Out in the Midday Sun

by Margaret Shennan

  I got quite fond of these two Pillays and they certainly went out of their way to help and teach me. It was all a matter of how you spoke and treated them. Some people never got on with ‘the kranis’ [Indian clerks]. They were said to be ‘rude’, ‘stuck-up’, lazy crooks etc. But if you dealt fairly by them I found that 90% were decent chaps. They had very small salaries [c.60 cents a day], very long hours, and a lot of responsibility. Taking it all round I liked them … Our labour force were all Tamils, mostly Pariahs or casteless; some 25% were rather low caste … But once you ‘knew the rules’ and didn’t put the wrong caste in the next room to the pariah etc. then they all lived amicably together … The Tamil labourer was a great family man, a terrible gossip, and a frightful squabbler … You had to know your Indian labour force backwards, all their relations and enemies; you listened to their woes, married them and divorced them – the lot. As they said, ‘You are our Father and our Mother’, and you were too … it was the human element that made it worthwhile.37

  Others echoed all that Hutchinson said about the human dimension of planting. ‘On the whole estate labourers, Indians, Chinese, Malay and Javanese, were in their different way hard working and responded to an employer who spoke their own language and took some interest in their welfare. Estate management’, J. S. Potter concluded, ‘was to a large extent social welfare and … could be well rewarding in itself … The names and faces of my first Tamil labour force remain with me to this day,’ he added proudly.38 The only times Hutchinson’s Tamil workforce gave him trouble was when they became high on toddy, which invariably sparked a drunken brawl. He hated having to don his Bombay bowler for protection and go down to the coolie huts to sort out a row in the lines, as happened about once a month. Fortunately, ‘a single hard “clip” was enough to knock them out – then under the tap to cool (them] off’.39 Otherwise the Tamil lines were peaceful places. Katharine Sim remembered them as rustic settlements, ‘smelly, with the soft-eyed Indian cattle wandering about, the goats, chickens and pariah dogs. The babies were slung up in voluminous saris hanging from beams under a shelter where one woman could look after them all while their mothers laboured on the estate.’40

  The daily round of everyday life on a rubber estate began before dawn with the preliminary muster. Attendance for the Assistant was de rigueur – proof that he was reliable and trustworthy. In the estate where Guy Hutchinson worked:

  We were called, or called the cook, at about 5.15 a.m … donned our shirt and shorts and a sweater and then went off to the Coolie Lines. It was still quite dark. The idea was that the Tappers – those that bled the rubber trees and collected the latex – got out to their ‘task’ of say 400 trees by dawn – they often had 3 miles to walk and, except on the coastal plain where it was dead flat, most estates were fairly, some very, hilly. Having chased off the tappers we went to the ‘store’ (factory) or the divisional office, and there were collecting in lines the Weeders, mostly women and children (over 11 years old) and a few old men, the Pest Gang men, who cut down and cut up fallen or diseased trees, the Road and Drainage Gang, again men, and any other odd jobs. Also a separate line of those reporting sick – or for leave – and each gang under a Kangany (headman). Meanwhile the Tappers’ Kanganies were reporting and bringing with them the buckets of any of their gang who was sick or absent. First job was to fill up the vacant tappers’ tasks and see that the Factory was started. By this time it was getting light. The Weeders etc. were sent off, the leave attended to … Then the ‘sick parade’ was attended to. Stomach ache and a dose of ‘Mix Alba – Epsom Salts’ administered. Those recently discharged from the Estate Hospital were given their medicine – quinine – spleen mixture etc. Then those really sick sent off to the Estate Hospital. The pocket checkroll was made up – this was the daywork book with every coolie’s name in their Recruited Gangs – and from this the BIG Checkroll was made up and this was the official Pay Book. A wise man kept his checkrolls right up to date – the end of the month was busy enough – Big Checkroll and Full Report on all work – yields per field and per tapper all to be worked out and neatly written up and ALL to be on the Manager’s table by 7.30 a.m. of 1st. Not much sleep on the last night of the month, and woe if your pocket and big checkrolls were not right up to date and properly tallied.

  By this time it was 6.15–6.30, according to the time of year. There wasn’t much difference in light all the year round; after all, we were only 3 degrees North of the Equator. Having spoken to and sent off our Field Conductor – usually a Malayalam from Southern India – and seen that the Factory was well and truly started, back to the lines to see that no one had been missed or had slipped back for a ‘cupper’, checked all the little ones were in the crèche with the Ayah and chased the nippers off to school – over 5 and under 11 sent to our own school till midday … Then whistle up the dogs and back to the bungalow for a wash and shave and about 4 cups of tea and by 7 a.m. we were out inspecting the Tappers.

  We tried to see at least 50% of our tappers every day, the whole lot if possible … We had to check against wounding the trees, excessive removal of bark, the cleanliness of the latex cups, the spouts that led the latex into the cups, collecting buckets etc. Usually one called up the Tapping Kangany of each field (say 50 acres) and went round with him from tree to tree and tapper to tapper, and so from field to field. There was a certain amount of low cunning as to how you arranged the work of the tappers … On the way round the tappers we inspected the weeders, pests, drainers etc. Only a mug would have his weeders working in a field not in tapping or not adjacent to a field in tapping that day … By about 9 to 9.30 most of the trees had been tapped and there was a pause before the ‘horn was blown at the factory’ to start collecting latex. We then nipped back home and had Breakfast – the best meal of the day I always thought. By 10.15 we were out again, seeing the weeders etc., then to the Factory (or if a large estate the collecting station) where the division’s latex was measured, each man being measured for gallonage and specific gravity of his latex: by this we knew how many lbs of dry rubber he had got … By 12.30 all the latex should have been ‘in’. Then either out to the ‘outside’ gangs … or an inspection of the packing sheds and smoke houses. And so by 2 p.m. work was over. Some assistants had to take the names in of their gangs. We only did this about twice a week: the conductor did it. This taking in of the coolies’ names every day was important as it was by this that they were paid … however it was done it was wise to take the small (or pocket) checkroll back to your bungalow and see that it was properly entered up, and everything cross-checked before you could say you had finished for the day …

  Except on the very small estates it was a rule that the assistants went to the Main Factory about 2.30, checked in the amount of rubber collected from their division, making sure that the Factory Bulk Figure agreed with the figure you got at your collecting station. If you didn’t, the wily Factory Clerk would mark you down short and so cover any losses his end at your expense. This didn’t matter so much with Day Paid tappers, but woe to you if you had Chinese on contract and your figures were short at the end of the month. When you had done this it was usual to see the Manager and see if he had any special orders etc. for the next day. And then you could go home and have tea. It was a long day – and seldom were you finished until 4 p.m. and you had started at 5.15 a.m. But it was a fine outdoor life. You were handling people, and once proved trustworthy, very much your own boss.41

  Although the estate routine varied little, there were many other changes during the interwar years. In the immediate aftermath of the Great War, ‘European estate staff were built up to pre-war numbers which was usually a ratio of one to 250 acres’ – a generous figure in the light of later staffing levels. One Johore planter admitted, ‘we did not work particularly hard’; in addition, ‘returns per tapper were, by present standards, poor’. However, a short, sharp slump in 1921-4 brought the first shock waves of hardship and unemployment, as companies made staff and pay reductions. Reo
rganization was necessary – principally the replacement of Chinese tappers by more docile Indian labour, the Chinese being reserved for heavier clearing and new planting. ‘Kota Tinggi was an uneasy spot’ at that time, Allgrove recalled. ‘About 1922, one of the hard years, the runner [who carried the post to and from the mines beyond the Pelipah valley] was set on in the jungle and murdered’, though the robbers gained only a few cents. ‘One remembers [too] the long series of leaders [in] the Straits Times demanding some control of rubber production. Eventually the Stephenson Scheme was adopted … Estates were assessed on past results and production allowed on a reduced scale.’ The planters learned ‘many lessons, not least being the value of periods of rest for the rubber tree’.42

  This rationalization steadied the industry, so that by the time Guy Hutchinson went out to Selangor in 1928 buoyancy had returned. In 1929 rubber exports from the Federated Malay States were worth over $200 million dollars. Indian immigration to the rubber estates peaked in the late 1920s. Labour troubles were rare. The Indian labour force readily accepted low wages of 30-45 cents a day in return for guaranteed work, free housing, free medicine and hospitalization; ‘it was wealth compared to what they could earn in the villages of southern India … And we used to “bank” their money for them … and it is surprising the amount they sent back to India.’43

  The improved prosperity of these years, however, came to an abrupt end with the Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression. More work and productivity was expected from each planter. The Sepang Club was forced to close in 1931. Paper chases, a cheap form of exercise and relaxation, suddenly became popular. The value of second-hand cars and car hire charges dropped like a stone. Unable to keep up the payments on his beloved Nash, Mike Hutchinson replaced it with an old second-hand Morris Open Tourer acquired at a knock-down price. Another symptom of the Slump was the revival of some gangs of Chinese bandits – ‘real “Robber Gangs” and these caused a lot of trouble’. Guy Hutchinson played safe and bought a .38 colt automatic. By 1931 he noticed ‘The married planters began to be much more careful, and instead of big parties or trips to K.L. etc. quieter evenings and every weekend on the estate became much in evidence … Club nights dwindled, till almost everyone went home after parade.’ Indeed:

  The effects of the Slump were becoming more and more visible. So many planters going home on leave did not return, and worse than that … Suddenly the local papers were full of reports of European planters who had been given three months’ notice and at the end of this time they found themselves stranded in Malaya. They had no money … [and] had a job to pay their debts … Many tried to raise a bit extra by selling all their household goods – but there were few buyers … Previously on the odd occasion that this sort of thing had happened, the unfortunate man was sent home by Government as a D.B.S. (Distressed British Subject) at government expense. But what was to happen now? The numbers grew almost daily. Many, most, were unmarried and under 30-35.44

  In April 1932 the Hutchinson brothers had to accept ‘another cut in pay – making 33% in all, which meant’, Guy recalled, ‘that I was on approx. $220 a month – less than I had started with over four years ago!’ In fact, the pay cut was a preliminary to receiving notice – hardly a surprise when the great majority of European Assistants had been paid off and sent home by the middle of the year. Even highly experienced and able Managers like Herbert of Batu Caves and Hedley Bragg of Tenang were retired – a euphemism for axed: ‘so it went on everywhere …’ Getting rid of pets was a job … when we left we took our Dogs to the local Police Station to be put down … It was all very sad …’ But as they boarded the Chitral at Penang for home, it was heart-warming to see that ‘Half the planters from Kedah had come to see her off … On board were sixty planters and only two had return tickets!’45

  The visual evidence of the Slump in Johore was described with feeling by a civil servant returning from leave. ‘A neglected allure hung over everything – empty clubs, silent roads, abandoned bungalows with weed-grown paths and broken shutters creaking in the evening breeze.’46 Devastating, too, was the effect of redundancy on morale and self-esteem: ‘it is a thousand times worse’, argued one, ‘for a white man in a tropical country’ to be unemployed; it would ‘destroy European credit and prestige’.47 The earlier slump had produced a crop of personal tragedies, such as the suicide of Captain Lester, a planter who had fought in the Great War but then found there was neither a job nor the prospect of one. However, both government officials and the planters’ organizations, such as the Incorporated Society of Planters, had a vested interest in the planters’ welfare. As one senior official admitted in the detached language of the bureaucrat, ‘It is quite impossible to retain a number of unemployed white men in the country in the midst of a native population.’48 Temporary solutions were found in 1930 with the formation of a new company of the Malay States Volunteer Rifles and the revival of the European Unemployment Fund, first set up in 1921, to help unemployed planters and their families with grants and passages home. The plight of the rubber men continued to be aired in the pages of The Planter, with warnings about the need to restore salary levels ‘when the tyranny of world depression’ was past.49 Meanwhile, in England the situation was little better, and repatriated planters, Guy Hutchinson found, were driven to ‘doing the most odd assortment of jobs, taxi-driving, Stop-Me-and-Buy-One ice cream selling, driving delivery vans – anything in fact’.50

  Much later, when the painful memories had faded, it was possible to be philosophical about the slumps of 1922 and 1932. Taking the long-term view, they were powerful levers in forcing progress on estate operation. The losers were individual Europeans and Asians, the beneficiaries the big rubber companies and agencies like Dunlop’s and Guthrie’s. Guy Hutchinson observed the way market forces changed Malaya’s rubber industry:

  When I left Malaya in June 1932 … only a very few estates were still producing rubber in quantity. The native-owned estates and kampongs were producing as much as they could, selling at rock bottom prices, while we, the axed planters were doing the best we could to keep our noses above water … the City Sharks that ran the industry from London were not idle. They appear to have had their scouts out … and were ready waiting to pounce. In 1932 they pounced. The victims this time were the Asian estate owners and smallholders, anyone that had some decent land planted up in rubber in good condition and who were as near as no matter bankrupt. The City sailed in and through a few very astute local Agents started to buy up the planted rubber. What they wanted was a block of say 1,000 to 3,000 acres – or failing that a lot of small holdings … in lots of 100 acres each, making anything up to 4,000 and 8,000 acres. They searched diligently, silently and very effectively. I will give you an example of but one European company, ‘XY’. In 1932 they had owned about 8,000 acres of mature rubber in Selangor, divided into four estates. By the end of 1934 they had acquired in Johore alone two Asian estates of approximately 3,000 acres each, a block of about 7,000 acres that had belonged to 700 different owners, all adjacent to each other, in South Johore … Messrs XY had in a short space of time increased their acreage three fold … Thousands of acres of Chinese rubber [planted since the Great War] were brought by European companies in 1934-35 … They then had a fine choice of planters to pick from; experienced Managers who wanted but one more agreement to be able to retire without being in penury, and Assistants of every shade of experience, all eager to return to do their rightful profession. Most of us would have come back for almost a ‘song’; for my own part I signed on for four years at $300 a month.51

  The revolution in land ownership which came about with the Slump resulted in a big increase in the number of European planters from the mid-1930s, and this in turn brought a lot of extra money and business to even the small towns. The Dunlop Rubber Company took the lead, eventually planting some 15,000 acres of rubber adjacent to the railway. Rubber was once more in demand; indeed, from the late 1930s the industry enjoyed boom conditions. These good years wen
t a long way towards eradicating memories of the bad. J. S. Potter, who in 1937 transferred from office work in Kuala Lumpur into estate work in Negri Sembilan, found he preferred the latter: not only was it better paid with cheaper living, but he liked the independence and responsibility of a senior Assistant. On his return in 1934 Guy Hutchinson voiced unbounded enthusiasm for planting:

  You can have no idea of the, well, ‘Elation’ is the word, that we, the ones who had ‘been on the beach’, felt to be back again, with a job we knew and liked. No one was going to worry, ever again about conditions. We were Planting … It was a simply marvellous feeling – I am sure I am not speaking for myself when I say this.52

  Later he found himself head-hunted by a rival company, but personal loyalty prevailed over financial gain. Tenang estate remained his home for what proved to be four very happy years.

  Segamat, the administrative centre for north Johore, was a pleasant little town with fine shady trees and streets lined with jacarandas. It was well served by the railway, and had a very good market and a branch of the Singapore Cold Storage based at the large Chinese grocery store. In his newly built bungalow, with its own electricity plant, good water supply and excellent views, Guy Hutchinson felt he lacked nothing. By courtesy of Dunlop’s, which owned most estates from Gemas to Tenang, the Europeans in the area had the benefit of two clubs, with nine-hole golf courses, sports pitches and tennis courts.

  A planter on his second contract was expected to ‘do his social bit … It will not do him any good to be thought “eccentric”, or a snob, and if he clings to a hermit existence he may very easily be written off as both.’53 Planters were as gregarious as their location permitted. On isolated estates friendships were largely confined to work colleagues – planters, the factory engineer, the estate doctor and so on. When the Malets were planting in Selangor, most of their acquaintances were planters and members of Klang Club, together with two Kuala Lumpur doctors, Dr Robert Hardie and Dr Macintosh. Guy Hutchinson’s old bachelor group in Kuala Lumpur had given way to a wide network of friends around Segamat, including Hugh Bryson, the Assistant Adviser, and his wife. As he harmlessly boasted, ‘I ran the [Genuang] Club as Honorary Secretary, I ran the local Johore Volunteer Engineers and I ran my little Morris 8 hp. almost to death. I “ate out” as often as I “ate in”’. But no matter what, I never missed a Muster!’54 He also took up cricket and golf, and he joined enthusiastically in ‘house-parties’, where copious supplies of beer, whisky and champagne ensured there was a jovial atmosphere. Hutchinson, as much as anyone, demonstrated that the typical planter was a convivial soul.