Institute of Pacific Relations

Indian Ban Threatens Malayan Labor BalanceAuthor(s): Jack ShepherdSource: Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 8, No. 3 (Feb. 1, 1939), pp. 31-32Published by: Institute of Pacific RelationsStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3021866 .

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1939 Indian Ban Threatens Malayan Labor Balance 31

SIGNIFICANT DEVELOPMENTS

INDIAN BAN THREATENS MALAYAN LABOR BALANCE

Any attempt to increase rubber production in British

Malaya which may result from improved world de?

mand and the higher quotas fixed for 1939 by the Inter?

national Rubber Regulation Committee will probably reveal the full effect of restrictions imposed last year by the Government of India on the emigration of laborers from India to British Malaya. In a recent

message to the Central Indian Association of Malaya the Pundit Jawarhalal Nehru declared that "all emi?

gration to Malaya must stop till such time that guar- antees are forthcoming for the proper treatment of our

workers." He pointed out that restrictions on assisted

emigration had been evaded and expressed gratification at the passing of an amending bill last September which

sought to check "voluntary" emigration as well. Since the nineteenth century, and more especially

since the 1910 rubber boom, Indian labor has played an extremely important part in the development of

Malaya. In the words of a recent Singapore editorial, "it is a commonplace that the prosperity of this coun?

try depends almost entirely on an abundant supply of labor from India and China. Without those two great reserves of cheap and efficient labor the tin and rubber industries would never have developed as they have, and certainly they would be unable to cope so easily with the increased demand for their products which

comes from time to time." Indian labor has been used

mainly on the rubber plantations though also to quite a large extent by government departments and boards, while the Chinese have been employed principally in

the mines and on heavier types of work. The Chinese are more enterprising than the Indians and conse-

quently have not only developed strong labor organi? zations but in many cases have raised themselves well above the coolie level and assumed an important role in the business life of the community. The Indians are more docile, and less well organized; their economic status has remained low, and their wage rates, as a rule lower than those of the Chinese coolies, have been main- tained by an elaborate system of government regula? tion rather than by any organized effort of their own. The Indians and the Chinese together substantially outnumber the native Malays who so far have not been

very important as a labor force, except in a few isolated areas. The Malays prefer to remain in their own vil?

lages and enjoy as much leisure as possible. Malays are sometimes employed temporarily to supplement the

regular Chinese or Indian workers, but they are usually prepared to accept such work only in order to supply some special financial need of their own. In other words they simply work on the estates when it suits

them and they do not constitute a dependable labor

reserve. The Indians thus rank second only in importance as

a labor supply to the Chinese, and inasmuch as their

labor is cheaper and more docile it is usually preferred by the planters. Between 1911 and 1920 the total

number of immigrants from Madras was 908,100. In

1931, despite a heavy exodus of Indian coolies during depression years, they still constituted 14.2% of a total

population of 4,385,346. With the improvement in con?

ditions the tide of Indian migration turned once more towards Malaya and in 1934 no less than 102,292 Madras coolies were admitted.

In the past the majority of Indians have not settled in Malaya. It has been calculated that on the average Indian coolies stay only from two to three years. They have remained very largely a migratory element in the

population introduced for labor purposes; the propor? tion of locally born Indians in Malaya was only 12.4% in 1921 and 21% in 1931. The volume and direction of coolie migration between southern India and British

Malaya have in the past corresponded closely to the rise and fall of the rubber market, the Malayan de? mand for Indian labor increasing with the world de? mand for rubber, and an exodus of unemployed coolies from Malaya back to Madras following each downward

sweep of the market. Indian immigration was heavy in the immediate pre-

depression years, but the numbers declined sharply after 1929, and from 1930 to 1933 there was a net ex? odus. During this period all assisted immigration from India was suspended. It was renewed in 1934 and the number of southern India immigrants rose sharply in

that year to 102,292 as compared with 27,928 in 1933. The tide of Indian immigration to Malaya again reached the flood stage in 1937 when the total number of assisted migrants and laborers among deck passengers on ships from India to Malaya was 104,479 as com?

pared with 27,858 in the previous year. This influx followed the raising of Malaya's rubber export quota to 90% of the standard in the early part of 1937.

In the latter part of 1937 and in the first half of 1938 the price of rubber declined and the export quota was progressively reduced from 90% to 60% for the second quarter of last year. The result was widespread unemployment among Chinese and Indian coolies and a general reduction of wages. The exodus of Indian coolies which would normally have followed a reduc? tion of the rubber export quota was less, however, last

year than might have been expected. Hoping that the recession would only be temporary the planters re-

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32 Rising Living Costs Accompany Shanghai's Recovery February 1

tained as many of their laborers as possible in order to

be able to meet any sudden increase in the demand for

rubber. The governments helped by the provision of

substantial unemployment relief.

Two reasons suggest themselves for this effort to

prevent any serious decline in the available labor sup?

ply. One was the expectation of an early improvement in the rubber market, and the other was the fear that

if large numbers of Indian coolies became unemployed

they would return to India, and that because of the

Indian Government's new restrictions on coolie emi?

gration to Malaya it would be impossible to replace those who had gone home.

The Indian Government has shown increasing con?

cern for the welfare of Indian laborers in Malaya. Since 1929 standard wage rates for Indian coolies have

been fixed by agreement between the Indian and Malay? an Governments, and the recruiting of Indian labor has

long been carefully supervised. During the depression years the Indian Government agreed to a 20% cut in

these standard rates, but later learned that the wages actually paid between 1933 and 1935 were in some

cases below this standard. Representations from the

Indian Government led the Malayan Governments to

enforce the rate of 40 cents (Straits) per day for men

and 32 cents for women as from March 1936, which

was the standard agreed upon in 1930. The Govern? ment of India continued to press for a restoration of the emergency cut and at the end of 1936 sent the

Right Honorable V. S. Srinavasa Sastri to inquire into the conditions of Indian labor in Malaya. During Mr. Sastri's visit the Malayan Governments restored half the cuts made in 1930, and in April 1937, after the pub- lication of Mr. Sastri's report and an increase in the rubber export quota, the old rate of 50 cents (Straits) for men and 40 cents for women was restored.

So substantial had been the improvement in the posi? tion of the industry late in 1936 and early in 1937 that the Indian Government no longer regarded these rates as satisfactory and has since pressed for an increase. However the prosperity of early 1937 was not main-

tained, rubber prices fell and the export quota was re-

duced with an effect upon coolie employment and

coolie wages which has already been noted. When the Indian Government learned in March last that a new

10% cut in wages was contemplated and that a still further reduction was likely if conditions did not im?

prove, it immediately asked the Malayan Governments to send a detailed statement of the reasons for the re? duction and asked for a postponement of action until the position had been examined. The Malayan Govern? ments refused to postpone the reduction and declared that it was made necessary by the low current price of

rubber, the reduction of the export quota and the fact that the rubber industry in Malaya was working at a loss. They claimed that in spite of the reduction wages in Malaya were higher than in other rubber producing countries.

The Indian Government, still dissatisfied, decided to

prohibit as from June 1938 all assisted migration of Indian coolies to British Malaya. This ban did not

apply to unassisted migration which still continued and it was found that under cover of voluntary migration illicit recruiting still continued. The Central Indian

Legislature accordingly passed a bill in September em-

powering the government to regulate unassisted migra? tion to British Malaya. Under this act voluntary migra? tion has been completely prohibited.

Hence the anxiety of the Malayan planters to keep those Indians already in Malaya working. The pro- vision of $900,000 (Straits) for relief work for unem-

ployed laborers in the 1939 budget of the Federated

Malay States is probably an indication of the impor? tance attached by the government to the maintenance in the country of an adequate reservoir of labor upon which the planters may draw when the rubber situation

improves. In the past it has been easy to draw laborers from Madras when their services were required and to

ship them back when production had to be restricted. The recent action of the Indian Government in its

attempt to force an improvement of the working condi? tions of Indian coolies in Malaya makes this procedure impossible.

Jack Shepherd.

RISING LIVING COSTS ACCOMPANY SHANGHAI'S RECOVERY

Increased trade and revived industrial and real es? tate activity are being hailed as signs of returning pros- perity to Shanghai. Simultaneously there is increas?

ing complaint that prices are rising while wages are sta-

tionary if not declining. Particularly hard hit is the Chinese laboring class which constitutes the bulk of the

population of the International Settlement and the French Concession. And overshadowing all is the un-

declared war which continues to play the dominating role in determining the fate of the established commer? cial metropolis of the Far East. (See "Shanghai's

Worst Crisis," Far Eastern Survey, July 27, 1938;

"Shanghai Faces Uncertainty," Dec. 1, 1937.) The heralded increase in trade is of course a relative

one, but it does represent, from the short-term point of view at least, something tangible. Exports had fallen from Ch.$460,030,095 in the pre-war twelve- month period ending July 31, 1937 to Ch.$195,429,501 in the first year of the war (August 1937 through July 1938), and imports from Ch.$630,295,831 to

Ch.$196,641,530. In the last quarter of available fig? ures (August through October 1938), exports totalled

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