SEAB GCE O-Level History

British interests before 1870

Britain came to the Malay world through trade. The East India Company wanted ports along the route between India and China, and a naval base on the Strait of Malacca to protect that route. It acquired Penang in 1786 from the Sultan of Kedah, Singapore in 1819 through Stamford Raffles's agreement with the Johor ruling family, and took over Malacca from the Dutch under the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824.

The treaty settled rivalry between Britain and the Netherlands. The Dutch gave up Malacca and their claims on the Malay peninsula, and Britain gave up its post at Bencoolen on Sumatra. In effect the Malay peninsula and Singapore became a British sphere and Sumatra and the islands to the south a Dutch one. This is why the treaty matters for Malaya: it removed the main European rival from the peninsula and left Britain free to shape what happened there.

Penang, Singapore and Malacca were joined as the Straits Settlements in 1826. They were run first from India by the East India Company, and in 1867 they became a Crown colony answerable to the Colonial Office in London. They were governed directly, by a governor with a council, and Singapore became the centre of trade.

Role of the local elites and the policy of non-intervention

The Malay states on the peninsula were separate from the Straits Settlements. Each was ruled by a sultan, with chiefs who controlled districts, collected taxes and kept followers. Authority was often contested, and succession to a throne could be disputed between rival princes.

British policy towards these states was one of non-intervention. The Straits merchants and the government wanted peaceful trade and low costs, and saw no reason to pay for the administration of states that did not threaten them. Britain dealt with the sultans and chiefs as rulers in their own right, and left their disputes to them. The Straits Settlements government protected its trade against piracy, but it did not govern inland.

Why Britain's policy changed in the 1870s

By the early 1870s the case for staying out had weakened, for three reasons.

Empire and spheres of influence

European states were competing for territory and influence in the 1870s. British officials and merchants worried that if instability continued, another European power might step into the Malay states and close them to British trade. Taking a hand in the peninsula first secured British influence there, and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 made the route through the Strait of Malacca to China even more important.

Raw materials and cash crops

Industrial Britain needed raw materials, and tin was one of the most valuable, used for tinplate in the expanding canning industry. The tin-rich states of Perak and Selangor were attractive. Straits merchants and Chinese investors had put money into mines there and wanted their investments protected. Planters and officials also saw that the Malay states could grow cash crops for export.

Internal instability

Disorder in the tin states was hurting trade. In Larut, in Perak, two Chinese secret societies, the Ghee Hin and the Hai San, fought over the tin mines, and Malay chiefs took sides. These conflicts are known as the Larut Wars. They closed mines, interrupted trade and caused attacks that Straits merchants, who had lent money to the miners, wanted stopped.

At the same time Perak had a succession dispute. When the sultan died in 1871, the Raja Muda Abdullah, who might have expected the throne, was not at the installation of the new sultan, Ismail, and some chiefs supported Abdullah. The Mentri of Larut, Ngah Ibrahim, was linked with the Hai San. The rival Malay and Chinese groups therefore overlapped, and the quarrels fed one another.

The intervention in Perak, 1874

Sir Andrew Clarke became governor of the Straits Settlements in 1873. He had instructions to report on how British interests might be protected in the Malay states, and he took a more active line than his predecessors. Abdullah appealed to the British for help, offering to accept British advice in return for recognition as sultan, and Chinese leaders also asked the British to settle the fighting.

Role of the key players

Clarke acted for the British side and acted with the support of Straits merchants who wanted the mines protected. Abdullah wanted the throne and saw British backing as the way to get it. Ngah Ibrahim, whose control of Larut depended on his own position, lost power when the British intervened. The Chinese headmen of the rival societies were willing to end the fighting to keep their trade going. Ismail, the other claimant, did not accept the outcome.

The Pangkor Engagement, January 1874

At a meeting on the island of Pangkor, Clarke settled the dispute with the Pangkor Engagement of January 1874. Its main terms were:

• Abdullah was recognised as Sultan of Perak, and Ismail was given a pension and an honorary title.
• The Sultan would accept a British Resident, whose advice had to be asked for and followed on all matters except Malay religion and custom.
• The Chinese groups agreed to stop fighting, to disarm and to be supervised, with a British officer to settle claims on the mines.
• Britain gained control over the collection of revenue and the running of the state, through the Resident.

Immediate outcome

The first Resident, J. W. W. Birch, arrived in Perak in 1874. He tried to reform the revenue system and to end the chiefs' right to collect tolls and to hold debt-slaves. This threatened the chiefs' income and status, and they resented being ruled by an outsider. In November 1875 Birch was killed at Pasir Salak by followers of a local chief, Maharaja Lela. British troops, sent from the Straits Settlements and India, put down the resistance in the Perak War of 1875–1876. Maharaja Lela was executed, and Abdullah, who was suspected of involvement, was exiled to the Seychelles in 1877.

The result was that Britain did not retreat. It kept the Resident, but placed more stress on working through the Malay rulers and chiefs, and on respecting their religion and customs. In Perak, Hugh Low, who became Resident in 1877, ruled with more tact than Birch, and the state's tin output grew.

The Perak settlement became the model. Residents were placed in Sungai Ujong in 1874 and in Selangor in 1875, and later in Pahang (1888) and Negeri Sembilan (1889). By accepting a Resident in return for protection, one Malay state after another gave Britain control of its government.