A Study of Planned Land Settlement in the Eastern Marchlands of Malaya

TATE-SPONSORED settlement is an important aspect of recent land-use trends in many tropical territories. It is, in the first instance, a recognition of the under-developed status of the indigenous sectors of land occupance. Such occupance stands in contrast to those forms which, in the last few centuries in many tropical territories, have been conditioned by extraregional forces; for example, the development of plantation economies and primary extractive industries of one kind or another. In the case of Malaya, plantation farming was dominated by rubber and the extractive industries by tin. As a consequence, a high proportion of both foreign and local capital was directed to these two sectors of the economy. Rubber occupies about 64 per cent of the estimated total cultivated area of 5.5 million acres; it provides direct employment for about 277,000 laborers on estates and perhaps 300,000 persons on small-holdings, and it contributes about 60 per cent of the domestic export earnings.1 Tin workings occupy well under 1 per cent of the area of Malaya or 3.5 per cent of the total alienated area; they provide employment at the present time for about 30,000 workers and con

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