The Impact of Railroads on the Malayan Economy, 1874-1941

Abstract

This study will examine three aspects of railroad development in Malaya: first, the railroad as both a consumer and a transport agency; second, the specific role of the railways in contributing to the emergence of an extractive-colonial economy; and finally, the ways in which the railroad system led to the uneven distribution of capitalistic development in Malaya. It should be noted that parallel developments took place in road construction, but the railway was a more substantial line of communication, and the economic effects of its construction were much greater. This study begins in 1874, when the pace of expansion accelerated distinctly, with official British. intervention in the internal affairs of the Malay states and the formulation of specific transport construction programs. The discussion ends with the Japanese invasion in 1941, by which time the major transportation lines had been laid out and the hegemony of the railroad was being challenged by road transportation.