THE CULTIVATION OF COTTON IN THE 
FEDERATED MALAY STATES. 
Sir,— 
Kuala Lumpur, 21th September, 1203. 
I have the honour to address you on the subject of the Cultivation of Cotton in the ■ 
Federated Malay States. 
2. There are probably in these States ten million acres suitable for agriculture, and, 
under correction, I would suggest that not more than half a million are under cultivation. 
The present would therefore seem to be a suitable time for Government to indicate to 
planters — European and native — its intention to encourage more particularly the growth of 
such products as are unlikely to undergo alarming fluctuations in price. 
3. Consideration of the nature of the agricultural produce now exported from these 
States will show that, independent of these reasons, the planting industry is likely to be in the 
future, as it has been in the past, subject to the losses caused by collapse of market prices. 
4. As an example of a crop that lias been cultivated not without commercial success but 
never with any well-grounded assurance of continued success, I would instance pepper. It is, 
I believe, no exaggeration to say that an increase for two years of 10 per cent, in the world’s 
supply of pepper generally leads, other things being equal, to a decrease of 50 per cent, in its 
price. Consumers are not induced by a fall in price to increase their consumption. Thus 
if the supply exceeds ordinary requirements merchants naturally fear that the surplus which 
must be given away, destroyed, or sold at any price, will render purchases at any figure 
approximating ordinary prices, a very hazardous transaction. 
5. The factors that obviously render market prices reasonably free from fluctuation are: 
(a) enormous and insistent demands met by a huge supply, and (b) demands that increase 
inversely with the price. As regards (a) the imports of raw cotton into the United Kingdom 
alone have, roughly speaking, an average value of £40,000,000 — about six times the total 
value of all the tin exported from the Federated Malay States. The exports of cotton from the 
United States of America amount to not less than an annual average of £35,000,000, while 
Egypt and India annually export on an average 4212,000,000 and <£7,000.000 worth of cotton. 
The importance of the cotton trade to the United Kingdom can lie guaged by the fact that 
while their imports of raw cotton amount, as I have said, to not more than £40,000,000 worth, 
the annual exports of manufactured cotton goods are valued at £75,000,000 ; (6) in regard to 
the steadiness of prices, in spite of varying supplies, it may be mentioned that except in the 
case of temporary enhancement of prices (owing to purchases made in order to meet 
speculative sales) the price per pound of cotton classed as Sea Island can be taken year by 
year for the past twenty years at similar seasons as varying less than 20 per cent. 
6. The improbability of cotton being ousted from its present position as the staple fibre 
of the spinning industry is instanced by the difficulty of finding a market for ramie — which is 
stated to surpass cotton in nearly every essential respect, as a fibre. 
Seeing, however, that ramie cannot be woven by cotton machinery, it is a drug in the 
market at a third of the price given for ordinary cotton. 
7. To describe tersely the comparative merits of cotton and any other staple product 
which can be generally cultivated throughout the Federated Malay States, it may be said that 
the yield of an additional 1,000,000 acres of cotton would not very appreciably affect the cotton 
market, whereas the successful cultivation of the same acreage of any other product with which 
we need be concerned, would cause a collapse in its price. 
8. Though I have been at some pains to collect data regarding the experimental 
cultivation of cotton in the Malay Archipelago, I regret to say I can quote no authentic figures, 
but I am iii possession of a few facts that appear to me to dispose of the statement that the 
soil and climate of the Federated Malay States are not suitable to this cultivation. 
9. I would refer particularly to what is known by Javanese as the “ Kala-kala.” (I 
understand from the Director of the Singapore Botanical Gardens that this shrub is a variety 
of the Gossypium Herbaceum). 
10. I have seen this plant carefully cultivated and have seen it practically untended 
producing what appeared to me to be fairly large crops. In no case of which I have heard, 
lias an unsuccessful attempt been made on this Peninsula to grow it. The question of whether 
its cultivation would result in success from a commercial point of view has, I believe, never yet 
been tested in the Federated Malay States; planters having seemingly accepted without 
question the statement that ‘‘cotton requires a dry climate.” 
THE FEDERAL SECRETARY, 
FEDERATED MALAY STATES. 
