Socking the Malaya

Rubber Planter

Letter to the Editor producers, of whose troubles we j have heard something recently through PIM, are not the sole vic tims of this universal Government urge to skim the cream from the labours of others.

So far we have heard no complaints from Papuan rubber planters—though if high prices hold they should be pre pared for a grab—but Malayan rubber producers are providing their Govern ment with something like £l2 million stg. per month. It would be a great deal more if a concerted howl from the UK Press and Parliament had not pro duced a change of heart at the begin ning of this year.

Before the war the maximum export levy on Malayan rubber was 21 per cent, ad valorem: immediately after the war it was increased to 5 per cent, although the price rubber was bringing was not substantially more than had been re ceived in 1939. Prom the late twenties onwards the rubber market fell into a period of doldrums—in 1933 rubber was being quoted at between 4d and 5d a pound and in 1939 at between lOd and lid—and it was not until about 15 months ago that it began its present spectacular rise.

It was at this latter stage that the Malayan government (instructed, plan ters believe, by Whitehall), without asking anyone’s permission or consulting pro ducers, decided on a new scale of export levies which at their maximum rose to 39 per cent, of the total value. This caused wrath enough, for there was no apparent reason why this increase in revenue was necessary as the Malayan Government has

no trouble in balancing its budget, but the method of determining the price on which the tax was to be fixed caused even more uproar. Rubber is sold on a free market and there are day to day fluctuations, but Authority decided that the duty was to be fixed for each quarter of the year in accordance with the average price for first grade rubber in the quarter before the previous quarter. Thus, when the price fell sharply the exporter would still have to pay his tax at the rate calculated on the much higher price of several months before.

APPEALS to the Malayan Government by planters were ignored; the Colonial Office merely stated that the whole idea was designed to check “in flationary tendencies” —although up to that time such inflation as Malaya had suffered had been caused by Government expenditure on trying to create a Welfare State —Malaya has a Six-Year Plan for new social services.

The matter might have finished there had not the Rubber Growers’ Association in London not got publicity for the plan ters through the UK Press and the par liament. No defence of the tax was put up by either the Malayan Government or the Colonial Office—sufficient is it to state that they had a change of heart and from January 1, 1951, the tax has been con siderably modified although even now it is severe and. as far as any reasonable individual can see, completely unjustified.

Method of calculating the tax is still complicated and there pours into the coffers of the Malayan Government each month a tremendous sum. The new duty is 5 per cent, on the first 60 cents of price, plus 2 cents from every additional 10 cents of the price. Out of this latter a small per centage will be refunded to the grower for “replanting purposes”—because, as with coconuts in other parts of the Colonial

Empire, there has been virtually no re planting of rubber in Malaya for many years. The duty will be fixed weekly on the average price paid in the previous fortnight.

Apart from Communist terrorism, rub ber duty is the main topic of conversation among all classes in Malaya. The gov ernment is criticised on both scores.

Malaya before the war was not particu larly interested in self-government but it is said to-day that controversy over the

rubber duty has united all shades of pub lic opinion—the European and Asiatic grower, the big companies and the small planter; further, it has done more to stimulate a desire for self government t han all the other acts of the Government or Whitehall for 20 years past.

Besides the evident desire of these Socialist governments to finance their crazy Welfare schemes by socking the planter wherever and whenever they find him, there seems to be something quite vicious and irrational about most of these levies. The Whitehall theorists have history to show them that there is a limit to the amount you can tax a dependency against its will and get away with it. One can assume then, that the plan is simply vicious and that the goal is complete dis memberment of what was once the British Empire.

I am, etc.,

Retired Planter.

Sydney, March 20, 1951.