Publisher's Synopsis
Prices for natural rubber fluctuated widely since the industry's inception in the early 1900s, and particularly during the inter-war years. Extended periods of low prices notably in the Great Depression (1929-32), brought the predominantly British-owned estates into close competition with Asian-owned smallholdings. Fears arose that much of the industry could well "go native".;This study uses primary sources to document the changing economic circumstances of producers in Malaysia, the world's principal source of this commodity. It explains government intervention in the shape of schemes restricting rubber exports. It is argued that this intervention contributed greatly to diminishing pressures towards important changes in technology and the structure of ownership in the industry in the 1920s and 1930s.
