Investment in the plantation rubber industry in Malaya, c. 1900-1922

Abstract

Though non-indigenous strains of rubber-yielding trees were introduced into the Malay Peninsula in 1876-77, it was not until after 1900 that this crop began to be widely adopted for commercial purposes. Thereafter development proceeded at a pace unique in tropical agriculture. Well within the space of two decades a major raw material industry was established, principally in Malaya, Ceylon and the Netherlands East Indies, but with the former occupying the dominant position in acreage and output. The outstanding features of this process, such as the company flotation boom of 1909-10, are already well known but much of the work todate has been of a descriptive nature and the object of this paper is to consider investment from a more analytical viewpoint. To do the subject full justice, equal attention should be devoted to the activities of European and Asian rubber growers, but the sources of comparable quantitative evidence for the period under review are much more detailed and comprehensive for the former group.