The Planting Provisions of Rubber Regulation

In the 1934 agreement new planting of rubber was prohibited. Replanting (the uprooting of existing plantations and their replacement by new trees) was allowed up to 20 per cent, of the existing acreage of each owner, with a maximum of 10 per cent, in any year until the end of 1938. It has already been suggested 1 that these provisions jeopardised the future of the smallholding industry. An examination of the detailed record of the discussions preceding the 1934 agreement suggests that these provisions were drafted without consideration of this easily foreseeable long-term result. The planting provisions were discussed by the full Rubber Regulation Committee of the R.G.A., and the permission to replant opposed by some who accepted it only as a concession to the Dutch view. Thus it would appear that, at any rate at first, these measures were not a Machiavellian plot on the part of the estate representatives for the suppression of native competition. The officials whose duty it was to protect the interests of the small-holders were also somewhat unfamiliar with the economics of small-holders’ rubber; the draft proposals were administratively workable and apparently equitable and were readily accepted. The operation, effects and implications of these provisions will now be examined in detail.