Malay Aristocrats’ Participation in Business in Colonial Malaya

It is widely believed that in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries the British catered for western economic interests in the Malay states. This was evident in the mining and agricultural industries in which Asians generally were perceived to have been treated differently from the Europeans, and in a discriminatory manner. In fact, several laws were enacted to prevent Malay peasants and their Asian counterparts in general from rising to become capitalists. The British and Malay aristocrats seemed to have established cordial business ties, particularly in the agriculture and mining sectors. The findings of this chapter may be considered to have deepened the theme that Shaharil Talib often used in his study of how the Malay ruling elites adapted themselves to an economy that was transformed through capitalist penetration. The chapter shows, through the use of archival sources, that the Malay aristocrats were indeed very involved in business ventures under British rule.