La finitud que abre: la muerte como posibilidad

It is impossible to conceive o f a place combining more advantages; it is within a w eek’s sail o f China, still closer to Siam, Cochin-China, ... in the very heart o f the Archipelago, or as the Malays call it, ‘the Navel o f the M alay countries

Our object is not a territory but trade, a great commercial Emporium, and a fulcrum whence we may extend our influence politically as circumstances may hereafter require... One Free Port in these Seas must eventually de­

stroy the spell o f Dutch monopoly; and what Malta is in the West, that may Singapore become in the East.

Stamford Raffles writing to Colonel Addenbroke, Colonial Office, London, 1819 Cited in Hoe I (1991) Introduction to Singapore, Hong Kong: Odyssey Guides, 12.

3.1 Introduction

Chapter 2 traced the pre-1959 reception of English law and analysed the nature of the laws in operation in Singapore up to the time of self-rule in an attempt to estab­

lish the basis from which the laws of modem Singapore developed. Similarly, this chapter aims to characterise the pre-1959 socio-economic and political bases for Singa­

pore’s modem economic development. The economy did not exist in a vacuum. Indeed, not only were some historical and socio-political factors inextricably entwined with the process of economic growth, some were determinants. This chapter therefore provides a brief analysis of what some economists call catch-up capabilities (Nolan 1995). It also evaluates three theoretical accounts for rapid economic development in the context of Singapore’s experience. One of these, Wade’s governed market theory (see 3.8.2; 1.5), seems most apt for analysing Singapore’s economic growth experience from 1959 to 1999 (see chapter 4).

It is common practice (among economists) to portray a nation’s economic de­

velopment as progressing through a transition from the predominance of primary com­

modity enterprises (agriculture, forestry, fisheries) to secondary sectors (construction, manufacturing) and tertiary services (retail, financial, education) enterprises. Studies by Clark (1953), Kuznets (1959), Chenery (1979) and others suggest that this is the typical economic growth pattern. That is, it is usual for a country’s economy to move through the three phases chronologically. But Singapore’s economic growth has been different.

As shown below, its tertiary sector pre-empted its secondary and it has had little primary sector to speak of. The analysis below is based primarily on information provided by Huff (1997) and Rodan (1989).

3.2 Geo-political Location

From the early 19th century, Singapore’s economic development was based on its strategic location at the crossroads of Asia and its endowment of a large natural har­

bour. It was never a substantial agrarian society, even though the first Malay settlers were probably fisherfolk. The competitive advantage provided by Singapore’s location and its large natural harbour was underpinned by the inauguration o f the Suez Canal in 1869. This opened the Eastern trade to European steamships. As steamships needed coal, the choice route became the coast-hugging Straits of Malacca rather than the

Sunda Straits which would require a longer open-sea voyage across the Indian Ocean from Netherlands India [Indonesia] to Ceylon and India.

Lacking in its own primary commodities, Singapore was forced to develop a service economy and hone its entrepreneurial skills at an early stage. The free port, which formed the core of Raffles’ policy, took shape quickly. Singapore’s economy soon be­

came dependent on exporting primary produce such as spices, vegetable oils, pineapples, tin, rubber and later petroleum from its hinterland: the Malayan Peninsula and Indonesia.

The demeaning return flow of imports was British cotton piece goods and opium. But this was no ordinary port, for as Huff (1997, 15) explains, Singapore’s economic growth fits the general pattern of a staple port:

One of the principal features of the nineteenth century was that regions with surplus natural re­

sources and, sometimes, surplus labour, in relation to demand in the domestic economy, experi­

enced a very rapid expansion in the production of primary commodities for export, largely to in­

dustrial countries. It is only to be expected that international trade which served as an engine of growth and created, through export of primaiy commodities, an outlet or ‘vent’ for surpluses would lead to the development of port cities to service the new trade.

H uffs analysis is correct. But it is incorrect to suggest that the indigenous populations were voluntarily exporting their surpluses in relation to demand in the domestic econ­

omy. Although a discussion of colonialism is outside the scope of this study, we must bear in mind that the rapid expansion in the production of primary commodities for ex­

port was driven by colonial entrepreneurship, some would say, greed; and in the case of Singapore, also political rivalry. Raffles himself writing about Singapore to Addenbroke at the Colonial Office in London noted that (cited in Hoe 1991,12):

[0]ur objective is not a territory but trade, a great commercial Emporium, and a fulcrum whence we may extend our influence politically as circumstances may hereafter require ... One Free Port in these Seas must eventually destroy the spell of Dutch monopoly; and what Malta is in the West, that may Singapore become in the East.

Moreover, we should remember that Raffles was commissioned to found Singapore on behalf of the British East India Company. The latter was established under Royal Charter granted by Queen Elizabeth 1 on 31 December 1600 specifically to develop English commerce over as wide an area of Asia as possible (Bassett 1960, 17). Thus the exercise was colonial-driven commerce, demands in the domestic economy do not seem to have entered the equation at that stage. Indeed, a crucial issue for investigation in Singapore’s modern economic development is to consider how the new nation managed to rearrange its inherited priorities to take account of its domestic economic needs once its colonial masters had withdrawn from the key decision-making posts in 1959 and 1965.

Nevertheless H uffs analysis of the development of Singapore as a staple port is masterful; for as he argues its trade came to depend on a few commodities [tin, rubber, petroleum]; and this resulted in a new set of economic relationships between port and hinterland ( id 17). In other words, Singapore was more than an entrepot.1 To the acci­

dents of nature: geographic location and natural harbour, were added (over time) a port city that performed five inter-related functions which laid the foundation for Singa­

pore’s economic development. According to Huff (id , 16), these included:

1. The performance of entrepreneurial, investment, management and mercantile functions connected with production of the staple;

2. The provision of financial services;

3. Processing of the staple commodity;

4. Marketing services including the port’s role as the region’s main market for the staple;

5. The close involvement of business interests in the port with hinterland production.

Not all inter-related functions were developed or performed in the early years. For many decades some were performed only by English merchants, English banks and their agents, and European-dominated merchant houses. However, even in these early days, an outline of what was possible, indeed of what was to come, was already discernible.

3.2.1 Size and the Hinterland

Singapore has never possessed the physical size to enjoy economies of scale, or the opportunity to take the 19th century American way to industrial prosperity, that is, to hide behind protectionist barriers while producing for a massive domestic market of con­

tinental dimensions (Nolan 1995, 115). Thus development of the staple port rendered the hinterland a double asset. But Singapore’s experience as a staple port revealed two ex­

traordinary features: One, its hinterland was not populated by the same race as Singapore itself. Two, its hinterland was not within the same jurisdiction, unlike, for instance, the port of Lagos in Nigeria, or New Orleans in the USA. Thus Netherlands India, the major supplier of rubber and petroleum, was a Dutch colony; while the Malayan Peninsula, the major tin supplier, and Borneo were under British rule. The population in the hinterland was predominantly Malay and Javanese. Initially, the political disparity between the hin­

terland and the staple port curtailed the development of the inter-related functions of the staple port somewhat. For instance, in the beginning, the staple port performed the more

1 Entrepot: a trading centre or port at a geographically convenient location, at which goods are imported and re-exported without incurring liability for duty: Collins English Dictionary 1995.

layan Peninsula.

One persisting geo-political feature is race. Singapore’s population is predomi­

nantly Chinese (75%), although it boasts a modem multicultural society with Malays ac­

counting for about 15% and Indians for about 6% of citizens. However the populations of its neighbours are largely indigenous Malays - bumiputras or sons of the soil2, who are predominantly Muslims. Historically, the diversity of race and the issue of jurisdiction probably slowed the establishment of close mutual ties, but they also helped Singapore hone its skills and ability to deal flexibly and cooperate with its neighbours in later years.

The key points to note are the early commercial and entrepreneurial links with the hinterland, the wider Western world and the regional markets. Thus Singapore’s role de­

veloped not just as a conduit, but also as a promoter of export expansion in the region.

First, it gave the hinterland access to new markets in the West. Secondly, in the case of Siam, Burma, Indo-China, and so on, it gave producers greater access to the expanding inter-regional market for food. Thirdly, it played a major role in providing labour (by attracting immigrants) and capital (through foreign and local banking) to support produc­

tion in and trade with the hinterland. The seeds for future collaboration across the region were sown in these early years.

Thus as statistics of Singapore’s imports and exports by commodity by country show (see SSAR 1899, 213-34), by the late 19th century, Singapore was the hub of the region’s trade. Strategically, Singapore’s role can hardly be overstated for as Huff shows, as international and regional trade flows increased, the Singapore hub transformed the economies of the surrounding countries and was itself transformed in the process. For instance, Singapore’s response to the West’s demand for tin, rubber and petroleum im­

pacted crucially on Singapore’s and the region’s development both economically and demographically. In the case of tin, as discussed at 3.3 and 3.4, Singapore’s role was piv­

otal in providing two of the three main factor requirements: labour and capital.

2 There have been anti-Chinese riots in the surrounding countries even in the modem period.

For instance in Malaysia in 1969, riots were sparked when the Chinese made a strong showing in the elections. For a discussion, see Mahathir (1970) The Malay Dilemma. Written in 1969, this book was banned until he became Prime Minister in 1981. During the 1997/99 economic setback there were also anti-Chinese riots in Malaysia and especially in Indonesia.

3.3 The Labour Force

Singapore’s population is comprised of immigrants. It is a population formed ar­

tificially, in response to the need for labour. It is said that when Raffles landed there in 1819 he found only a colony of about 150 Malay fisherfolk.3 But with the opening of the free port, people flocked to the island from as far afield as China and India, and from closer to home: the Malay Peninsula and Netherlands India (Indonesia).

The population grew in concert with the staple-port. The Chinese population was the most numerous, and there is a direct correlation between the rise of tin production and the increase in Singapore’s Chinese population. This is because, in Malaya, the tin- excavating method (manual labourers working in simple, open-cast mines) allowed small-scale enterprises to develop the industry. This called for an abundance of transitory labour, in tandem with fluctuating needs of production. For instance, in 1903, it required 224.000 men to produce 51,000 tons of tin. Chinese immigrants, entering via Singapore, comprised the majority of the constantly changing labour force. Thus whereas 10,000 Chinese labourers landed in Singapore in 1877, the number that landed in 1887 was 101.000 corresponding to an increase in Malayan tin production from 3,000 tons in 1877 to 24,000 tons in 1887.

Some of the Chinese immigrants were traders who settled in Singapore and sup­

plied much of the circulating capital needed to support the mining labour force (see 3.2.4). Some entered services such as the lodging house system (see below). However the majority were manual labourers initially recruited in south China either personally or through the immigrant lodging house system, to work in the Malay tin mines. By the turn of the century, three-quarters of Singapore’s 142,000 inhabitants were Chinese. This proportion would remain virtually unchanged during the following decades.

Personal recruitment involved an employer in Malaya sending a recruiter to China, who having selected, would pay all expenses from village to port and from [Sin­

gapore] port to Malaya and with his assistants shepherd the flock to the place of em­

ployment (Blythe cited in Huff 155). Thus, for personal recruitment, Singapore was a transit point not a destination. Recruitment via the lodging house system required more active Singaporean participation.

3 As discussed in chapter 2 it is difficult to assert this with confidence as another report sug­

gests the existence of a bigger population of Malays engaged in tin-mining.

Lodging houses were established in China and Singapore. Those in Singapore were run typically by a Chinese agent for a Malay or European employer or for a lodging house in China. There were also independent keepers. The houses were licensed by the government and could contain up to 150 men. [Prior to World War 1 over four-fifths of Chinese immigrants were unaccompanied men.] Apart from lodgings for new arrivals, the houses also provided bridging loans for independent, self-financing immigrants. The Singapore keepers often assumed costs incurred at the lodging houses in China and ex­

tended loans to immigrants who had incurred those costs. They also acted as recruitment centres for local or Malayan employers. Thus the lodging house system came to embody what, in modem Singapore management speak, would be termed an integrated service concept. A British Consul in China justified it thus (Huff 156):

The passengers themselves and especially passengers of the type that the Straits Authorities wish to encourage are for the most part ignorant peasants from the interior who have never seen a ship and who are bewildered by a town even of the size of Swatow. They are without capital and would be quite incapable of finding their [own] way to the South Seas.... A large proportion are given credit by the Lodging Houses for all their travelling and other expenses including the steamer ticket.

Labour recruitment from Indonesia and India was on a much smaller scale than that from China. Those from Indonesia were typically indentured labourers from Java recruited to the European rubber estates in Johore. The numbers were small and the system ended when indentured labour was abolished in 1932. There is evidence that the majority of those Malays who migrated to [British] Malaya did so as permanent settlers, accompa­

nied by spouses and families. They farmed their own individual plots in Malaya; some settled in Singapore. The character of Singapore’s Indian population was transient and marked by male pioneers. It remained so well into the 1900s, due mainly to the close proximity of India to Singapore and Malaya, and the ease with which Indians could re­

turn home, compared with their Chinese counterparts. Tamil labourers from south India formed the majority, though many merchants, textile importers and exporters, and other professionals also arrived from the north, especially from Bombay.

As stated above, population growth patterns fluctuated with the demand for tin and other staples. Thus when the demand for tin diminished or its production was mechanised by European miners, labourers attempted to find alternative work in Singa­

pore or Malaya or returned home. By 1931, tin mining accounted for only 4% of the working population in Malaya, whereas over a third of all workers were employed in rubber production. However, when the price of staples collapsed later in the 1930s, there

was a reverse population flow. For instance, between 1931 and 1933 over 500,000 more Chinese deck passengers left British Malaya than immigrants that arrived there (Huff

1997, 150-178).

The August 1930 quotas on immigration, subsequently incorporated into the 1933 Straits Settlements Aliens Ordinance, had the [intended] effect of limiting Chinese im­

migration. Women were exempted from quota restrictions until May 1938. Thus for the first time, during the period after 1933, large numbers of women sought employment in British Malaya. Of the annual average of 147,000 immigrants arriving during 1934 to 1938, more than half were women and children. The influx of women impacted posi­

tively on Singapore’s urbanisation since women were more likely to settle in the town than unaccompanied men.

The 1947 census reveals a greater number and much wider range of occupations for women than any previous census had shown. A trend towards a more settled and gender-balanced Chinese community emerged during the inter-war years. It accelerated after World War 11, especially during the rise to power of Mao Zedong and the forma­

tion of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, when the new influx of Chinese immigrants also comprised families. Although some years of the 1950s saw a rubber boom, large-scale immigration from China was curtailed both by developments in the PRC and by new immigration laws in Singapore. The population stabilised. The size and stability of the Chinese community thus formalised the growing perception of Singapore as a Chinese city.

Despite the seeming homogeneity, Singapore’s Chinese community was plural­

istic. It comprised groups that displayed a diversity of language, ways of life and char­

acteristics reflecting the different geographic areas from which each group had emi­

grated. Chinese immigrants originated from south China, predominantly from around the ports of Amoy, Swatow in Kwangtung province, Foochow in northern Fukien, and from Hainan island. As many as six different dialects were spoken by different groups, often understood by no other group in Singapore but themselves (Huff 1997, 163). This slowed assimilation and cooperation among the Chinese in Singapore.

Although written Chinese is a universal language, the extent to which the groups communicated meaningfully is unknown because little is known about literacy levels of the various groups. Judging by colonial accounts, the educational level of the majority must have been low, since the type of immigrants that the Straits Authorities wished to

encourage were for the most part ignorant peasants from the interior of China (id). There is, however, some evidence that the colonial administration provided some training fa­

cilities and apprenticeship schemes, especially after World War 2. However these were implemented in the context of promoting colonial trade. For as one prominent colonial educator had declared in relation to Malaysia: ‘The purpose of Malay education is to make them better farmers and fishermen’ (Yergin & Stanslaw 1999, 185). Similarly, in Singapore, many clerks were schooled for the British civil service. In the Chinese com­

munity two classes emerged: the Chinese- and the English-educated. This duality had great significance in post-World War 2 society, especially as the Chinese-educated pro­

vided the main impetus and campaigning fervour for creating a communist-inspired and leftist trade union movement, which fought against British colonialism (see chapter 6).

vided the main impetus and campaigning fervour for creating a communist-inspired and leftist trade union movement, which fought against British colonialism (see chapter 6).