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Singapore Economic and Social Recovery
The British returned to find their colonies in sad
shape. Food
and medical supplies were dangerously low, partly because
shipping
was in total disarray. Allied bombing had taken its toll
on
Singapore's harbor facilities, and numerous wrecks blocked
the
harbor. Electricity, gas, water, and telephone services
were in
serious disrepair. Severe overcrowding had resulted in
thousands of
squatters living in shanties, and the death rate was twice
the
prewar level. Gambling and prostitution, both legalized
under the
Japanese, flourished, and for many opium or alcohol served
as an
escape from a bleak existence. The military administration
was far
from a panacea for all Singapore's ills. The BMA had its
share of
corrupt officials who helped the collaborators and
profiteers of
the Japanese occupation to continue to prosper. As a
result of the
inefficiency and mismanagement of the rice distribution,
the BMA
was cynically known as the "Black Market Administration."
However,
by April 1946, when military rule was ended, the BMA had
managed to
restore gas, water, and electric services to above their
prewar
capacity. The port was returned to civilian control, and
seven
private industrial, transportation, and mining companies
were given
priority in importing badly needed supplies and materials.
Japanese
prisoners were used to repair docks and airfields. The
schools were
reopened, and by March 62,000 children were enrolled. By
late 1946,
Raffles College and the King Edward Medical College both
had
reopened.
Food shortages were the most persistent problem; the
weekly per
capita rice ration fell to an all-time low in May 1947,
and other
foods were in short supply and expensive. Malnutrition and
disease
spawned outbreaks of crime and violence. Communist-led
strikes
caused long work stoppages in public transport, public
services, at
the docks, and at many private firms. The strikers were
largely
successful in gaining the higher wages needed by the
workers to
meet rising food prices.
By late 1947, the economy had began to recover as a
result of
a growing worldwide demand for tin and rubber. The
following year,
Singapore's rubber production reached an all-time high,
and
abundant harvests in neighboring rice-producing countries
ended the
most serious food shortages. By 1949 trade, productivity,
and
social services had been restored to their prewar levels.
In that
year a five-year social welfare plan was adopted, under
which
benefits were paid to the aged, unfit, blind, crippled,
and to
widows with dependent children. Also in 1949, a ten-year
plan was
launched to expand hospital facilities and other health
services.
By 1951 demand for tin and rubber for the war in Korea had
brought
economic boom to Singapore.
By the early postwar years, Singapore's population had
become
less transitory and better balanced by age and sex. The
percentage
of Chinese who were Straits-born rose from 36 percent in
1931 to 60
percent by 1947, and, of those born in China, more than
half
reported in 1947 that they had never revisited and did not
send
remittances there. Singapore's Indian population increased
rapidly
in the postwar years as a result of increased migration
from India,
which was facing the upheavals of independence and
partition, and
from Malaya, where the violence and hardships of the
Emergency (see Glossary)
caused many to leave. Although large numbers of
Indian
men continued to come to Singapore to work and then return
to
India, both Indians and Chinese increasingly saw Singapore
as their
permanent home.
In 1947 the colonial government inaugurated a ten-year
program
to provide all children with six years of primary
education in the
language of the parents' choice, including English, Malay,
Chinese,
and Tamil. Seeing an English education as offering their
children
the best opportunity for advancement, parents increasingly
opted to
send their children to English-language schools, which
received
increased government funding while support for the
vernacular
schools declined. In 1949 the University of Malaya was
formed
through a merger of Raffles College and the King Edward
Medical
College.
Data as of December 1989
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