The Landward Side of Singapore

Abstract

BRITAIN'S bastion in the East traditionally defends a vast territory to the north which stretches far beyond British political control, but lies easily within the sphere of imperial interests. Burma, a Crown Colony like the Straits Settlements, falls clearly within the scheme of empire defense as India's eastern bulwark, and Thailand, directly to the north, is an independent country with close geographic, economic and historical bonds with British Malaya. Pre-Japanese Indochina had comparatively few economic ties with lands to the south. It was closely controlled politically by France, which established during the first months of the European war tight-knit relations with the Far Eastern fortress of her ally, Great Britain. Until Japan's recent thrust into Southeastern Asia, it was assumed that the interests of all these countries were identical with those of Singapore-the maintenance of the status quo in this remote corner of the globe. Singapore, the Lion City of the ancient seafaring Malays, was reborn a little over a century ago under the prophetic impetus of Sir Stamford Raffles. Probably his decision to create a free trading post controlling the main seaway between China and India did not foresee its phenomenal development as entrepot centre for the exchange of Malaysia's products against those of Europe and the farther East. Nor could he possibly have imagined the recent overshadowing of Singapore's exchange commerce by its growth as the greatest Oriental market for tin and rubber. The economic nationalism which has universally developed during the past 20 years has effected a slow but visible decline in Singapore's role as middleman, at the same time that its growing dependence on food imports and on the rubber and tin produced in the adjacent Malay states oriented Singapore toward the mainland. Simultaneously the mainland has become more independent of Singapore. Burma, despite her administrative separation from India in 1937, has been more closely linked economically with India than before. Though