Out in the Midday Sun Read online

  The next important milestone was the acquisition in 1819 of Singapore, when Stamford Raffles negotiated the right from the temenggong to establish on the island a second fortified trading post of the East India Company. Initially this provoked opposition, particularly from the Dutch, though they and the British settled their differences by the Treaty of London in 1824. The Dutch recognized the Malay peninsula and adjacent islands as a British sphere of influence, and in 1825 the East India Company was confirmed in possession of Malacca and Singapore. Shortly after, the Company’s four Malay settlements were unified into a single territory known as the Straits Settlements, with the status of a presidency, and placed under the administration of the Governor of Penang (1826–30). In that time another political issue was settled. The Anglo-Siamese boundaries of influence were agreed by the Treaty of Bangkok in 1826. The small northern Malay states – Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Trengganu – were recognized as coming effectively under Siamese control, while the remaining states, including the larger states of Perak and Pahang, were acknowledged as within Britain’s sphere of influence.

  In the next four decades the government of the Straits Settlements underwent further change. For financial reasons, they were brought directly under the East India Company’s administration in Bengal from 1830 to 1832. However, the Company’s star was in decline, and, having lost its monopoly of the China trade in 1833, it was reduced in 1834 to a managing agency for the British government in India. From 1832 the routine administration of the Malay territories was conducted in Singapore, the new capital of the Straits Settlements.

  The island of Singapore, some twenty-six miles wide by fourteen miles deep, is larger than Penang (and larger than the Isle of Wight, which it curiously resembles in shape). Stamford Raffles had foreseen that, with its natural deep-water harbour and strategic position, it would flourish as a free port and eventually overtake Dutch centres of influence in the East. Yet the Bengal government increasingly resented the burden of responsibility for the Straits Settlements and saw no advantage in involvement with the Malay States. Malaya was dismissively referred to as ‘Farther India’, to emphasize its distance and obscurity. After the Indian Mutiny of 1857, when the Company was deprived of its governing role, the Straits Settlements were brought under the Indian Office in London. Finally, in 1867 they were designated a Crown Colony to be administered directly by the Colonial Office. This was a turning point in the evolution of British Malaya.

  With the impetus of steam navigation and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 the economic prospects for the Straits Settlements were good. But two major problems could no longer be ignored by the administration. Merchants in the Settlements were increasingly worried by the social anarchy in the Malay peninsula, especially the factional fighting in the rich tin-mining areas of Perak and Selangor, and by the threat to shipping from sea pirates in the Malacca Straits. Also, the British government was concerned about the looming colonial aspirations of Britain’s European rivals, France and Germany, in the Far East. In 1873 Sir Andrew Clarke was sent out to Malaya to investigate the internal situation and propose solutions. Clarke went further. A mechanism was needed to sanction British intervention without offending individual sultans. After meeting a group of Perak chiefs and local Chinese leaders off Pangkor Island, a settlement was reached regarding the Sultanate of Perak. The formula was embodied in the Pangkor Engagement of 1874 – another landmark in the establishment of British power in the peninsula. While retaining his rights on matters of Malay religion and custom, the Sultan of Perak agreed to accept the ‘advice’ on all other questions and the ‘protection’ of a British Resident. At first there was some hostility to this foreign interference, and the overzealous first Resident of Perak, J. W. W. Birch, was murdered by a group of resentful chieftains in November 1875. Meanwhile, however, the rulers of Selangor and Sungei Ujong were also persuaded to accept the principle of British protection – a tactful euphemism for governing authority – and the same principle was applied to all Negri Sembilan and Pahang in the 1880s. Thus, while the Straits Settlements continued to be ruled directly as a Crown Colony, as the result of the Pangkor agreement a system of indirect rule was initiated in some of the Malay States, which became British protectorates. Subsequently, between 1874 and 1914, as we shall see, their status would be extended further, with structural variations, to all the Malay States. To say more at this stage would be to pre-empt the following chapters.

  It would have been possible to choose the Pangkor Engagement of 1874 as my starting point for this book, but that might imply a concern with constitutional or political structures rather than with people. However, by 1880, the starting date I have chosen, the principal of British involvement in the Malay sultanates embodied in Pangkor was established, and the arrival of Sir Frederick Weld brought a strong Governor (1880–7) under whom British influence was firmly exercised. Nevertheless, 1880 is a date of convenience, and I have not hesitated to dip into preceding years – for Isabella Bird’s account of her travels in 1879, for example, or Emily Innes’s experiences which spanned 1876 to 1882 – when I believe earlier material sheds light on the state of the country in 1880. Similarly, 1960 has been chosen as the cut-off point because it marked the end of the twelve-year Emergency, which began in 1948 and was the main preoccupation of the British for its duration, although strictly speaking Britain’s political role ended in 1957.

  A few further points of explanation should perhaps be made. To avoid confusion I have used throughout the spellings of names and places in the source material, which relate to the British period. The ‘Malays’ were of the Malay race and (with the orang asli) were the indigenous inhabitants. ‘Malayans’ were people who lived in Malaya, and might be of Asian or European origin. ‘European’ was a term much used by the British to describe themselves, and I have used it in that sense to give some variety to the text. However, it obviously also applies to other European nationals living in Malaya, such as the resident communities of French, Danes, Dutch, Germans and Portuguese, particularly in the years before 1914 or 1942. In some situations, the designation ‘European’ was also used as a shorthand substitute for ‘white people’ to include people from the Dominions, Commonwealth countries and the United States. The word ‘Asiatic’ is used only in verbatim quotations; elsewhere I use ‘Asian’.

  This is not an official history based on a study of government records; nor is it an in-depth social analysis. It is an unofficial account, a collage of the British in Malaya, their lives, thoughts and reactions to events happening around them. In choosing this approach I was influenced by the words of J. S. Potter, an executive of the Guthrie’s agency who worked in Malaya for twenty-three years: ‘I have long felt that some eye witness accounts should be recorded for posterity and in justice to the large numbers of fellow Malayans who can no longer speak for themselves.’1 Reflecting on conversations, listening to taped interviews, and trawling through letters and memoirs, the force of his remark came home to me: so many British expatriates have wanted to put their side of the story, express their opinions, reveal their experiences and, in many cases, correct misunderstanding and disparagement.

  In, ‘England Expects’, the American humorist Ogden wrote:

  Englishmen are distinguished by their traditions and ceremonials, And also by their affection for their colonies and their contempt for their colonials.2

  One is reminded of the aphorism attributed to Noel Coward, that Malaya is ‘a first-rate country for second-rate people’. Somerset Maugham visited the country in the 1920s, then woundingly disparaged its easygoing, hospitable society. The British who had been his hosts were furious, and a retired expatriate remembers to this day his parents’ anger at this public betrayal of private generosity. It is a curious tradition that the most hostile jibes about colonial society should come not from Asian nationalists, but from writers, journalists, academics and public figures of the English-speaking world. Why, I wonder, over the years did the British in Malaya face an indiffer
ent public at home and an unsympathetic British press? Why should a nation that has always mistrusted intellectuals and set higher store by doers than thinkers brand Malayans as philistines? How did a community of activists, engineers, miners, surveyors, planters and businessmen, who prided themselves as golfers, cricketers, tennis and rugby players or big-game hunters, so offend the scribes? Perhaps the explanation lies partly in envy – envy of those who escaped from insular Britain to achieve social status and material gain. Perhaps, too, British Malayans connived in the criticism because of the peculiarly British liking for self-deprecation. There was a tendency to talk down anything but sporting talent, while bemoaning the lack of mental and cultural stimulus in the tropics. (In casual conversation in 1930s Perak, Katharine Sim, a customs officer’s wife, concluded, ‘It is doubtful if even Shakespeare’s genius could have blossomed in the perpetual dank heat of the palm house at Kew.’)3 This attitude contrasted noticeably with that of the French in whose colonies literature was honoured; ironically, a French planter, Henri Fauconnier, won the Prix Goncourt in 1930 with his novel, Malaisie (translated as The Soul of Malaya).

  The enormous gulf between the political and cultural norms of imperial Britain and those of the twenty-first century makes it difficult to view the record of colonial society objectively. Not surprisingly, ‘protection’ has become ‘occupation’, ‘responsibility’ is dismissed as ‘hypocrisy’, ‘employment’ as ‘exploitation’. In response to anti-imperialist rhetoric, former members of the Malayan Civil Service have defended the young idealists who enthusiastically came out to Malaya to promote the welfare of the people, but, fifty years on, the post-colonial climate cannot empathize with colonial elites, and the new norms of political correctness reinforce differences of perspective. So the orthodox perception of British Malaya remains: of a smug, superficial, patronizing community, which deserved no better than it received. On the other hand, survivors from the colonial era remain convinced that it was a good and well-ordered world, served by a code of liberal Western values, many of which are universally tenable today. Perhaps the ‘voices’ of British Malayans, which speak out of these pages, allow us to understand their world a little. After all, for much of the twentieth century Great Britain itself has been a flawed democracy, a society of haves and have-nots, and in the last analysis the British in Malaya were arguably no more philistine, class-ridden, pleasure-seeking, exploitative or condescending than their families, friends and peers back home.

  The Building of British Malaya 1880-1920

  1

  The Meeting of Two Worlds

  In 1879 a mature, middle-class Scotswoman, Isabella Bird, descended upon the Malay archipelago on her way back to England from a lengthy visit to Japan. An indefatigable traveller, she toured the parts of the Malay world which were then within the British sphere of influence. It was an interesting time. The inhabitants of the Malay States were just emerging from several decades of anarchy. Piracy and civil mayhem – the result of succession disputes among the rajas and internecine quarrels over the profits of tin mining – had impoverished village communities, until the British intervened to restore the peace.

  Isabella’s first ports of call were the areas which had been least affected, the Straits Settlements. As she tasted the bustle and congenial lifestyle of Singapore and Penang, she admired the abounding hospitality of the capital and the overpowering greenery, with its kaleidoscopic arrangement of colours. As for Penang, like many before and since she was awed by the island’s beauty: ‘This is truly a brilliant place under a brilliant sky.’ Meanwhile, the little Chinese steamer Rainbow, over fifty years old but still ploughing the Straits of Malacca, took her to the old town which bore their name. She stayed at the historic Stadthaus, the former residence of the Dutch Governor but reduced under the British to a condition of faded stateliness. Once Malacca had been the greatest Malay city-port of South-East Asia. Now it was ‘very still, hot, tropical … a town “out of the running”, utterly antiquated, mainly un-English, a veritable Sleepy Hollow’. It had slipped into a time warp. Trade was invisible; no British or French mail boats called; ‘there is neither newspaper, banker, hotel, nor resident English merchant’.1

  Moving on, Isabella explored the interior of the west coast, the so-called ‘Native States’ of Sungei Ujong, Selangor and Perak, with their new protected status. (The east-coast state of Pahang, the fourth state to come eventually under British protection, was beyond her reach.) She made her way by boat and by horse-drawn gharry, on foot and somewhat insecurely on an elephant’s back, along muddy rivers and jungle tracks. During the itinerary she met most of the new British administrators and made a quick stop at the Dindings, a strip of coastal Perak and a group of small islands ceded to England by the Pangkor Engagement, ‘a dream of tropic beauty’, where she watched ‘scarlet fish playing in the coral forests, and the exquisite beauty of the main island with its dense foliage in dark relief against the cool lemon sky’. And towards the end of her tour she squeezed in a brief excursion to what was once a part of mainland Kedah, but since 1800 had been the British territory of Province Wellesley: ‘only thirty-five miles long by about ten broad, but it is highly cultivated, fertile, rich, prosperous and populous … miles of coconut plantations belonging to Chinamen all along the coast’, with ‘sugar cane and padi, and then palm plantations again’.2

  Curious and quick to observe everything around her, whether it was of a personal, social or political nature, she was also aware of the danger of forming hasty and inaccurate judgements. Her sharp gaze alighted on contrasts in prosperity between the Straits Settlements, a British Crown Colony since 1867, and the Malay States, which were still undeveloped under their own native rulers. And she noted, too, the stereotyped attitudes, the ‘great mist of passion and prejudice’, inherent in Britain’s policy towards the Malay chiefs and their people.3 It was a situation compounded, in her view, by British ignorance; and in this she anticipated the opinion of Sir Frank Swettenham, later Governor of the Straits Settlements: ‘In the first years of the colony’s history, from 1867 to 1874, it is almost inconceivable how little was actually known of the independent Malay States in the Malay Peninsula …’ he wrote; ‘there was probably not a European … who could have given correctly the names of all the States in the Peninsula.’4

  Malaya has never gripped the imagination of the British nation as vividly as the splendours of the Raj or the arcane riches of China. To the English middle class, a post in the Malayan administration lacked the cachet of the Indian Civil Service or the attractions of Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was then known); and the Church of England found Muslim Malaya an unpromising mission, less rewarding than India or China with their hungry hordes.5 As the Empire grew, the Victorians had many distractions, and the Malay States were undoubtedly a low priority. In fact, five of the traditional states – Johore, Kedah, Perlis, Kelantan and Trengganu – remained outside British influence until after 1909. The cavalier attitude of politicians and the press was mirrored by the lack of awareness on the part of ordinary British citizens about what was going on before and after British intervention. Even Isabella Bird admitted, ‘I felt humiliated by my ignorance of Province Wellesley, of which in truth I had never heard until I reached Malacca!’ Nor was the name Sungei Ujong familiar until she arrived there. And, writing from Selangor’s capital, she warned her sister, ‘You will not know where Klang is, and I think you won’t find it in any atlas or encyclopaedia.’ Nonetheless, she deplored British indifference:

  Public opinion never reaches these equatorial jungles; we are grossly ignorant of their inhabitants and their rights, of the manner in which our interference originated, and how it has been exercised; and unless some fresh disturbance and another ‘little war’ should concentrate our attention for a moment on these distant States, we are likely to remain so, to their great detriment, and not a little … to our own.6

  In the Victorian age, the task of managing the inhabitants and the environment was left to a small number of Britis
h officers, and a few developed a serious interest in Malayan anthropology and culture. Frank Swettenham was one of them. A giant among builders of British Malaya, it was his years as Resident of Selangor in the 1880s and of Perak in the 1890s that taught him about Malay life, which he sketched prolifically in words and drawings.7 He argued that ‘To begin to understand the Malay, you must live in his country, speak his language, respect his faith, be interested in his interests, humour his prejudices, sympathise with and help him in trouble, and share his pleasures and possibly his risks. Only thus can you win his confidence.’8 But Hugh Clifford, who arrived in the Malay States as a mere seventeen-year-old in 1883 and ultimately rose like Swettenham to be Governor of the Straits Settlements, felt this was a pious hope: that regrettably ‘It is possible for a European to spend years on the West coast of the Peninsula without acquiring any very profound knowledge of the natives of the country or of the language.’9

  Traditional Malay society was composed of two classes: a governing elite of rajas and other titled chiefs, presided over by the ruling Sultan, and the ordinary Malays – the rayats – peasants and fishermen living in coastal or riverside villages under their headman or penghulu. A kind of feudal relationship prevailed between ruler and ruled. This gave immense prestige and authority to the ruler, reinforced when subjects fell into slavery and debt-bondage. There was a wide gap in social status between the rayats and their chiefs, but the Malay community was small enough for all to feel bound together by age-old custom and heritage. The Sultan and his chiefs lived close to their people, enjoying customary prerogatives and revenues. At Pekan, in Pahang, for instance,