article
Rubber restriction
and
the squeeze on smallholders (2)
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article
Rubber restriction and
the squeeze on smallholders (2) |
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MALAYAN
PEASANT SMALLHOLDERS AND THE STEVENSON RESTRICTION SCHEME, 1922 - 28 by Lim Teck Ghee (Part 2) The Mechanics of Discrimination BUT, if in the final negotiations the Malayan authorities were not given the chance to obtain the best deal for Malayan interests, they had an opportunity to redeem themselves in the implementation of restriction. The crux of the Stevenson scheme was the enforced limitation of rubber production and its adjustment to price movements. The limitation of production was accomplished in this manner. The output of each rubber holding during a selected year was regarded as its 'standard production'; and all products were compelled to restrict their export of rubber to a certain percentage of the standard production. Some difficulty was encountered in trying to decide on a year which could be regarded as a typical year of production for all producers. The two years preceding restriction had been gauged to be abnormal on account of the slump conditions and voluntary restriction practised by some producers, and so it was decided to adopt the year ending 31 October 1920 as the base year. Holdings which had kept records, and this included all the plantations, were alloted a standard production equal to their output during the base year. For holdings which possessed no record of their output during the base year, the Stevenson committee arbitrarily selected what was commonly referred to as the 'Duncan Scale'.(18) Under this scale, the average maximum production per mature acre was fixed at 320 pounds per annum. The great majority of smallholders had no record of their output and they automatically fell under the Duncan Scale. Within a few days of the introduction of the Stevenson scheme, reports began reaching the administration of peasant dissatisfaction as a result of the great hardships inflicted by the scheme. Peasant discontent spread rapidly throughout the country and violence broke out in various parts of Perak and Johore, as peasants unable to sell their rubber reacted desperately to the breaking of their rice bowl. To avert what could have been the first peasant rebellion in modern Malaya, the colonial government hastily appointed a committee to inquire into the equity of the standard production allowance allotted to smallholders and to recommend changes. |
| The findings of the Committee provided abundant evidence of the extremely shoddy treatment the Malayan smallholders were given under the Stevenson scheme.(19) Investigations carried out by the Department of Agriculture in Perak, Selangor, Negri Sembilan, Malacca and Johore, found that the yields from smallholdings sampled varied between a low of 733 pounds to a high of 1,200 pounds per acre per annum.(20) An independent survey in Kuala Kangsar found that 16 smallholdings totalling 60 acres had an average yield of 599 pounds, 31 holdings totalling 73 acres averaged 987 pounds and 47 holdings totalling 117 acres averaged 774 pounds. Other evidence included the testimony of the District Officer of Upper Perak that half of the smallholdings in his district yielded 1,200 pounds whilst the other half yielded 800 pounds, and that of the Chairman of the Johore Planters' Association who found high rubber yields from comparatively poor smallholding areas.
These evidences of high yields from smallholdings were confirmed by a check of the smallholders' sale books. It should be noted that the smallholdings sampled were chosen at random but there is no reason to doubt that the figures of yields quoted were typical of smallholdings during this period. The reasons for what was then regarded as an extraordinarily high yield were not difficult to find. Smallholders had many more trees to the acre. In Johore, for example, smallholding stands averaged 200 trees per acre and the number of tappable trees averaged 150 to the acre. This was more than twice the number found in plantations. Smallholders also tapped every day because of their daily dependence on the rubber.crop. In case of illness, another member of the family took over the tapping, and rain in the morning merely compelled the smallholder to tap in the afternoon or some other time when it was dry. It was true, though, that some part of the high yield was a result of the more drastic methods of extraction and could be regarded as 'abnormal'. But even after allowing for this abnormal output, the committee was unanimously of the opinion that the existing standard production allowance for smallholders was inequitable and that the yields from smallholdings in many localities were considerably higher than what was commonly supposed. To allay any suspicion that smallholders had been singled out for discriminatory treatment under the Stevenson scheme, the committee recommended that the standard production of smallholdings be raised from 320 pounds to 533 pounds per acre per annum and that this allowance be made retrospective from 1 November 1922 when restriction first came into effect. Although the new allowance was considerably lower than the recorded yields, the Malayan government found it only partially acceptable. In an urgent despatch to the Colonial Office, the High Commissioner recommended that the standard production for smallholdings be assessed at 533 pounds for the first five acres and at the old rate of 320 pounds for the remaining acreage, if any, as from 1 February 1923. The imperial authorities, however, rejected the compromise proposal outright. The High Commissioner then further scaled down the committee's recommendation and suggested that a standard production of 426 pounds be accepted. This was acceptable to the imperial government and a maximum production rate of 426 pounds for smallholdings was made operative for Ceylon and Malaya from 1 February 1923.(21) Despite the increase in the smallholding allowance, the Malayan authorities could claim little credit in this crucial episode in the history of restriction. . .. |
| The case for a large increase in the allowance allotted to smallholders was unassailable but, instead of standing up for the interests of the faceless masses, the Malayan government allowed itself to become a party to the manipulation of the scheme. It might also be noted that it was not the principle of justice that finally persuaded the local and imperial governments to make the partial concession, but the threat of further violence and subsequent political repercussions.
The injustice meted out to the peasant smallholding sector was compounded by the numerous instances of discrimination against individual smallholdings during the operation of the scheme. Under the provisions* of the Stevenson scheme all smallholdings were to be inspected to ascertain the allowance of exportable rubber to which they were entitled. But the sudden introduction of the scheme made it impossible to do this and for the first year the 1921 census was used as a basis for determining the acreage and date of the cultivation. Many inaccuracies were subsequently discovered in the information for individual holdings and arrangements were made to inspect smallholdings and obtain more correct assessments for the second restriction year. It had been initially planned that these inspections should be entrusted to District Officers. But these men were heavily burdened with the chore of issuing certificates of standard production, quarterly licences and coupons for smallholdings. It was decided, therefore, that the assistance of members of the local planters' associations be obtained in the field inspections. But planters were perhaps the people least capable of exercising the impartial judgement required for these inspections, and the decision to use them was an open invitation to many of* them to vent their ill-feelings on the peasantry. It is hardly conceivable that this point should have evaded the administration, since the Controller of Rubber Restriction, the executive head of restriction in Malaya, had written 'The planters are the people who alleged over-assessment of smallholdings and estates [medium holdings] and it is up to them to support their allegations by inspection'.(22) Some idea of the handicaps which peasants faced under the European planter-inspection system are given below. In one instance, 26 smallholders in a petition to the Resident of Selangor complained that the European planters who assessed their holdings had unfairly penalised their allowance because of some fruit trees among the rubber trees and because their lands were not so well-kept as the plantations. As a result, whereas their former unrestricted output was four to five katis of rubber a day, they were now receiving only twenty to thirty katis worth of coupons for a three month period.(23) Another letter from 23 smallholders described a similar problem and the petitioners expressed a willingness to cut down their fruit trees if it would enable them to obtain higher allowances.(24) These instances were by no means isolated, and many other petitions were sent to the Sultan complaining of the reduction in the allowances. The Resident dealing with these petitions en masse, thought that the introduction of the lower assessment scale was the cause of the complaints. But a minute from the officer of the district where the complaints originated revealed otherwise. He explained that all smallholdings in the district were assessed by European planters and many of the holdings had had their allowance reduced. The inspectors had claimed that in some holdings the growth was not up to the reported age and that in other holdings there was no bark or the trees were heavily wounded. Reductions were also made in some holdings because they were covered |
| by lallang and blukar, or because of a lack of drainage or because the trees were interplanted with coconuts and fruit trees. The District Officer did not cast any explicit aspersions on the integrity of ,fhe inspectors, but he wrote that so many petitions had come in that he was revising the assessments. The great majority of smallholders who were under-assessed were less fortunate, and their appeals died at the hands of the mukim Smallholder Inspection Committees. These committees had been established to investigate irregularities and anomalies in the assessment of smallholdings, but they were dominated by officials and planters so that it was extremely difficult for peasants to obtain redress, particularly as it often involved the reversal of a decision of a member of the committee. District Advisory Committees were also set up to examine the effect of restriction on the peasants. These committees were more representative of the interests of smallholders but they were purely advisory bodies and met too infrequently to be able effectively to present the peasant case.(25) All this is not to accuse the administration and planters of being Machiavellian in their relations with the peasants or to detract from the difficulty of running a restriction scheme which could satisfy all its participants. Smallholders, no less than any other group, were given to exaggeration about their productivity and to complaints about underassessment, and it is possible that some adjustments were justifiable. It is also possible that, although there were instances of outright discrimination,(26) the low assessments were believed by the inspectors to be what the peasant holdings were entitled to. Many inspectors had fixed notions that smallholdings were relatively unproductive and the assessments had been made strictly according to European standards of planting, cultivation and tapping. It has been admitted by one authority that not until 1926 could smallholding assessments be regarded as correct according to these European standards,(27) and it is generally acknowledged now that, throughout the entire period of restriction, smallholders as a body received less than one half the average assessment of plantatations, although the evidence gathered by the government at the beginning of the scheme showed that the average smallholding yield per acre was substantially higher than that on plantations. There was another form of under-assessment of the smallholding sector. A census of rubber-growing areas in the Federated Malay States in September 1921 had found that the smallholdings in bearing in that month comprised 31.33 per cent of the total rubber area in bearing.(28) If the conservative estimate is adopted that smallholdings were yielding the same production per unit area as other sectors of the industry, the smallholders' share of the total standard production quota should not have been less than 31.33 per cent. In the first three years of restriction, however, when detailed breakdowns of the quotas are available, the smallholders' share of standard production amounted to 27.10, 26.0 and 26.47 per cent respectively.(29) No similar breakdowns are available for the remaining years of restriction but other references indicate that the smallholding share of the total quota declined.(30) At the same time, since the total standard production quota and the rate of permissable export was greatly increased during the remaining three restriction years, the absolute loss suffered by smallholders was correspondingly greater.(31) It must be stressed again that these estimates are based on the assumption of a smallholder average production per unit area equivalent to that of the other sectors. The actual figures of under-assessment must be very much higher as evidence indicates that the average |
| smallholder production per unit
area was at least 50 per cent above the rest of the industry. The evidence which proves beyond doubt the considerable under-assessment of the peasant rubber sector was the performance of the peasant sector when restriction was lifted. In 1928, the last year of restriction, at a time when most plantations were producing at full capacity, an estimated 174,490 tons of rubber was exported from the Federated Malay States. In 1929, the first year of unrestricted production, rubber exports totalled 261,352 tons, an increase of nearly 87,000 tons.(32) Almost all of this increase came from the peasant sector and gave smallholdings an average output of 480 pounds per mature acres as against the average of about 200 pounds allotted to it during restriction. This performance dumb-founded the government and it had to search for reasons to explain the discrepancy. Thus, it was contended that the peasant output was only obtained by over-tapping and that there would be a rapid fall in the next few months when the bark reserves accumulated during restriction were squandered away.(33) In 1930, however, peasant production continued at a high level and was maintained over the following years. One authority has estimated that the smallholding sector suffered an under-assessment of 180 pounds per mature acre during the currency of the Stevenson scheme.(34) Using this conservative estimate, it is possible to gauge the extent of financial loss suffered by peasant rubber producers. The average mature area of smallholdings in the Federated Malay States was approximately 350,000 acres, and if the average rubber export value is estimated at 49 cents per pound, the under-assessment cost the peasants $173 million. NOTES (18) The table below shows the Duncan scale: Age of Trees Maximum Output for Twelve Months Under five years Nil Between five and six years 120 pounds Between six and seven years 180 " Between seven and eight years 240 " Eight years and over 320 " Source: Whittlesley, Governmental Control of Crude Rubber, Appendix C, Rules for the Guidance of Committees, p. 132. (19) First and second Report of Committee appointed to enquire into flat rate of production for smallholders, 22 November 1922 and 10 January 1923, enclosures in HC and SS (Conf.) 25 January 1923, CO 717/27/10363. |
| (20) An exception was
Selangor where the yield was estimated at 516 pounds.
The figure was regarded by the samplers as an under-estimation, as some
owners of the land holdings sampled had believed that the government
intended to levy a tax on rubber and had removed part of the rubber
before
inspection. For the full figures, see Summary of Figures compiled by
Officers
of the Argicultural Departments, SS & FMS from representative
smallholdings in November and December 1921, enclosure in Second Report
of Smallholding Committee, 10 January 1923, CO 717/27/10363. (21) A convenient summary of these developments is given by G. Grindle, minute on 'Increased Assessment of Standard Production for Smallholders ù a resume of position', 21 February 1923 on HC to SS, Tel., 31 January 1923, CO 717/27/5643 (22) Minute by the Controller of Rubber Restriction, 25 July 1923, on Controller Rubber Restriction to SR Selangor, 5 July 1923, Selangor Secretariat File (SSF) 3548/23. Assessment of holdings over 200 acres was undertaken by local committees. In 1925 a Joint Assessment Committee took over assessment of all holdings over 100 acres. (23) Haji Abdullah bin Haji and others to BR Selangor, 27 February 1924, SSF 1138/24. (24) Haji Idris bin Haji Abdul Jalil and 22 others to BR Selangor, 4 March 1924, SSF 1138/24. (25) Three years after their establishment, only four of the 23 committees in the four states had met more than once, ten had met once and nine had not met at all. FCP 27 February 1928, B 4. (26) Among the more obvious instances were when smallholdings standing on exactly the same type of land as plantations received considerably smaller assessments and when European inspectors arrived at assessments without even bothering to examine the holdings. See correspondence in SSF 1735/24. (27) Rowe, Studies in the Artificial Control of Raw Material Supplies, p. 89. Rowe also suggests that smuggling and other evasions and frauds practised by smallholders together with the raising of the original assessment meant that 'the natives had no grievance in practice'. There is no evidence that these evasions^f the law were widespread; but even if the argument is correct, it is a poor reflection on the government that its subjects had to resort to illegal recourses to compensate for the legalised fraud which many had to tolerate. (28) The figures below show the breakdown of smallholding areas in the FMS: Total Area Alienated Area of Rubber in Bearing Perak 241,654 138,650 Selangor 111,244 57,260 Negri Sembilan 66,878 33,228 Pahang 36,608* 18,514 Total 456,384 247,652 * Exclusive of Kuantan where area alienated was probably in excess of 10,000 acres. Source: September 1921 Census of Rubber Areas, FMS, enclosure in HC to SS, Desp. 602 of 30 October 1923, CO 717/29/56773. |
| (29) The figures below show the difference between the standard production quota allotted to the smallholders and the actual quota had the 1921 Rubber Census been used. Restriction SP Allotted SP According to To Smallholdings 1921 Census Deficit Year 1st 44,000 tons 50,865 tons 6,864 tons 2nd 36,990 44,571 7,581 3rd 42,317 50,089 7.772 Note: No figures of smallholder rubber exports are available. Some indication is, however, provided by the rate of permitted release during these three years which were 61.25, 58.75 and 61.25 % of the standard production respectively. Sources: (a) Annual Report Chief Secretary, FMS (AR CS) 1924-26. (b) September 1921 Census of Rubber Areas, FMS. (30) From 1 November 1926 the special allowance of 426 lbs. permitted to the first five acres of smallholdings was abolished, and although the maximum all round was raised from 320 to 400 lbs., smallholders were in an even more inferior position as the medium and large producers had their allowances increased by a greater quantity. (31)The averagee standard production quota allotted to the FMS during the first three restriction years was 154,829 tons and the average rate of permissible export 60.42%. In the remaining three restriction years the average standard production quota was 211,317 tons and the average rate of permissible export 74.58 %. The table below shows the individual figures for the six restriction years. Restriction Year Standard Allowance Quota Permissible Export % 1st 162,350 tons 61.25 2nd 142,264 58.75 3rd 159,874 61.25 4th 182,208 96.25 5th 190,391 67.50 6th 261,353 60.00 Source: AR CS 1924-28 (32) Figures of rubber production during the period can be found in Appendix 2. (33) AR Department of Agriculture 1929; 1930. (34) P. T. Bauer, 'Malayan Rubber Policies', Economica, Vol. XIV (May 1947, Lonrinn) pp g3r4 (to be continued) Go to the top Click here for Part one |
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