1. Although in the Federated Malay States the British were
employed by the respective Sultans, it is difficult to ignore the fact that the
British were here to reap the benefits of this land without wanting to give
much back to the native people, but with a degree of subtlety.
2. In order to keep the Malays from creating trouble for the
British, land reservations were introduced to transform the native Malay
population into permanent agriculture peasants.
3. It worked for the British well in 1900 when they introduced
the Punjab Alienation of Land Act to control and supervise Punjabs as
agricultural tribes. This was done on the basis of protecting and
preserving the native people by secluding them from the immigrants who were
invited to explore the country.
4. The Malays were asked to grow food for the immigrants. As Sir
Frank Athelstane Swettenham once said:
“The longer the Malay is kept away from the influence of
civilization, the better it will be for him.”
5. British brought in lots of immigrants directly for their
benefit. Undeniably, they were the workforce badly needed to develop the
country.
6. The Indians were British subjects (India was a Colony,
while Malaya was not). They were made to work in the estates, and as British
subjects, were given basic necessities such as very basic accommodation and
Tamil schools.
7. The Chinese were brought in to work the tin mines.
8. Most were in Malaya to make money to be brought back to
their families left back in the Mainland.
9. As they had an allegiance to none, enriching themselves in
order to achieve a good life once they return to China was a dream of virtually
all the Chinese immigrants. Unlike the Malays, they were self-sufficient and
very hard-working.
10. This was the way the British divided and ruled. Eventually,
swayed by the profit they were earning from the Malay States that they forgot
their promise to the Sultans which was to protect the interest and welfare of
the Malays.
11. The bulk of the Malays lived in rural areas and they had
very minimal contact with the other races, the Chinese were basically in towns
and tin mines, while the Indians were in rubber plantations.
12. The effect to this was that the Malays remained backwards and were told to stay as peasants or tillers of the soil, the Chinese inherited all the tradings in the Malay States and became the richest residents, and the Indians remained as rubber-tappers without proper infrastructure.
12. The effect to this was that the Malays remained backwards and were told to stay as peasants or tillers of the soil, the Chinese inherited all the tradings in the Malay States and became the richest residents, and the Indians remained as rubber-tappers without proper infrastructure.
13. The Malays, according toChai Hon-Chan:
“…merely retreated from the tide of commercial activity and
material prosperity…whereas the British, Europeans, Chinese and Indians had the
lion share of the country’s wealth…”
14. EW Birch, the 8th British Resident of Perak, recognized this
dire situation and quickly proposed a policy of preserving the Malay
land.
15. The only way to him to preserve the Malay race was to “free
them from the clutches of those people who now remit to Indian large sums of
money, which they bleed from the (Malay) people.”
This later became the Malay Reservation Land Act which spirit is
preserved in the Malaysian Federal Constitution.
16. Such was the state of the Malays in the Malay
States that Dr Lennox A Mills noted:
“…when the British came, the Malay was a poor man in a poor
country; when the British left, he was a poor man in a rich country.”
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