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The Impact of Railroads on The Malayan Economy, 1874–1941

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

Amarjit Kaur
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Abstract

The main contention of this essay is that railways in Malaya were constructed specifically to serve the tin and rubber industries which were dominated by Western capitalist enterprise. The railroads were concentrated in the west coast states, reinforcing the trend toward economic specialization that had already begun. The pattern of subsequent capital investment which was related to railroad development produced wide regional inequalities. It gave rise to a spatial dualism that was most evident in the emergence of export-oriented enclaves and the associated infrastructure in the western states, leaving the eastern states outside the mainstream of capitalist development. The railways did not stimulate well-rounded economic development in the country because they had little or no multiplier effect on the local economy. The benefits of railroad construction accrued largely to the British economy. I seek to make clear the links between railway development in Malaya, the emergence of an extractive-colonial economy heavily specialized in tin and rubber, and the incorporation of the country into the international capitalist system.

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Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 39 , Issue 4 , August 1980 , pp. 693 - 710
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1980

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References

1 “Malaya” includes both mainland Malaya (currently known as Peninsular or West Malaysia) and Singapore.

2 Among standard works dealing with British intervention, see MacIntyre, David, “Britain's Intervention in Malaya: The Origin of Lord Kimberly's Instructions to Sir Andrew Clarke in 1873,” Journal of Southeast Asian History 2, no. 3 (1961): 47–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cowan, Charles Donald, Nineteenth Century Malaya: The Origins of British Political Control(London: Oxford Univ. Press, 1961)Google Scholar; Parkinson, Cyril Northcote, British Intervention in Malaya 1867–87 (Kuala Lumpur: Univ. of Malaya Press, 1964);Google ScholarKim, Khoo Kay, The Western Malay States 1850–1873: The Effects of Commercial Development on Malay Politics (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford Univ. Press, 1972).Google Scholar

3 See Myrdal, Gunner, Economic Theory and Row, Harper Torchbooks, 1971), pp. 11–22. Underdeveloped Regions (New York: Harper andGoogle Scholar

4 Marx, Karl, “The Future Results of British Rule in India,” in Karl Marx on Colonialism and Modernization, ed. Avineri, Shlomo (Garden City and New York: Doubleday … Co., 1968), p. 129.Google Scholar

5 Rostow, Walt Whitman, The Stages of Economic Growth (Cambridge: At the University Press, 1960), p. 55.Google Scholar

6 “Backward linkages” refers to the derived demand for raw materials for railroad construction; “forward linkages” to the lowered transportation charges leading to greater productive efficiency for the economy as a whole. See Hirschman, Albert, The Strategy of Economic Development (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1958), pp. 98–104.Google Scholar

7 Mitchell, B. R., “The Coming of the Railway and United Kingdom Economic Growth,” Journal of Economic History 24, no. 3 ( 1964): 315–36;CrossRefGoogle ScholarVamplew, Wray, “Railways and the Transforma tion of the Scottish Economy,” Economic History Review, n.s. 24, no. 1 ( 1971): 37–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Fishlow, Albert, American Railroads and the Transformation of the Ante-Bellum Economy (Cam bridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1965).Google Scholar

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10 Despatch, Resident General (RG) to High Commissioner's Office Files (HCO) 313/1904. Commissioner (HC), 23 February 1904, in High

11 See Fermor, Lewis, Report Upon the Mining Industry of Malaya (Kuala Lumpur: Federated Malay States Govt. Press, 1939), pp. 48–49, for iron ore production statistics.Google Scholar

12 Colonial Secretary to Crown Agents, 9 January 1917, in HCO 966/ 1917. Rice shortages toward the end of that year, and the curtailment of shipping, made it necessary to import locomotives from Canada and the United States so that rice could be transported by rail from Thailand to the Federated Malay States (FMS); see General Man ager, FMS Railways to HC, 4 August 1917, in HCO 1252/ 1917.

13 “Report of the Committee appointed by His Excellency the High Commissioner for the Malay States to enquire into the conditions affecting the systems of road and railway transport in British Malaya, and to make recommendations as to the action necessary to coordinate both systems in the interests of public economy and public and private convenience” [19 January 1932] (Kuala Lumpur: Federated Malay States Govt. Press), p. 7.

14 Federated Malay States Railways, Fifty Years of Railways in Malaya 1885–1935 (Kuala Lumpur: Govt. Printer, 1935), p. 3.Google Scholar

15 “Report … to enquire into the conditions affecting the systems of road and railway transportation,” p. 7.

16 The Jaffna Tamil came from Jaffna Province in northern Ceylon, and was not strictly Indian. It is convenient here to use the latter term for all persons from the Indian subcontinent. As late as 1938, the South Indians predominated in the subordinate administrative and clerical services.

17 United Planters' Association, FMS, to RG, 8July 1904, in HCO 1152/1904;JohorePlanters' Association to General Adviser, Johore, 12 October 1917, in General Adviser Johore Office Files (GAJ) 630/ 1917; despatch, HC to RG, 25 March 1910, in HCO 490/ 1910.

18 Supply Enactment Bill, read by the Chief Secretary, Federal Council Proceedings (FCP), 13 November 1913, p. B 89.Google Scholar

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20 See Fisher, Charles, “The Railway Geography of British Malaya,” The Scottish Geographical Magazine 64, no. 3 (December 1948): 123–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21 Fifty Years ofRailways, p. 5.

22 For example, a survey of the monthly rubber shipments passing through Singapore, Penang, and Port Swettenham in 1909 revealed the follow ing comparative percentages: Singapore, 33.35%; Penang, 28.9%; Port Swettenham, 37.75%; FCP, 14 December 1909, p. B. 18.

23 See, for example, Report of the Railway Rates Commission, 5 July 1900, in HCO 729/ 1901.

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26 These are United Kingdom import prices, Sir McFadyean, Andrew, ed., The History of Rubber Regulation, 1934–43 (London: Allen and Unwin, 1944), p. 16.Google Scholar

27 Drabble, John, Rubber in Malaya 1876–1922: The Genesis of the Industry (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford Univ. Press, 1973), Appendix 1, p. 213.Google Scholar

28 Other factors included the inelasticity of the wild rubber supply from Africa and Brazil, the depression in coffee prices, which induced planters to switch to rubber, a liberal land policy, and a permissive labor policy.

29 Drabble, Appendix 7, p. 220.

30 See Knorr, Klaus, World Rubber and Its Regulation (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1945);Google ScholarMcFadyean; Rowe, John, Studies in the Artificial Control of Raw Material Supplies, No. 2 Rubber (London and Cambridge Economic Service, Special Memo no. 34, 1931), pp. 18, 85;Google ScholarBauer, Pèter Tamàs, The Rubber Industry: A Study in Competition and Monopoly (London: Longmans Green, 1948).Google Scholar

31 The statistics for Perlis are not included because the state remained essentially a rice producing region.

32 Gullick, J. M., “The Negri Sembilan Econ omy of the 1890s,” Journal of the Malaya Branch, Royal Asiatic Society 24, no. 1 ( 1951): 38–55Google Scholar. A gantang is a volumetric measure for padi equal to approximately 5 1/3 lbs.

33 See, for example, despatch, Colonial Office to Governor, 17 May 1922, in HCO 541/1922.