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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 February 2009
THIS is an attempt to provide a broad and critical analysis of British policy towards the Siamese Malay States which lay to the north of the British possessions and protectorates in the Malay Peninsula. Four of them, Perlis, Kedah, Kelantan and Trengganu, were transferred to British suzerainty in 1909 and now form part of Malaysia. The period under examination was one of unusually keen rivalry between Britain and France in the whole of mainland Southeast Asia and one of its unique features was the preservation of the independence of the Kingdom of Siam. Apart from the other needs of imperialism, the policies of die two Powers in Siam were to a considerable extent influenced by the presence of their vast colonial possessions in the periphery of Siam. These basic facts of the history of the region have, not unnaturally, led to a variety of approaches to the problem of the extension of British political control in the Malay Peninsula.
1 The first really comprehensive study of the colonial aspects of the problem is Thio, Eunice, British Policy in the Malay Peninsula, 1880–1909, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1956.Google Scholar
2 See for example, Hall, D. G. E., A History of Southeast Asia, London (rev. ed.), 1968, pp. 666–704.Google Scholar
3 Kiernan, V. G., ‘Britain, Siam and Malaya: 1875–1885’, Journal of Modern History (Chicago), XXVII (03 1956), 1–20;CrossRefGoogle ScholarThio, Eunice, ‘Britain's search for security in North Malaya, 1886–97 ’ Journal of Southeast Asian History (Singapore), x, 2 (09 1969), 279–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
4 Klein, Ira, ‘Britain, Siam and the Malay Peninsula, 1906–1909 ’, The Historical Journal (Cambridge), XII, I (1969), 119–36;CrossRefGoogle Scholar‘British Expansion in Malaya, 1897–1902 ’, Journal of Southeast Asian History (Singapore), ix, 1 (03 1968), 53–68;Google Scholar‘Salisbury, Rosebery and the Survival of Siam ’, The Journal of British Studies (Hartford, Conn., U.S.A.), VIII (11 1968), 119—39;Google ScholarHirshfield, Claire, ‘The Struggle for the Mekong Banks, 1892–1896 ’, Journal of Southeast Asian History (Singapore), ix, 1 (03 1968), 25–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 For a full account of the origin of the Confidential Print series and of its value to the historian, see Public Record Office Handbooks, no. 13, The Records of the Foreign Office, 1782–1939 (London, H.M.S.O., 1969), pp. 52, 64, 71, 88–9.
6 See my article, ‘Private Enterprise and British Policy in the Malay Peninsula: The Case of the Malay Railway and Works Construction Company, 1893–1895 ’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch, Royal Asiatic Society (Kuala Lumpur), XXXVII, pt. 2 (1964), 28–46.Google Scholar The Foreign Office, under Lord Salisbury, had laid down in 1889 that Britain could not extend her influence into Kelantan and Trengganu for fear that any such move ‘might precipitate an embarrassing agreement between Siam and France ’and also because it would not ‘offer any advantage sufficient to compensate the hostile feeling it would arouse in Siam ’. Minute by H. C. Jervoise (a Senior Clerk in the American and Asiatic Department at the Foreign Office) on Colonial Office to Foreign Office, 4 July 1892, F[oreign] O[ffice] [Series] 69, [Siam: Original Correspondence, Volume], 147, [Public Record Office, London].
7 On the earlier fears about the Kra Canal, see Kiernan, V. G., ‘The Kra Canal Projects of 1882–85: Anglo-French rivalry in Siam and Malaya ’, History, Journal of the Historical Association, London (new series), XLI (1956), 137–57.Google Scholar
8 Rosebery to Captain Henry M. Jones (British minister at Bangkok), tel. no. 48, 19 Aug. 1893, F.O. 69/150; see also note by Sir Philip Currie (Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, 1887–94), 22 Aug. 1893 F.O. 17 [China: Original Correspondence, Volume] 1183, [Public Record Office, London].
9 Kimberley to De Bunsen, no. 65, Most Confidential, 27 Oct. 1894, F.O. 17/1225. The despatch, which set out the main lines of British policy towards Siam, was personally drafted by Sir Thomas Sanderson (Permanent Under-Secretary at the Foreign Office, 1894–1906), and circulated to the Queen, Rosebery and Sir William Harcourt (Chancellor of the Exchequer). It is also to be found in full in E. T. S. Dugdale, , Maurice de Bunsen, Diplomat and Friend (London, 1934), pp. 117–18.Google Scholar
10 ‘Copy of Lord Kimberley's minute ‘by G. Murray (Rosebery's private secretary), 23 Aug. 1894, R[osebery] P[apers], Foreign Affairs, 1894–5 Box, [National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh]. I am most grateful to the Librarian, and especially to Miss Elspeth Yeo, for permission to use the Papers before they were properly catalogued in the spring of 1966 due to my impending departure from Britain.
11 Kimberley to Rosebery, 12 June 1895, RP, Kimberley Box.
12 Kimberley to De Bunsen, no. 65, Most Confidential, 27 Oct. 1894, F.O. 17/1225. The same view was repeatedly stated with great conviction by both Currie and Sanderson whenever the Foreign Secretary consulted them.
13 See, for example, Ripon to Rosebery, Confidential, 22 July 1893, RP, Ripon Box.
14 These negotiations have been touched upon by various authors but the basic study is still that of J. D. Hargreaves, ‘Entente Manquée: Anglo-French Relations, 1895–1896 ’, Cambridge Historical Journal, xi (1953), 65–89.
15 Sanderson to Curzon, 6 July 1895, C[urzon] P[apers], MSS Eur., F. III/87, [India Office Records, Commonwealth Relations Office, London].
16 Memorandum on ‘Siam, France and China ’, by G. N. Curzon, Printed for the use of the Foreign Office, Aug. 1895, Confidential, CP, MSS Eur., F. III/87.
17 Chamberlain to Salisbury, 4 Sept. 1895, S[alisbury] P[apers], Special Correspondence: Chamberlain, [Christ Church, Oxford].
18 Memorandum entitled ‘Siam Negotiations ’, undated but possibly 18 Oct. 1895, CP, MSS Eur., F. II/87. The letter ‘ S ’is scribbled in red ink at the bottom of the typewritten document. It is obviously Salisbury's account of the 18 Oct. interview and the only surviving copy of it is in the Curzon Papers.
19 ‘Draft Letter to Baron de Courcel, Oct. 1895 ’, enclosed in Sanderson to William Lee-Warner (Secretary of the Political and Secret Department at the India Office), 31 Oct. 1895, P[olitical and] S[ecret] H[ome] Correspondence], {Volume] 163, [India Office Records, Commonwealth Relations Office, London]. This is the only copy of that important Draft Agreement that has come to light.
20 Hanotaux to Defrance (French Minister at Bangkok), 25 Oct. 1895, Siam[: Correspondance] Pol[itique, Volume] 23, [Service des Archives, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Quai d'Orsay, Paris].
21 Memorandum on ‘Siam Negotiations ’, undated, CP, MSS Eur., F. III/87.
22 Memorandum on ‘The question of British interests in the country between the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea ’by Lord George Hamilton, Secret, 19 Nov. 1895, Cabinet Papers, scr. 1, vol. 11, Miscellaneous Records, Public Record Office, London. A copy of this document is also to be found in the Curzon Papers, MSS Eur., F. III/90.
23 Lord George Hamilton to Viceroy of India, tel., 16 Oct. 1895, Public Works Department Files, vol. 447, India Office Records, Commonwealth Relations Office, London. On the Burma-Yunnan railway, see Chandran, J., The Burma-Yunnan Railway: Anglo-French Rivalry in Mainland Southeast Asia and South China, /S95–/902 (Athens, Ohio, 1971).Google Scholar
24 Salisbury to De Bunsen, tel. no. 2, 24 Jan. 1896, F.O. 69/169. For an account of these negotiations, see Nutnnonda, Thamsook, ‘The Anglo-Siamese Secret Convention of 1897 ’ Journal of the Siam Society (Bangkok), LIII, pt. 1 (01 1965), 45–67.Google Scholar
25 I am indebted to Professor W. Vella of the University of Hawaii for this information from the Thai National Archives in Bangkok.
26 Godley to Lord Elgin (Viceroy of India), 21 May 1897, Elgin Papers, MSS Eur., F. 84/136, India Office Records, Commonwealth Relations Office, London.
27 Foreign Office to Colonial Office, 10 Apr. 1897, F.O. 69/187. See also a minute by C. P. Lucas (an Assistant Under-Secretary at the Colonial Office) on Sir Frank Swettenham (Resident-General of the Federated Malay States) to Joseph Chamberlain, Private, 23 July 1897, JC/9/6/1/5, Joseph Chamberlain Papers, Birmingham University Library.
28 For more details on this subject, see my article, ‘British Foreign Policy and the Extraterritorial Question in Siam, 1891–1900 ’, Journal of the Malaysian Branch, Royal Asiatic Society (Kuala Lumpur), XXXVIII, pt. 2 (1965), 290–313.Google Scholar
29 For the full text of this Agreement, see my article, ‘Three Agreements relating to the Northern Malay States concluded in 1896, 1897 and 1899 ’, Peninjau Sejarah, Journal of the History Teachers ‘ Association of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, III, 2 (09 1968), 53–4.Google Scholar
30 On this, see Steiner, Zara, ‘The last years of the Old Foreign Office, 1898–1905 ’, The Historical Journal (Cambridge), vi (1963), 59–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
31 Minute by Lansdowne, undated, on Memorandum by Rivett-Carnac, 13 Feb. 1902, F.O. 69/236.
32 Lansdowne to Curzon, Private, 10 Apr. 1902, Copy, Lansdowne Papers, F.O. 800/145, [Public Record Office, London].
33 Memorandum by Bertie, 26 May 1902, F.O. 69/237.
34 Lansdowne to Curzon, Private, 10 Apr. 1902, Copy, Lansdowne Papers, F.O. 800/145.
35 These negotiations for the appointment of Britishers under the Siamese Government as Advisers to the rulers of Kelantan and Trengganu have yet to be studied in detail. Hitherto, there have only been narrow accounts based entirely on British sources.
36 Minute by Lansdowne on Tower to Lansdowne, tel.no. 31, 21 May 1902, F.O. 69/232.
37 Minute by Lansdowne, undated, on Swettenham to C. P. Lucas, 4 June 1902 (Communicated to the Foreign Office on 30 June 1902), F.O. 69/237.
38 Minute by Lansdowne, undated, on Colonial Office to Foreign Office, 5 June 1902, F.O. 69/237.
39 Memorandum by Bertie, 3 Aug. 1902, F.O. 69/237.
40 Chamberlain to Lansdowne, 28 Aug. 1902, enclosing A. J. Balfour (prime minister) to Chamberlain, 26 Aug. 1902, F.O. 69/237. On the other hand, it is significant that there is nothing in the Chamberlain Papers that suggests an active involvement on his part in the Anglo-Siamese negotiations of 1901–2.
41 Monger, G. W., The End of Isolation (London, 1963), p. 77, passim.Google Scholar
42 Mr Klein does not distinguish between the views of the Foreign and Colonial Offices and, indeed, suggests that Lansdowne shared the aggressive colonial ambitions of people like Swettenham. Klein, ‘Britain, Siam and the Malay Peninsula ’, pp. 124–5.
43 Memorandum by Mallet, 3 Sept. 1902, and Lansdowne’s minute, F.O. 69/238.
44 Memorandum by Mallet, 4 Sept. 1902, F.O. 69/238.
45 Klein, ‘Britain, Siam and the Malay Peninsula ’, p. 123.
46 Memorandum by Lansdowne, 12 Sept. 1902, Lansdowne Papers, F.O. 800/115.
47 Memorandum by Bertie, 12 Sept. 1902, F.O. 69/238.
48 Lansdowne to Sanderson, 16 Sept. 1902, Lansdowne Papers, F.O. 800/115.
49 Minutes by Lansdowne, Bertie and W. Langley (a clerk in the Far Eastern Department), on W. Archer (Chargé d'Affaires at Bangkok) to Lansdowne, no. 155, Confidential, 27 Aug. 1902 (Received 6 Oct. 1902), F.O. 69/230.
50 Intelligence Division, War Office to Foreign Office, 17 Oct. 1902, and Lansdowne’s minute, F.O. 69/239.
51 Memorandum by Lansdowne, 21 Oct. 1902, F.O. 69/239.
52 Lansdowne to Paget, tel., Private, 12 Feb. 1903, F.O. 69/247.
53 Cambon to Lansdowne, Private, 29 July 1903, Lansdowne Papers, F.O. 800/126.
54 ‘Notes on Colonial Questions referred to in Lord Lansdowne's recent Conversation with M. Cambon ’, Secret, Miscellaneous no. 160, printed for the use of the Colonial Office, 19 Aug. 1903, Lansdowne Papers, F.O. 800/126.
55 Viceroy of India to Lord George Hamilton, Private, tel., 27 Sept. 1903, enclosed in Sir Hugh Walpole (Assistant Under-Secretary at the India Office) to Hamilton, 2 Oct. 1903, Hamilton Papers, MSS Eur., F. 123/67, India Office Records, Commonwealth Relations Office, London.
56 Memorandum by Lansdowne, 30 Sept. 1903, F.O. 69/251.
57 Minutes on Paget to Lansdowne, no. 92A, Confidential, 24 Sept. 1903 (Received 3 Nov.), F.O. 69/246.
58 Minutes by Langley, Campbell and Lansdowne on Memorandum on the Franco-Siamese negotiations communicated by Verney, 25 Nov. 1903, F.O. 69/247.
59 Minute by Lansdowne on Paget to Lansdowne, no. 104, Confidential, 25 Oct. 1903 (Received 7 Dec. 1903), F.O. 69/246.
60 Klein, ‘Britain, Siam and the Malay Peninsula ’, p. 123.
61 Minutes by Sanderson and Campbell on India Office to Foreign Office, 28 Jan. 1904, F.O. 69/260.
62 Cf. Hirshfield, ‘The Struggle for the Mekong Banks ‘, pp. 33–47.
63 On the Indian frontier, see Alder, G. J., British India's Northern Frontier, 1865–1895 –A Study in Imperial Policy (London, 1963), pp. 275ff.Google Scholar
64 Hirshfield, ‘The Struggle for the Mekong Banks ’, p. 40. The source cited here is a letter from the Siamese Minister in London, Maha Yotha, to Rosebery, dated 5 Aug. 1893. But if the Siamese did, in fact, have a great deal of trust in Britain after July 1893 it is indeed a strange commentary on their attitude that they did not even bother to inform the Foreign Office of the conclusion of the Treaty of 3 Oct. 1893 with France, much to the annoyance of Rosebery and the Foreign Office. The loss of Siam's goodwill towards Britain after 1893 was more openly acknowledged in the Foreign Office and quite bluntly stated in a private letter from Prince Svasti, the roving Siamese Ambassador in Europe, to Curzon. Svasti to Curzon, Confidential, 30 Sept. 1895, CP, MSS Eur., F. 111/87.
65 Cf. Hargreaves, ‘Entente Manquée ’, pp. 65–89. See also Sanderson, G. N., England, Europe and the Upper Nile, 1882–1899 (Edinburgh, 1965), p. 228.Google Scholar Kimberley’s independent role in the formulation of British policy in the Far East and in Southeast Asia after Mar. 1894 has been totally ignored by historians.
66 Sec my article, ‘The Anglo-French Declaration of January 1896 and the Independence of Siam ’, Journal of the Siam Society (Bangkok), LVIII, pt. 2 (07 1970), 105–26.Google Scholar
67 Professor Hargreaves ‘difficulty appears to have been that he ‘found few documents about the Siamese negotiations in the F.O. files, and … had to rely largely on the records of the Paris Embassy ’. ‘Entente Manquée ’, footnote 26, p. 69. Apart from his much earlier study, two of the more recent attempts are also particularly inadequate in this respect. See Hirshfield, ‘The Struggle for the Mekong Banks ’and Klein, ‘Salisbury, Rosebery and the Survival of Siam ‘. Both of them have relied almost entirely on the Foreign Office Confidential Prints for the British official sources and, together with the relevant volumes of the Documents Diplomatiques Francais, 2nd ser., they do not constitute a significant advance over the limited material used by Professor Hargreaves in 1953. Both Hirshfield and Klein really break new ground in their use of the private papers of Salisbury, Chamberlain, Rosebery and Dufferin, especially of the last two. But without a thorough examination of the F.O. 17 (China) volumes, the War Office and Admiralty records, and, most important of all, the India Office records, any study of this complicated problem must be necessarily tentative. Indeed, the close relation between the day-to-day minutes in the F.O. 17 files and the notes in the private papers, such as Sanderson's and Curzon's, is truly amazing.
68 Admittedly Salisbury very often treated his chats with De Courcel as unofficial and friendly discussions especially when they concerned a matter which was likely to be amicably settled. But the occasions when De Courcel reported back to Paris such conversations are too numerous and the cases of disagreements, within the Foreign Office itself not to speak of sharp differences between the two Governments as to the tenor of these conversations, too convincing to allow it to be believed that Sir Eyre Crowe's views did not have some justification.
69 In this regard, a recent study of the subject goes a little too far especially in citing Kimberley's letter to Rosebery of 12 June 1895 in which there is nothing to show conclusively that he was prepared to propose the joint guarantee on the outright assumption that Britain, on her part, would ‘cast aside political ambitions in Malaya ‘. The relevant portion of that letter merely states in referring to the joint guarantee: ‘There may be some inconvenience in this inasmuch as the guarantee will include the Siamese States in the Malay Peninsula, which some day we may want to take, but I do not think this can weigh against the advantages of securing Siam from further French encroachments ’. Kimberley to Rosebery, 12 June 1895, RP, Kimberley Box. Cf. Klein, ‘British Expansion in Malaya ’, pp. 54–5. The Kimberley Papers might be illuminating on this and other questions but all attempts to gain access to them since 1965 have been unsuccessful.
70 Ira Klein misinterprets this letter in his article, ‘British Expansion in Malaya ’, p. 55. Salisbury defended the terms of the Declaration in private letters to both Chamberlain and Curzon on the grounds that without it Britain would have had no choice but to face an eventual French annexation of Siam. Salisbury to Curzon, Private, 3 Dec. 1895, CP, Kedleston Hall, nr. Derby, Box 70; to Chamberlain, Private, 7 June 1897, JC/II/30/82, Joseph Chamberlain Papers.
71 See for example, Lowe, C. J., ‘Anglo-Italian Differences over East Africa, 1892–95, and their Effects upon the Mediterranean Entente ’, English Historical Review (Oxford), LXXXI, cccxix (04 1966), 315–36;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Marsden, A., ‘Salisbury and the Italians in 1896 ‘, Journal of Modern History (Chicago), XL, 1 (1968), 91–117.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
72 Thompson, V., Thailand: the New Siam (New York, 1941), p. 165;Google ScholarWinstedt, R. O., A History of Malaya, Singapore (rev. ed.), 1962, p. 237;Google ScholarHall, D. G. E., A History of Southeast Asia, London (rev. ed.), 1968, p. 612.Google Scholar
73 Klein, , ‘Britain, Siam and the Malay Peninsula ’, passim.Google Scholar
74 See for example, Numnonda, Thamsook, ‘Anglo-Siamese Negotiations, 1900–1909 ‘(unpubl. Ph.D. thesis, University of London, 1966).Google Scholar Dr Thamsook and the author are engaged in a thorough revision of much of the published work on the subject for the period 1886–1909.
75 Mr Klein's main thesis is centred around the need to distinguish between what he calls ‘ High ’ and ‘Liberal ’imperialism. Klein, ‘Britain, Siam and the Malay Peninsula ’, pp. 119–20.
76 There is a very real problem of sources and methodology in describing, for example, how King Chulalongkorn felt after his unfortunate interview with Swettenham in Feb. 1902 or what exactly the Malay rulers wanted in place of Siamese overlordship as the British sources hitherto cited are so palpably biased in both cases. Cf. Klein, ibid. pp. 122–3.
77 Balfour to Chamberlain, 26 Aug. 1902, enclosed in Chamberlain to Lansdowne, 28 Aug. 1902, F.O. 69/237.
78 Memorandum by Bertie, 26 May 1902, F.O. 69/237.
79 Memorandum by Bertie, 3 Aug. 1902, F.O. 69/237.
80 Mr Klein contends that the Conservative Government was ‘temperate ‘and showed ‘relative moderation ‘in the 1904 Entente agreements with regard to Siam. Klein, ‘Britain, Siam and the Malay Peninsula ’, pp. 124–5.
81 Ibid. p. 124.
82 Ibid. p. 129.
83 Ibid.
84 Ibid. Monson was British Ambassador in Paris and Phya Suriya was the chief Siamese delegate in the Franco-Siamese negotiations of 1901—3.
85 Quoted in Simandjuntak, B., Malayan Federalism, 1945–1963 (Kuala Lumpur, 1969), p. 294.Google Scholar