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The Impact of Railroads on The Malayan Economy, 1874–1941
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2011
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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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
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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.
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