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Singapore Financial Success
Trade at Singapore had eclipsed that of Penang by 1824,
when it
reached a total of Sp$11 million annually. By 1869 annual
trade at
Singapore had risen to Sp$89 million. The cornerstone of
the
settlement's commercial success was the entrepôt trade,
which was
carried on with no taxation and a minimum of restriction.
The main
trading season began each year with the arrival of ships
from
China, Siam, and Cochinchina (as the southern part of
Vietnam was
then known). Driven by the northeast monsoon winds and
arriving in
January, February, and March, the ships brought immigrant
laborers
and cargoes of dried and salted foods, medicines, silk,
tea,
porcelain, and pottery. They left beginning in May with
the onset
of the southwest monsoons, laden with produce, spices,
tin, and
gold from the Malay Archipelago, opium from India, and
English
cotton goods and arms. The second major trading season
began in
Septeember or October with the arrival of the Bugis
traders in
their small, swift prahu, bringing rice, pepper,
spices,
edible bird nests and shark fins, mother-of-pearl, gold
dust,
rattan, and camphor from the archipelago. They departed
carrying
British manufactures, cotton goods, iron, arms, opium,
salt, silk,
and porcelain. By mid-century, there were more than twenty
British
merchant houses in Singapore, as well as German, Swiss,
Dutch,
Portuguese, and French firms. The merchants would receive
cargoes
of European or Indian goods on consignment and sell them
on
commission.
Most of the trade between the European and Asian
merchants was
handled by Chinese middlemen, who spoke the necessary
languages and
knew the needs of their customers. Many of the middlemen
had
trained as clerks in the European trading firms of
Malacca. With
their experience, contacts, business acumen, and
willingness to
take risks, the middlemen were indispensable to the
merchants. For
the Chinese middlemen, the opportunities for substantial
profit
were great; but so were the risks. Lacking capital, the
middlemen
bought large quantities of European goods on credit with
the hope
of reselling them to the Chinese or Bugis ship captains or
themselves arranging to ship them to the markets of Siam
or the
eastern Malay Peninsula. If, however, buyers could not be
found or
ships were lost at sea, the middlemen faced bankruptcy or
prison.
Although the merchants also stood to lose under such
circumstances,
the advantages of the system and the profits to be made
kept it
flourishing.
The main site for mercantile activity in mid-century
Singapore
was Commercial Square, renamed Raffles Place in 1858.
Besides the
European merchant houses located on the square, there were
in 1846
six Jewish merchant houses, five Chinese, five Arab, two
Armenian,
one American, and one Indian. Each merchant house had its
own pier
for loading and unloading cargo; and ship chandlers,
banks, auction
houses, and other businesses serving the shipping trade
also were
located on the square. In the early years, merchants lived
above
their offices; but by mid-century most had established
themselves
in beautiful houses and compounds in a fashionable section
on the
east bank of the Singapore River.
Construction of government buildings lagged far behind
commercial buildings in the early years because of the
lack of taxgenerated revenue. The merchants resisted any attempts by
Calcutta
to levy duties on trade, and the British East India
Company had
little interest in increasing the colony's budget. After
1833,
however, many public works projects were constructed by
the
extensive use of Indian convict labor. Irish architect
George
Drumgold Coleman, who was appointed superintendent of
public works
in that year, used convicts to drain marshes, reclaim
seafront, lay
out roads, and build government buildings, churches, and
homes in
a graceful colonial style.
Probably the most serious problem facing Singapore at
midcentury was piracy, which was being engaged in by a number
of
groups who found easy pickings in the waters around the
thriving
port. Some of the followers of the temenggong's son
and
heir, Ibrahim, were still engaging in their "patrolling"
activities
in the late 1830s. Most dangerous of the various pirate
groups,
however, were the Illanun (Lanun) of Mindanao in the
Philippines
and northern Borneo. These fierce sea raiders sent out
annual
fleets of 50 to 100 well-armed prahu, which raided
settlements, attacked ships, and carried off prisoners who
were
pressed into service as oarsmen. The Illanun attacked not
only
small craft from the archipelago but also Chinese and
European
sailing ships. Bugis trading captains threatened to quit
trading at
Singapore unless the piracy was stopped. In the 1850s,
Chinese
pirates, who boldly used Singapore as a place to buy arms
and sell
their booty, brought the trade between Singapore and
Cochinchina to
a standstill. The few patrol boats assigned by the British
East
India Company to protect the Straits Settlements were
totally
inadequate, and the Singapore merchants continually
petitioned
Calcutta and London for aid in stamping out the menace.
By the late 1860s, a number of factors had finally led
to the
demise of piracy. In 1841, the governor of the Straits
Settlements,
George Bonham, recognized Ibrahim as temenggong of
Johore,
with the understanding that he would help suppress piracy.
By 1850
the Royal Navy was patrolling the area with steam-powered
ships,
which could navigate upwind and outmaneuver the pirate
sailing
ships. The expansion of European power in Asia also
brought
increased patrolling of the region by the Dutch in
Sumatra, the
Spanish in the Philippines, and the British from their
newly
established protectorates on the Malay Peninsula. China
also agreed
to cooperate in suppressing piracy under the provisions of
treaties
signed with the Western powers in 1860.
Singapore's development and prosperity at mid-century
were
largely confined to the coast within a few kilometers of
the port
area. The interior remained a dense jungle ringed by a
coastline of
mangrove swamps. Attempts to turn the island to plantation
agriculture between 1830 and 1840 had met with little
success.
Nutmeg, coffee, sugar, cotton, cinnamon, cloves, and
indigo all
fell victim to pests, plant diseases, or insufficient soil
fertility. The only successful agricultural enterprises
were the
gambier and pepper plantations, numbering about 600 in the
late
1840s and employing some 6,000 Chinese laborers. When the
firewood
needed to extract the gambier became depleted, the
plantation would
be moved to a new area. As a result, the forests of much
of the
interior of the island had been destroyed and replaced by
coarse
grasses by the 1860s, and the gambier planters had moved
their
operations north to Johore. This pressure on the land also
affected
the habitats of the wildlife, particularly tigers, which
began
increasingly to attack villagers and plantation workers.
Tigers
reportedly claimed an average of one victim per day in the
late
1840s. When the government offered rewards for killing the
animals,
tiger hunting became a serious business and a favorite
sport. The
last year a person was reported killed by a tiger was
1890, and the
last wild tiger was shot in 1904.
Data as of December 1989
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