Seafield estate: economic aspects

To determine accurately in dollars and cents the total value to Seafield Estate of the subsoil drainage is a matter of considerable difficulty. Some items can be accurately assessed; on others it is difficult to put a figure. In order that the financial aspect of the work may be understood, it will be necessary to explain the labour problem of estates in this country.

In the F.M.S. planters desire to establish on their estates an Indian labour force. In part this is due to tradition; for the pioneer planters of Malaya came from Ceylon, where Indians, and more particularly Tamils from Southern India, were employed on the coffee and tea estates. The habits and customs of Tamils were understood, their language spoken by the planters; so it was natural that when coming to Malaya, where no indigenous labour was available, and some labour foreign to the country must be introduced, Tamils were selected. As a labourer the Tamil is quiet and reliable when justly treated; and from a few hundreds, the Tamil population has increased to tens of thousands.

To the Indian coolie, who comes here, the F.M.S. is an El Dorado in comparison with his native country; there he belongs to the lowest castes or “depressed” classes. In years of a “bad monsoon” and famine, starvation is his lot; years of prosperity give him a bare living. He comes to this country, as a rule, in poor physical condition, penniless, and in rags. A year on a healthy estate, with good wages and good food, improves him and his children beyond recognition. Not only is he well covered with clothes and flesh, and looks healthy; but he becomes relatively wealthy. Until last year he could live well on less than half his earnings, and the balance he could remit to his relatives in India at such a favourable rate of exchange that it often amounted in India to as much in rupees as he could have earned had he remained there. Through the Post Office are sent large sums annually; and even larger amounts are carried over personally. The immigration figures show that the coolie usually returns to India in two years; that means he has saved enough to do so. The employment of Indian labour at the wages earned on estates is, therefore, advantageous both to the Indian and the estate.

The system by which he is introduced to the country is comparatively simple. Some coolie on an estate in Malaya has friends or relatives in India who, he thinks, would come to the estate; so he is given a “licence” to “recruit” by the Labour Department—a department of Government which concerns itself with the welfare of the labourer. Armed with the “recruiting licence” the coolie visits his village, and if successful, brings over a few other coolies. These coolies receive a free passage from a fund raised by assessing all employers of Indian labour, and arrive on the estate free from debt. There is no “indentured labour” in British Malaya; no coolie may sign a contract to labour; he is at liberty to leave on giving a month’s notice, or at once on giving a month’s pay; in practice, as I have said before, he often leaves without giving either.

By law he must be provided with free housing accommodation, free medical and hospital treatment; and regulations of many kinds for his welfare are strictly enforced by the department referred to above. Where the death rate of an estate is high, the employer may be prohibited from employing Indian labour. In the early years of the industry, this rule was not strictly adhered to; for malaria and ill-health were regarded as inevitable in the opening of a new country and as a passing phase. But as the causes of ill-health have come to be better understood, and its prevention placed on a practical footing, the regulations are now very strictly interpreted and enforced.

So Indian labour is preferred because the coolie and his language are understood by planters, and because it is reliable when healthy. At the same time, there is considerable expense in recruiting it, in transporting it from India, and for medical treatment on the estate, especially when the estate is unhealthy. Indeed, if the estate be very malarious, the Indian requires higher wages, does poor work, is an indifferent, undesirable labourer, and ceases to be an asset.

Where an estate is very malarious, and the death rate is high, the Indian Government prohibits the employment of the Indian labourer.

His place is taken by the Chinese, to whom Malaya owes so much. Long before the British administration was established in these parts, Chinese were working the rich tin land of the Peninsula. They come from a land where the seasonal variations give a period of comparatively, if not absolutely, cold weather, and are a virile race, full of enterprise and energy, well able to hold their own against any other race in the East; and probably, for that matter, against many in the West. Patient and efficient labourers; yet, for the European, difficult to work. This arises mainly from the fact that the language presents an almost insuperable obstacle to direct communication between the labourer and his Western employer.

Language!—it would be more correct to say languages. Although there is one ideographic writing common to the Chinese Empire, the dialects differ so much that Chinese from the several provinces cannot understand each other. In Malaya, the labourers speak many dialects; each one of which requires several years of study before even a smattering is acquired by the average European; and until the European changes his mental equipment or the Chinese his language, there is little chance of direct communication between the planter and the labourer. The difficulty is overcome by the planter engaging and supervising his labour through a “contractor,” a Chinese who speaks either English or Malay—the lingua franca of the Archipelago. Through him the employer arranges the terms of the contract; to him the planter gives directions; and he is held responsible for the proper execution of the work.

On an unhealthy estate, Chinese, like Indians, suffer from malaria and its accompanying diseases. He has no natural immunity. On occasions I have seen him as badly stricken by the disease as Indians; Port Swettenham in 1901 is an example. Chinese have little faith in Western medicine, and do not usually seek admission to an estate hospital. When ill, the coolie prefers to leave the estate and go to his friends elsewhere. There he is treated according to “Chinese fashion”: when well, he returns to the estate; if he dies, his friends bury him, and the estate manager probably hears nothing of it. Leaving the estate gives him a better chance of recovery than if he remained there subject to constant reinfection; and we find that a large percentage of Chinese on unhealthy estates have enlarged spleen, showing they have recently acquired or are acquiring a natural immunity. Two other things are in his favour: he believes in the mosquito net—practically every coolie uses one; and he feeds himself much better than the Indian. So it comes about that Chinese live and work on places where Indians die off rapidly and where the planter’s hope of establishing an Indian labour force—

Like Snow upon the Desert’s dusty Face,
Lighting a little hour or two—is gone.

If a Chinese coolie takes the risk of an unhealthy estate, he expects to be well paid for it. He is no philanthropist; on the contrary, he is fully convinced that the labourer is worthy of his hire—and sees that he gets it. Centuries of oppression in the Flowery Land have taught him the art of combination. His Societies and Guilds—practically every Chinese of the lower classes belongs to one—are so highly organised that a Western Trade Union could teach him nothing; and probably could learn a good deal. He is, therefore, practically in a position to make his own terms; and they are a long way above what the Tamil considers affluence, and flocks from India to obtain. In short, while with Tamil labour it costs on an average about 7 cents a pound to tap and collect rubber, Chinese tapping costs 14 cents. So Tamil labour saves, say, 7 cents a pound, and on a crop of 1,000,000 pounds in a year, the gross saving is from $70,000. This places a high premium on health; and, apart from any other consideration, has been a material stimulus to estate sanitation.

Tamil labour, however, is not without certain disadvantages which must be set against the cheap cost of tapping.

As far as Seafield Estate is concerned, the high death rate would have led to an order prohibiting the employment of Indians; even had some Indian labour been allowed, it would probably not have been sufficient in numbers, or reliable enough in “out-turn,” to tap the trees; all tapping would have been done by Chinese.

It is now time to detail, if not to assess, the value of the items in the account, and I will begin with the disadvantages.

1. Indian labour has involved heavier medical charges. In 1919 these were $15,061.
2. The total capital cost of the pipe drainage, 1911-1918, was $68,243.
3. The upkeep of ravines, including oiling in 1919, was $11,013.
4. To lay the system many rubber trees were cut out, reducing the rubber crop; this would probably have been an annually diminishing amount, as some of the ravines would probably have become silted up, and the trees would have died out.
5. Cost of recruiting Indian labour.
6. Assessment on Indian labour.
7. Loss on selling rice below cost price.
8. Loss on Exchange—remitting money to India above the market rate.

After many discussions with those familiar with the subject, it appeared that the only satisfactory way to estimate the value to Seafield Estate of a Tamil labour force would be to compare its f.o.b. cost of production with that of other estates employing Chinese labour, and to ascertain which was the cheaper. Inquiries were therefore made for an estate identical in acreage and yield with Seafield, but unhealthy and employing Chinese labour. As I was unsuccessful in finding one strictly comparable in all respects, I decided to ascertain the average cost on a number of estates employing Tamil labour, and to compare that figure with the average cost of estates with other labour. Messrs. Cumberbatch & Co., Ltd., Messrs. Harrison & Crossfield, Ltd., Messrs. Guthrie & Co., Ltd., Messrs. Barlow & Co., Messrs. A. C. Harper & Co., Ltd., Messrs. Barker & Co., Ltd., and the managers of several estates courteously supplied me with the details of estates with a total of over 71,000 acres in bearing, and from these I have worked out the average yield and cost. All are on hill land; they fall into three groups. For obvious reasons I am not permitted to give further details.

Group A, with 70% or more of the labour force Tamil. With one or two exceptions, all were intensely malarious, and but for the control of malaria would not now have a Tamil labour force. On several, further improvement in health is to be anticipated.

Group B have a mixed Tamil and Chinese labour force. On some there is a considerable expenditure on anti-malarial work, but a full Tamil labour force has not been built up. The health of this group generally is unsatisfactory, but there are exceptions.

Group C. Estates with 70% or more of the labour Chinese. Usually so unhealthy that Tamils cannot be employed. As a rule little is spent on anti-malarial work. Table 15.1 shows the total area in tapping in each group; the average yield per acre; and the average f.o.b. cost per pound in cents.

A startling figure is revealed when we consider the gross saving to the estates employing Tamil labour in Group A. The gross crop was 12,528,782 pounds; with the average saving of 7.78 cents a pound we got the sum of $974,737, or approximately £114,000 sterling in one year—no mean return on the amount spent to improve health.

If this be the saving to these few estates from which I have collected figures, what must be the total sum saved by all the estates in the Peninsula now able to employ Tamil labour forces because they are healthy? It must run into many millions sterling, even on the estates only the careers of which have been traced in these pages; and they are but a selection from the hundreds in the Peninsula.

Finally, we shall see later on, there is some reason to believe that 100,000 lives have been saved in Malaya in the last twenty years by sanitation, and principally through the elimination of malaria. If we estimate the wealth of a country by what its inhabitants produce, the saving of these lives and the value of their work lead our thoughts into figures that stagger us; but only do so, because we rarely count the cost of disease, and have not yet realised the value of medical research and the prevention of disease. As a nation, are we really practical?