Colony and Commerce (1867–1942) — a part of the book Singapore as an International Financial Centre by Dr Alexander Ressos.
Part B describes the colonial economy from the transfer to the Colonial Office to the fall of Singapore: its law, its banks, its commodities and its place in the first globalisation.
This part belongs to Singapore as an International Financial Centre by Dr Alexander Ressos, published here in full, section by section.
Crown Colony: Government, Courts and Commercial Law after 1867
On 1 April 1867 the Straits Settlements ceased to be a dependency of British India and became a Crown colony, governed from London through the Colonial Office. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe transfer to the Colonial Office in 1867
By the 1850s the merchants of Singapore had accumulated a long list of complaints against the government in Calcutta. The most serious concerned currency. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Legislative Council and the ordinances
The Crown colony was governed by a Governor appointed by the Crown, advised by an Executive Council composed entirely of official members. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyCourts, the Privy Council and the legal profession
The transfer was followed by a reorganisation of the courts. The Judicial Duties Act of 1867 created the office of Chief Justice. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyCompany law, insolvency and currency
During the first half-century of the settlement, commerce in Singapore was conducted by individuals and partnerships. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyRevenue without customs: the fiscal constitution of the free port
The Crown colony inherited the fiscal model of the free port. It levied no customs duties on general trade and financed itself largely through excise revenue, above all from opium. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe colonial codes in today’s financial crime practice
The Penal Code enacted by the colonial legislature in 1871 is still in force in Singapore today under the title Penal Code 1871, although it has been amended many times. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyLaw as a commercial asset
For the merchants of Singapore, the legal infrastructure of the Crown colony was an asset. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyCrown Colony: Government, Courts and Commercial Law after 1867: summary
The merchants of Singapore, frustrated by currency policy, convicts, weak policing and neglect from Calcutta, petitioned in 1857 for Crown rule and obtained it when the Straits Settlements became a… Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyAgency Houses and Exchange Banks
The merchants who built the entrepôt described in Part A needed two kinds of institution that the port did not at first possess. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyGuthrie, Boustead and the European agency houses
Chapter IV of Part A described the agency house as the central institution of the European commercial community of early Singapore: a firm that sold goods on commission for principals elsewhere,… Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Chartered Bank, the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank and the exchange banks
Singapore had no bank during its first two decades. The first branch was opened in 1840 by the Union Bank of Calcutta. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyFinancing trade: bills of exchange and documentary credits
The basic instrument of trade finance in the nineteenth century was the bill of exchange. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyInsurance, shipping and the service economy
Modern insurance came to Southeast Asia with the merchants. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyEuropean firms and their Chinese intermediaries
The exchange banks faced a problem that their charters could not solve. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe legacy in today’s financial centre
Several institutions of the colonial trade economy still operate in Singapore. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyAgency Houses and Exchange Banks: the comparison with Geneva
Geneva and Singapore both owed their nineteenth-century financial development to the combination of partnerships and joint-stock banks. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyAgency Houses and Exchange Banks: summary
From the 1820s onwards, European agency houses such as Guthrie & Co., Boustead & Co. and Behn, Meyer & Co. organised the trade of Singapore as partnerships that sold goods on commission, bought… Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Chinese Banks: From the First Straits Chinese Banks to OCBC
For most of the nineteenth century the Chinese merchants of Singapore had no bank of their own. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe first Chinese banks in Singapore
The European banks arrived in Singapore long before any Chinese bank was founded. A branch of the Union Bank of Calcutta opened in 1840. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyHokkien, Teochew and Cantonese banking
The Chinese of Singapore were divided into speech groups, each with its own associations, temples, trades and leaders. Chapter V of Part A described this dialect map and the institutions built on it. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Depression and the merger of 1932
The Chinese banks operated within a monetary system that offered them no protection. Under the currency board, local money could exist only if fully backed by sterling reserves. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyOverseas Chinese capital and the China connection
The Chinese banks of Singapore looked north as well as south. Ho Hong opened its Hong Kong branch in 1923 and branches in Batavia and Shanghai by 1927, when it had nine branches in all. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Chinese bank as a community institution
The directors of the Chinese banks were also the leaders of the community. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Chinese Banks: From the First Straits Chinese Banks to OCBC: practical consequences
The history of the Chinese banks may seem distant from the regulated banking of today. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Chinese Banks: From the First Straits Chinese Banks to OCBC: Comparison with Geneva
The crisis of 1931 struck Geneva and Singapore at the same time and through the same channel, the collapse of the international gold standard. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Chinese Banks: From the First Straits Chinese Banks to OCBC: summary
The Chinese merchants of Singapore founded their first deposit banks in the early twentieth century, starting with the Cantonese Kwong Yik Bank in 1903, whose collapse in 1913 through insider… Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyTin, Rubber and the Straits Dollar
Singapore has never mined a ton of tin or tapped a commercial rubber estate of any size on its own soil. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe tin boom and the Malayan hinterland
Tin had been worked in the Malay Peninsula for centuries, but the modern industry began with a discovery in the district of Larut, in northern Perak. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyRubber: from botanical experiment to global commodity
Tin had been known in the peninsula for centuries, whereas rubber was a botanical import. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyPrice cycles, speculation and commodity crises
An economy built on two commodities lived with their price cycles. The tin industry experienced its first serious slump in the mid-1870s, just as the Residential system was being established. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Straits dollar and the currency board system
The tin and rubber trades were conducted in silver dollars. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyCommodities as the first link to the trading hub
The tin and rubber economies taught Singapore the functions that a commodity hub performs. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyTin, Rubber and the Straits Dollar: the comparison with Geneva and Hong Kong
Geneva and Singapore reached monetary stability by different routes. Switzerland introduced the Swiss franc by the federal coinage law of 1850 and joined the Latin Monetary Union in 1865. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyTin, Rubber and the Straits Dollar: summary
The discovery of tin in Larut in 1848 drew Chinese miners and Straits capital into the western Malay states, whose disorders led to the Pangkor Treaty of 1874, the Residential system and in 1896 the… Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomySuez, Steam and Telegraph: Singapore in the First Globalisation
In November 1869 a new waterway opened between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe Suez Canal and the new shipping routes
The Suez Canal was built under French direction and opened in November 1869, after ceremonies that began at Port Said on 15 November. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyCoaling station and naval base
Steamships needed coal, deep water and repair facilities, none of which the Singapore River could provide. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe telegraph and the speed of markets
The first attempt to connect Singapore by submarine cable failed. A line laid between Batavia and Singapore in 1859 worked for only a few days. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyMigration, labour and remittances
Steamships carried people as well as goods. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyThe interwar years and the defence of Singapore
The First World War brought prosperity to Singapore through the demand for tin and rubber, while the fighting itself remained far from the colony. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomyPractical consequences: connectivity, chokepoints and confidence
The history of the first globalisation shows that Singapore’s principal asset has always been its connectivity. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomySuez, Steam and Telegraph: Singapore in the First Globalisation: the comparison with Geneva
Geneva and Singapore were transformed by the same technologies at almost the same time. Geneva was linked by rail to Lyon in March 1858 and to the Swiss network via Lausanne in June of that year. Read more Singapore · Colonial EconomySuez, Steam and Telegraph: Singapore in the First Globalisation: summary
The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the spread of the compound steam engine made steam the dominant mode of shipping between Europe and Asia, so that steamers overtook sailing ships at… Read more