Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-788cddb947-w95db Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-10-13T17:10:49.360Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - Imperial Unity Versus Local Autonomy: British Malaya and the Depression of the 1930s

from PART IV - THE STATE'S RESPONSE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 October 2015

Paul H. Kratoska
Affiliation:
National University of Singapore
Get access

Summary

During the 1930s, British Malaya was caught between two opposing tendencies — an attempt by the British Government to deal with the depression by promoting unity among the Dominions, Colonies, and Protectorates that made up the British Empire; and a move by the local colonial administration to achieve a greater degree of autonomy in economic affairs. The former can be seen in the policy of Imperial Preference introduced following the Ottawa Conference in 1932, while developments in the procurement of labour and food supplies illustrate the latter. On balance, changes introduced during the decade left Malaya more self- sufficient, and less dependent on imperial or regional connections.

‘British Malaya’ refers to the lower part of the Malay Peninsula which, before 1941, included the crown colony of the Straits Settlements as well as four ‘Federated Malay States’ (Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, and Pahang) and five ‘unfederated’ Malay States, all protectorates. The Governor of the Straits Settlements simultaneously served as High Commissioner for the Malay States. Rural Malays had a mixed economy, planting rice along with smallholdings of rubber or fruit trees. They rarely sought employment on mines or estates, which obtained workers from China or India. Mining and plantation industries along the west coast of the peninsula accounted for most of British Malaya's exports, and the greater part of the revenues collected by the colonial administration. In the Straits Settlements, Singapore and Penang functioned as trading entrepôts where merchants imported manufactured goods from industrialized countries for distribution throughout the region, and assembled cargoes of ‘Straits Produce’, a term which embraced a wide variety of primary products grown or collected in Southeast Asia, for shipment to markets outside the region.

The depression caused a fall in prices and a sharp reduction in demand for Malaya's exports. After many years of maintaining a favourable balance of trade, Malaya experienced a small trade deficit in 1928, and much larger deficits in the years 1930 to 1932 (see Table 13.1).

Type
Chapter
Information
Weathering the Storm
The Economies of Southeast Asia in the 1930s Depression
, pp. 271 - 294
Publisher: ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
Print publication year: 2001

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×