symbol of tributary dependence
consists, in the periodical transmission by the inferior to the superior of two Mas dan Perak,
sprigs of flowers, one wrought in gold, and the other in silver called by the Malaya Bunga
or gold and silver flo wers . .. [the system was not limited to the Siamese Malay relations
but] the custom has long been known to the Burmese, and all the Shan states . ..
Mohang Kemrat was at the time tributary to the King of Ava, [and yearly sent the
tribute consisting of] two small shrubs, one having its leaves and flo wers of gold , and the
other of silver . . . The obligation, which the token of vassalage involves, is regulated by the
wants, caprice, and power at the time of the Super State. There is no question that Ava and
Siam consider those chiefs who sent these flo wers as subject and dependent on them; . .. that
they demand from them and enforce the demand whenever they are able, . . . that they
exercise the right of disposing these tributary chiefs and appoint others, if they proved
refractory, contumacious, or unpopular among their own people" . [CO 273/1 Cap t. Burney
to James C . Melville, July 24, 1841 ]