¹ Martin, Rudner, ‘Malayan Rubber Policy: Development and Anti-Development During the 1950s’, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (JSEAS), Vol. 8, No. 2 (September 1976), pp. 235–59.Google Scholar For a detailed analysis of the economics and technologies of Malaysian rubber production and their development over recent decades, see the encyclopaedic work by Colin, Barlow, The Natural Rubber Industry (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1978).Google ScholarWhereas rubber policy decisions introduced since 1963 were generally all-Malaysian in their scope, the following discussions of policy and structural changes relate more specifically to the main rubber growing areas of peninsular Malaysia, the former Federation of Malaya. The application of policy in the East Malaysian States of Sabah and Sarawak is generally similar; however, historical and environmental factors have resulted in somewhat different conditions.Google Scholar

² Chong, Yah Lim, The Economic Development of Modern Malaya (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1967),Google Scholar describes rubber as the engine of Malayan post-war economic growth. On the contribution of rubber to Malaya/Malaysia's subsequent growth performance, see David, Lim, Economic Growth and Development in West Malaysia, 1947–1970 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1973), esp. pp. 6–7et passim.Google ScholarWriting in 1972, David Lim was fundamentally pessimistic about the future of Malaysian rubber, but one year later, the OPEC oil price rise improved dramatically the long-run competitive position of natural versus synthetic rubbers in world markets.Google Scholar

³ Economic data cited in this paragraph are derived from: The Treasury, Malaysia, Economic Report 1975–76 (Kuala Lumpur, 1976);Google ScholarMinistry of Finance, Malaysia, Economic Report, 1976/77 (Kuala Lumpur, 1977);Google ScholarFederation of Malaya, First Five-Tear Plan 1961–1965 (Kuala Lumpur, 1961);Google ScholarFederation of Malaysia, First Malaysia Plan 1966–70 (Kuala Lumpur, 1966);Google Scholar—Second Malaysia Plan 1971–75 (Kuala Lumpur, 1971);Google Scholar—Third Malaysia Plan, 1976–80 (Kuala Lumpur, 1976–1980, Kuala Lumpur, 1976);Google ScholarRao, V. V. Bhanoji, National Accounts of West Malaysia, 1947–1971 (Singapore: Heinemann Books, 1976), esp. Ch. and Table E.Google Scholar

⁴ Thoburn, J. T., ‘Exports and Economic Growth in West Malaysia’, Oxford Economic Papers, Vol. 25, No. 1 (03, 1973), p. 89et passim.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

⁵ David, Lim, Economic Growth and Development in West Malaysia, p. 127.Google Scholar

⁶ Bauer, P. T., The Rubber Industry: A Study in Competition and Monopoly (London: Longmans Green, 1948).Google Scholar Bauer's arguments were also set out in several journal articles, including: ‘The Working of Rubber Regulation’, The Economic Journal, Vol. LVI, (09 1946), pp. 391–414,Google Scholar and ‘Malayan Rubber Policies’, Economica, Vol. XIV (1947), pp. 81–107.Google Scholar On policy regulation in the early post-war period, see Martin, Rudner, ‘Rubber Strategy for Post War Malaya’, JSEAS, Vol. 1, No. 1 (03 1970), pp. 23–36. In Malaysian practice, estates and smallholdings are classified by the size of the aggregate plantation, with the dividing line being legally defined at 100 acres, or 40.5 hectares.Google Scholar

⁷ Moore, Cf. J. Barrington Jr, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy. Landlord and Peasant in the Making of the Modern World (Boston: Peregrine Book, 1969);Google ScholarJames, C. Scott, The Moral Economy of the Peasant (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1976);Google ScholarTeck, Ghee Lim, Peasants and their Agricultural Economy in Colonial Malaya 1874–1941 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1977);Google ScholarMartin, Rudner, ‘Rice Policy and Peasant Social Transformation in Late Colonial Malaya, in James, C. Jackson and Martin, Rudner (eds), Issues in Malaysian Development (Singapore: Heinemann Educational Books, for the Asian Studies Association of Australia, 1979).Google Scholar

⁸ Martin, Rudner, ‘The State and Peasant Innovation in Rural Development: The Case of Malaysian Rubber’, Asian and African Studies (Jerusalem), Vol. 6 (1970), pp. 75–96;Google Scholar reprinted in David, Lim (ed.), Readings on Malaysian Economic Development (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1975), pp. 321–31.Google Scholar

⁹ Fryer, Cf. D. W. and Jackson, James C., ‘Peasant Producers or Urban Planters?’ Pacific Viewpoint, Vol.7, No. 2 (09 1966), esp. pp. 203–9.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Low, D. A., The Asian Revolution of the Mid-twentieth Century (Canberra, Asian Studies Association of Australia, 1976, mimeo). Low's ‘dominant peasantry’ resembles the Russian Kulak, though its structural and behavioural attributes include factors other than just size of holding.Google Scholar

¹¹ Cf. Fryer and Jackson, ‘Peasant Producers or Urban Planters?’ Their notion of ‘Urban Planter’ closely resembles, and indeed is analytically coterminous with, Low's ‘dominant peasantry’ in the context of non-food, export-oriented agricultural production. See also Phin, Keong Voon, ‘Size Aspects of Rubber Smallholdings in West Malaysia’, Journal of Tropical Geography, vol. 34 (06 1972), pp. 65–76.Google Scholar

¹² On the origins and historical organization of the Malayan rubber economy, see: John, Drabble, Rubber in Malaya, 1876–1922 (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1973),Google Scholar and —‘The Plantation Rubber Industry in Malaya up to 1922’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch, Royal Asiatic Society, Vol. 40, Pt 1 (07 1967), pp. 52–77,Google Scholar and —‘Investment in the Rubber Industry in Malaya’, JSEAS, Vol. 3, No. 2 (09 1972), pp. 247–61;Google ScholarJackson, James C., Planters and Speculators, Chinese and European Agricultural Enterprise in Malaya, 1786–1921 (Singapore: University of Malaya Press, 1968);Google ScholarMcHale, T. R., ‘Changing Technology and Shifts in the Supply and Demand for Rubber: An Analytical History’, Malayan Economic Review, Vol. IX, No. 2 (10 1964);Google Scholar Lim Teck Ghee, Peasants and their Agricultural Economy in Colonial Malaya, esp Chs 3, and 6; Barlow, C., The Natural Rubber Industry, esp Chs 2 and 3.Google Scholar

¹³ Bauer, , Report on a Visit to Rubber Growing Smallholdings in Malaya; Drabble, Rubber in Malaya.Google Scholar

¹⁴ John, Drabble, ‘Peasant Smallholders in the Malayan Economy’ in James, C. Jackson and Martin, Rudner (eds), Issues in Malaysian Development;Google ScholarBauer, P. T., The Working of Rubber Regulation, P. T. Bauer The Rubber Industry.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Schoenfield, A., British Economic Policy Since the War (Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books 1963);Google ScholarMartin, Rudner, ‘The Draft Development Plan of the Federation of Malaya’, JSEAS, Vol. 3, No 1 (03 1972), esp. pp. 71–5.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Rudner, Rubber Strategy for Post War Malaya.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Bauer, , Report on a Visit to Rubber Growing Smallholdings in Malaya.Google Scholar

¹⁸ Rudner, Rubber Strategy for Post War Malaya. Note that internal Malayan restrictions on rubber land utilization were cancelled only from 1947, though the original International Rubber Regulation Agreement itself terminated already in 1943.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Federation of Malay, Legislative Council Proceedings, Report of the Rice Production Committee (Kuala Lumpur, 1953).Google Scholar

²⁰ Rudner, Rice Policy and Peasant Social Transformation in Late Colonial Malaya, and Malayan Rubber Policy.Google Scholar

²¹ Rudner, , Malayan Rubber Policy: esp. pp. 240–6;Google ScholarChong, Yah Lim, ‘The Malayan Rubber Replanting Taxes’, Malayan Economic Review, Vol. VI, No. 2 (10 1961), pp. 47–8.Google Scholar

²² Federation of Malaya Annual Report 1955 (Kuala Lumpur, 1956), p. 142;Google ScholarIndications of official colonial concern to redirect smallholders away from rubber to alternative crops, on essentially non-economic grounds, may be seen in the Interim Report of the Rubber Smallholders Enquiry Committee, Federation of Malaya, Legislative Proceedings, paper no. 48 of 1950, para 10, and in statements by the colonial executive Member for Agriculture and Forestry, Legislative Council Proceedings, 20 March 1952, and Member for Economic Affairs, 25 November 1953,Google Scholar See also Rudner, Malayan Rubber Policy, p. 244.Google Scholar

²³ By 1955, over half Malaya's smallholding acreage was over 30 years old, the point where diminishing returns set in; less than eight per cent of the smallholding acreage, and only around a quarter of estate acreage, consisted of high-yielding stands: Federation of Malaya,Google ScholarTaxation and Replanting in the Rubber Industy (Kuala Lumpur, 1955), p. 17.Google Scholar

²⁴ Mudie, R. F., Report of a Mission of Enquiry into the Rubber Industry of Malaya (Kuala Lumpur, 1954) (Mudie Mission Report).Google Scholar

²⁵ On the role of political development in releasing policy constraints on the development of the Malayan rubber economy, especially its smallholding sector, see Rudner, , The State and Peasant Innovation in Rural Development.Google Scholar

²⁶ Federation of Malaya, Report on Economio Planning in the Federation of Malaya in 1956. (Kuala Lumpur, 1957).Google Scholar See also Gayl, D. Ness, Bureaucracy and Rural Development in Malaysia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967), esp. Ch. 3Google Scholar and Rudner, , Malayan Rubber Policy, p. 248et passim.Google Scholar

²⁷ See the Chief Replanting Officer quoted in the Straits Times (Singapore), 28 09 1961;Google ScholarMinister of Commerce and Industry, Legislative Council Proceedings, 7 December 1957.Google Scholar

²⁸ Differential incomes and earnings to high yielding as against low yielding rubber smallholders have been estimated by the Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia, and can range as high as a factor of 10: Teck, Yew Pee and Ani, Arope bin, Rubber Owners Manual 1976 (Kuala Lumpur: Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia, 1976), pp. 197–201, esp. Table 15.3.Google Scholar

²⁹ For an account of the deteriorating competitive position of natural rubber in face of improving synthetic rubber technologies, bringing worsening real terms of trade for Malaysian production during the 1960s,Google Scholar see Lim, , Economic Growth and Development in West Malaysia, esp. Ch. 3.Google ScholarAllen, P. W., Thomas, P. O. and Sekhar, B. C., The Techno-Economic Potential of NR in Major End Uses (Kuala Lumpur:Malaysian Rubber Research and Development Board, 1975), provides a study of the comparative costs and benefits of natural rubber as against various types of synthetic for specified purposes.Google Scholar

³⁰ Lim, , Economic Growth and Development in West Malaysia, esp. Chs 6 and 11;Google ScholarHarcharan, Khera Singh, ‘The State and Peasant Innovative in Rural Development:The Case of FELDA Oil Palm Schemes’, in Stephen, Chee and Siew, Mun Khoo (eds), Malaysian Economic Development and Policies (Kuala Lumpur: Malaysia Economic Association, Conference Proceedings Series No. 3, 1975), pp. 194–204.Google Scholar

³¹ On the operations of the Malaysian political process, see, e.g., Milne, R. S., Government and Politics in Malaysia (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967);Google ScholarMeans, G. P., Malaysian Politics (London: University of London Press, 1970);Google Scholar and on its effect on economic policy issues see, e.g., Gayl, D. Ness, ‘Economic Development and the Goals of Government’, in Wang, Gungwu (ed.), Malaysia (London: Pall Mall, 1964);Google ScholarMartin, Rudner, Nationalism, Planning and Economic Modernization in Malaysia. The Politics of Beginning Development (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1975).Google Scholar

³² Ungku, Aziz, The Sub-Division of Estates in Malaya (Kuala Lumpur: University of Malaya, Department of Economics, 1962);Google Scholar and Ungku, Aziz ‘Land Disintegration and Land Policy in Malaya’, Malayan Economic Review, Vol. 2, No. 1 (04 1958).Google Scholar

³³ Assistant Minister of Rural Development, Federation of Malaya, Dewan Riayat (House of Representatives) Proceedings, 23 February 1960. On government's response to the subdivision problem,Google Scholar see Rudner, , Malayan Rubber Policy, pp. 256–9.Google Scholar

³⁴ Sow, Ching Lim, Land Development Schemes in Peninsular Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur: Rubber Research Institute of Malaysia, 1976).Google Scholar

³⁵ Barlow, , The Natural Rubber Industry, pp. 92–6.Google Scholar See also Sekhar, B. C., ‘Scientific and Technological Development in the NR Industry’, Malayan Rubber Review, Vol. 1, No. 1 (07 1976), pp. 25–31.Google Scholar

³⁶ Lim, , Economic Growth and Development in West Malaysia, pp. 218–9.Google Scholar

³⁷ Edwards, C. T., Public Finances in Malaya and Singapore (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 1970), pp. 211–47.Google Scholar Edwards shows (Table 50) that a lowincome rubber smallholder pays some 35 per cent of his income in tax payments, mainly in rubber export duty, whereas more affluent smallholders pay around a quarter, rice producers between 15 and 8 per cent, and urban dwellers between 18 and 10 per cent, at similar levels of income. See also Tan, A. H. H., ‘The Incidence of Export Taxes on Small Producers’, Malayan Economic Review, Vol. XII, No. 1 (04 1967).Google Scholar

³⁸ Sow, Ching Lim, ‘Towards and Equitable International Trade in Natural Rubber’ Malayan Rubber Review, Vol. 1, No. 1 (07 1976), pp. 14–19 and 22–4.Google Scholar

³⁹ On the Malaysian inflation of 1973–1974, and its effects on economic acivity, see, e.g., Lim See Yan, ‘The Inflation Syndrome and Its Implications for Policy’; Ramesh Chouder, ‘Price Stability and Inflation in Malaysia’; Lajman Sirat, ‘Price Behaviour and Inflation in Malaysia’; H. G. Manur, ‘Inflation in Malaysia—Diagnosis and Prescription’. all in Chee and Khoo, Malaysian Economic Development and Policies.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Sow, Ching Lim, Towards an Equitable International Trade in Natural Rubber, p. 15et passim.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Ursula, Wasserman, ‘Commodities in UNCTAD: Rubber’ and ‘Jakarta Natural Rubber Agreement 1976’, Journal of World Trade Law, Vol. 11 No. 3 (05/06 1978), pp. 287–9 and 289–90, respectively.Google Scholar

⁴² Subsequently, shortly after these lines were written, the producer countries decided, in January 1978, to defer for the time being the establishment of the projected buffer stock since natural rubber prices were currently on a rising trend (Malaysian Digest, 15 January 1978). However, preparations for the eventual introduction of the buffer stock and supply rationalization schemes reportedly continue under the aegis of the ANRPC Secretariat.Google Scholar

⁴³ Lew Sip, Hon, ‘A Case for an International Price Stabilization Scheme for Natural Rubber’, UMBC Economic Review, Vol. XII, No. 2 (1976), pp. 18–25;Google ScholarMr Lew was Parliamentary Secretary for the Ministry of Primary Industries, Malaysia. See also Sow, Ching Lim, Towards an Equitable International Trade in Natural Rubber; Dr Lim is Head of the Rubber Economics and Planning Unit of the Malaysian Rubber Research and Development Board. Academic economists have, for their part, also accepted the UNCTAD doctrine: see, e.g.,Google ScholarChan, Tuck Hoong Paul and Lee, Kiong Hock, ‘The New International Economic Order—Some Implications for Malaysia’, UMBC Economic Review, Vol. XII, No. 1 (1976), pp. 18–24. This conceptual conversion to the UNCTAD doctrine of trade restriction, under the slogan of ‘New International Economic Order’ is all the more remarkable in a country which had more experience with, and demonstrably suffered more from, such output restriction schemes in the past, and which currently enjoys manifest comparative economic and technological advantages in the production of natural rubber.Google Scholar