Federated Malay States

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Flag of the Federated Malay States (until 1946)
Coat of arms of the Federated Malay States

The Protected Malay States , called Federated Malay States (“Federated Malay States”) from 1895 , with almost 73,000 km², were an administrative grouping of sultanates as part of the British Empire on the Malay Peninsula . They were limited in the north by the Unfederated Malay States , Islamized sultanates that the British had finally squeezed from Thailand in 1909 , and in the south by the crown colony of the Straits Settlements (which also included Malacca , Penang and Singapore ). The total population in 1921 was 1.325 million people. The two groups of states merged on April 1, 1946 to form the Malaya Federation ("Malay League").

Malay society was divided into two classes: those with royal blood who ruled as the nobility , and the people, whose often violently extorted taxes, debt bondage - which tied the entire family - and unlimited compulsory labor financed the maintenance of the rulers. Malays are generally described in the literature of the time as being reluctant to work.

A large number of Chinese immigrated to do physical work (population share in 1939: around 40 percent). During the colonial era, numerous Indians, mostly Tamils , were brought into the country as coolies held in bondage (until 1914) . Their number was around 58,000 in 1901 and around 305,000 in 1921.

Sultanates

Sultan Abdullah of Perak (installed in 1874)

The Federated Malay States consisted of the sultanates of Perak (approx. 16,500 km²), Selangor (8,250 km²), the Negri Sembilan ("nine states") and Pahang (31,280 km²), whose ruler until 1882 was titled Bendahara Seri Maharaja . The region was recognized as a British sphere of influence as early as the Treaty of London (1824) .

The Straits Settlements were administered as part of British India until 1867 , after which they were a separate crown colony . The newly appointed governor Sir Andrew Clarke in 1873 had instructions to intervene in the affairs of the hinterland, whose trade at that time was seriously affected by numerous pirate attacks.

In Perak there was the Larut War from 1861 to 1874 , actually four smaller wars that were fought between economically dominant groups of Chinese and the Sultan. In addition, there were fights for the succession to the throne in 1873. On January 20, 1874, a contract was signed on board The Pluto off Pangkor Island , which allowed the British to send a resident - with an assistant in Larut - to the court of the new Sultan Abdullah they had installed to check the finances. In Selangor, a protracted civil war, the so-called Klang War (1867-74), resulted in a British resident being appointed in 1873 . A group of "surveyors" was sent to Negri Sembilan, and when these troops encountered resistance they were soon reinforced by gurkhas and artillery. After the usual massacres, similar treaties followed as in the other sultanates. The small states of Negri Sembilan received a common indigenous ruler in 1895. As the last sultanate, Pahang was subdued in 1888. The decision-making powers of the princes were essentially limited to questions of religious law.

history

Hugh Low (1824-1905), botanist and resident for Perak 1877-89

At the time of Sir Hugh Low (resident in Perak 1877-89) and Sir Frank Swettenham , the British began , similar to the princely states of India, to expand their influence in all areas of administration. This had primarily economic reasons, but it was also intended to free the common people from their absolute lack of rights. Essentially, the region was developed into a raw material supplier in line with London's capital interests.

Due to massive immigration, the total population of British Malaya doubled between 1891 and 1911 .

The area came under Japanese military administration between December 1941 and October 1945 . Chinese resistance members founded the Malayan Peoples' Anti-Japanese Army (MPAJA), which fought in the jungles and became the nucleus of the KPM . After the Second World War , Harold MacMichael submitted new treaties to the sultans, and in 1946 their states became part of the Malay Union, which later became the Malay League. In today's Malaysia , the nine sultans are still important in that since 1963 the purely representative head of state (Yang di pertuan) has been elected from among them for five years.

Districts of the Federated States

The government of the individual sultanates consisted of the prince and some Malay chiefs from the nobility. Was given with him a British resident and his secretary who exercised increasingly strict control and together with the countries in a (appointed) council (council) formed. At the top of the list was the High Commissioner, a position always held by the Governor of the Straits Settlements in personal union. He and the London Colonial Office had to approve the decisions of the councils. In the event of war, the sultanates had to provide troops for service in the Straits Settlements.

In addition, there was a "advisory" Federal Establishment , whose council in Kuala Lumpur consisted of the sultans, high colonial officials and some representatives from the business community. The resident general and his directors for police, jurisdiction, railways, Chinese issues (from 1877), schools, public buildings, etc. ensured a certain degree of uniformity. The British Malaya Civil Service (MCS) officials were selected in the same annual test, modeled on the Indian Civil Service . As in India, the administration of each district was headed by British officials. The Chinese were excluded from civil service; they were subject to a special jurisdiction until 1932. Captains have been appointed within the Chinese communities .

The membership of the councils has increased again and again. In Perak in 1937, for example, there were twelve Malays, seven European officials and seven other “non-official” members, three of whom were Europeans, three Chinese and one Indian. In the Federation Council, 16 officials faced twelve “unofficials”, two of them Chinese.

The British concentrated their soldiers, whose men usually came from India, in Singapore. In the sultanates only armed police units made up of Indians were set up, such as the 1st Perak Sikhs (1874), Selangor Military Force (1875, 530 men) and Sungei Ujung Police (1874). In the 1895 treaty, the princes undertook to collectively finance the Malay States Guides , which were formed from the police forces . There was also the 1st Battalion Perak Sikhs. All of the mercenaries were recruited in Punjab and commanded by the British. A European militia, the Malay States Volunteer Rifles , was set up in 1902 (1911: 561 men, 22 officers; 6 months of training); the colonial power bore the costs of training HMS Malaya .

Economy and Infrastructure

Raw materials and manpower

As in the Dutch East Indies , the peninsula was the main supplier of unprocessed raw materials in the early 20th century. The mining of tin had already started around 1840, until around 1914 (at the beginning of the First World War ) almost half of the tin extracted worldwide came from Malaya. Other mineral resources mined here were tungsten , coal and gold (in Pahang).

Slavery was abolished by 1884, compulsory labor soon after, but the working conditions for indentured labor were quite similar to slavery. By 1901, free primary school, smallpox vaccination, and basic medical care were in place.

traffic

Furthermore, around 450 km of state railway lines (4 million passengers in 1902; 1921: 1,600 km) and almost 1,600 km (1921: 4,200 km) of paved roads were laid to develop the previously barely inhabited hinterland. The end-to-end rail link from Singapore to Bangkok, completed in July 1918, reduced the travel time from six days (by sea) to 40 hours.

Expropriations and profits from exports

With the establishment of the federation, all undeveloped land was declared state property and was leased for use for a certain period of time. The States' exports reached 71 million Straits dollars in 1901 , of which S $ 61 million were made from tin, which was mined exclusively by the Chinese. They also paid about three quarters of the taxes - a total of 1901: 16½ million S $, half of which was export duty on tin - and through high taxes on opium, gambling and alcohol licenses. While the officials and plantation owners were almost exclusively British, a large part of the merchants were recruited from Germans. As in the entire Empire, their possessions were expropriated without compensation during the First World War .

At first, latex was drawn from trees in the jungle , similar to, but less brutal, as in the Belgian Congo . After the first import of Hevea brasiliensis by Hugh Low in 1872, trees of this species formed the basis for the plantation economy, which expanded rapidly after 1898. 1906–1913 the area under cultivation increased sevenfold, so that between the world wars half of natural rubber production came from Malaya. The collapse of the rubber price in 1920/21 therefore had devastating consequences. At the end of the decade, there were 260–280 corporations operating.

The most important other cash crop was the cultivation of coconut palms . The agricultural intermediate trade was in Chinese hands, but until 1939 rice cultivation was only allowed to Malays. The exports were shipped almost exclusively via Singapore, after the First World War Port Swettenham (today: Pelabohan Kelang ) gained increasing importance.

At the beginning, since 1840, the pewter soaps were mined almost exclusively by Chinese operators in open-cast mining and by hand. The tin was smelted in Singapore and Penang. For the extraction of the tin at greater depths, joint-stock companies were founded, which raised the capital required for the machines in London. The number of coolies employed fell from its peak in 1912 (211,500), when 80 percent of the capital invested in mining was Chinese, to 1922 (to 82,000). In 1935, British capitalists with over 80 major public companies controlled two-thirds of the yield. Their average profit per ton in 1924 was £ 78, dividends between 7½ and 30 percent, averaging 20 percent. The expansion of Singapore into a fleet base in the 1930s was largely co-financed by the states.

Like all raw material exporting areas, Malaya was badly affected by the global economic crisis from 1929 onwards. Exports of rubber fell from S $ 202 million (1929) to S $ 37 million (1932), and of tin and tin ore from S $ 117 million to S $ 31 million, while tax revenues were halved during this period. Almost 200,000 Indians and 50,000 Chinese were repatriated to their countries of origin at state expense, and many more left voluntarily.

Monetary affairs

In the early 19th century, the Mexican silver dollar (M $) was the preferred currency across island India . Locally coined were z. B. in Kelantan and Trengganu the keping . The Indian rupee (standardized in 1837) became the official currency in British territories . However, the M $ remained particularly preferred among the Chinese as it circulated freely in China. The Straits dollar spent from 1845 onwards (at 100 ¢) imitated him. After the currency crisis triggered by the worldwide fall in the price of silver, its rate was fixed at £ 0/2/4 in 1906, which was equivalent to ℳ 2.36  .

The coins that were spent by the individual rulers went out of use until 1912. In 1939 the Malayan dollar was introduced .

literature

  • J. de V. Allen, AJ Stockwell, LR Wright (eds.): A Collection of Treaties and Other Documents affecting the States of Malaysia, 1761-1963; New York 1981, 2 volumes.
  • Henry Conway Belfield: Handbook of the Federated Malay States ; London 1907.
  • Rupert Emerson: Malaysia: A Study in Direct and Indirect Rule ; New York 1937, reprint: Kuala Lumpur 1964
  • Nadzan Haron: Colonial Defense and British Approach to the Problems in Malaya 1874-1918 , Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2 (May, 1990), pp. 275-295.
  • R. Heussler: British Rule in Malaya: The Malayan Civil Service and Its Predecessors, 1867–1942; Westport, Conn. 1981
  • Labor Research Department; British Imperialism in Malaya , London 1926.
  • JS Sidhu: British Administration in the Federated Malay States, 1896-1920 ; Kuala Lumpur 1981 (Univ. London Diss.)
  • J. Stockwell: British imperial policy and decolonization in Malaya, 1942-52 ; Jnl. Imp. & Comm. Hist., Vol. 8 (1984), pp. 68-87.
  • Frank Swettenham: British Malaya ; London 1906.
  • CF Yong: Origins and Development of the Malayan Communist Movement, 1919-1930 ; Modern Asian Studies, Vol. 25, No. 4, (Oct., 1991), pp. 625-648.
  • Magazine: British Malaya; Ed. Association of British Malays (mouthpiece of the capital of the colonial rulers)

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Studies in the administration of tropical dependencies; 1905, pp. 110-2, 115 f. ( Full text )
  2. ↑ Immigration Regulations: Tamil Immigration Fund Enactment 1908, Emigration Act 1922,
  3. ↑ The mortality rate among these plantation workers was high at 45 per thousand, although not as extreme as in parts of French Indochina , where annual death rates of 20 percent were common. British Imperialism (1926), p. 37.
  4. ↑ cf. Tarling, Nicholas; The Superintendence of British Interests in South-East Asia in the Nineteenth Century; Journal of Southeast Asian History, Vol. 7, No. 1 (Mar., 1966), pp. 97-110
  5. ↑ Low was not only successful as a career official, but also became director of nine different rubber producers with corresponding salaries after his departure. British Imperialism (1926), p. 9.
  6. ^ Rupert Emerson, Lennox A. Mills, Virginia Thompson: Government and Nationalism in Southeast Asia, New York 1942, p. 80
  7. ↑ See Patrick Morrah: The History of the Malayan Police , Journal of the Malayan Branch , Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. XXXVI (1963), Pt. 2, No. 202, pp. 46-79.
  8. ↑ see also: SMS Emden (1908) (mutiny of the guards 1915 in Singapore)
  9. ↑ cf. Patrick Hadow: Labor Conditions in Malaya ; Weltevreden 1905.
  10. ↑ British capital had invested an estimated £ 75 million by 1914. Encyclopaedia of the British Empire; Vol II, pp. 1180-90.
  11. ↑ CS Akers, CS: Report on the rubber industry of the Orient; London 1912.
  12. ↑ 1865: monthly wages $ 4–5 and food (Jagor, F. Singapore, Malacca, Java: Reiseskizzen; Berlin 1866.) 1922 daily wages of 1 shilling on plantations, in mining there were 2–5 d. more. (British Imperialism, 1926)
  13. ↑ List of exchange rates (gold standard)