At the end of a Cornell seminar a few weeks ago, a student remarked that the great difficulty in studying Southeast Asian history lay in the immense size of the area, and in the fact that it contained so many different countries. I agreed, but commented that they all belonged to Southeast Asia, and I went on, “If you were. to take indigenes from the different countries and dress them all exactly alike, it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to identify the country of origin of each and all.”

The question of exactly why Prince Norodom Sihanouk was placed on the Cambodian throne in 1941 has long been a matter of interest to observers of Khmer affairs. A range of explanations has been offered, with varying emphases and some contradictions. Following Prince Sihanouk's deposition in March 1970 the question has, once again, been discussed in some detail with the Prince, himself, providing new commentary on the events of 1941.1 Archives recently opened in France which include documents relating to 1941 have much to add to the story of Sihanouk's accession. If they do not answer all the questions that an historian might pose, they certainly provide a much more detailed account than has previously been available. What is more, the newly released archival records carry the history of succession difficulties in Cambodia back through the generation that preceded Sihanouk's own accession giving a fascinating insight into the interaction between the French and the Cambodian royal family. The history that emerges involves intrigue, sustained and unsustained allegations, and revelations of human frailty. Despite the dangers of ethnic stereotypes, the events to be recounted in this article seem very Cambodian and very French.

In the early months of 1930, a series of strikes broke out at various spots in French Indochina - at the Phu Rieng rubber plantation near Bien Hoa in Cochin China, at a match factory at Binh Thuy near Vinh in Central Vietnam, and at a textile plant at Nam Dinh in Tonkin. While not exceptionally important in themselves, these strikes can be seen in retrospect as the opening shots in a year of violence and rebellion. By midsummer the discontent had spread from outbreaks in the big industrial centers to the rural areas in Central and South Vietnam, where a series of major peasant revolts broke out against French colonial authority. As governmental authority in the Central provinces of Nghe An and Ha Tinh disintegrated, it was rapidly replaced by village peasant Soviets under communist party leadership. The French responded vigorously to these “Nghe-Tinh Soviets” but it was only several months later, in mid-1931, that order was restored over a battered, exhausted, and resentful peasantry.

The growth of British interest and activity in areas east of the Bay of Bengal during the latter half of the eighteenth century has often been explained as a response o t the problems posed by the expanding China trade. The drain of specie from Europe and India to Canton, so the argument goes, rendered necessary the establishment of a commercial emporium to the east of India which would attract Chinese products, notably tea, in exchange for Indian textiles, saltpetre, opium and cotton, and spices from the Malay archipelago.1 Such an entrepot would also free the trade from the vexatious customs and restrictions which applied increasingly at Canton after 1757. Yet it is the central argument of this article that the rival interests and behaviour of other Europeans in areas beyond India provided a significant inducement for intervention.

Burma is a minor producer of rubber, yet its association with the cultivation of rubber dates back to the earliest days of the industry in the East. The overall process of development of the industry in Burma is little understood, especially regarding the early period. This article reviews the industry in its historical and contemporary perspectives and examines its problems and future prospects.

Important decisions relating to the British defence commitment in Malaysia-Singapore were made during the term of office of the Wilson Government. The Labour Party came to power in Britain at the height of the Malaysia-Indonesia confrontation. At the end of confrontation in 1966 there were over 90, 000 people working for the British Services in the Malaysia-Singapore area. By April 1970 this number was down to 43, 500, with a virtually complete withdrawal expected by the end of 1971. This article outlines certain factors relevant to the formulation of British foreign policy and describes how these factors influenced the rundown of the British defence commitment in Malaysia-Singapore.

… the chief social basis of radicalism has been the peasant and the smaller artisan J i n the towns. From the facts, one may conclude that the wellsprings of human freedom lie not only where Marx saw them, in the aspirations of classes about to take power, but perhaps even more in the dying wail of a class over whom the wave of progress is about to roll.

The Southeast Asian peasantry has historically sought, as best it could, to secure its economic and physical well-being against the claims and threats of either the state or local elites. In this context, the defense of peasant subsistence and security needs i s morally underwritten by a “little tradition” that asserts both the priority of local custom over outside law and the priority of local subsistence needs over outside claims on the local product. This aspect of the little tradition amounts to a normative justification for resistence whenever agrarian elites or the state violate important local practices or threaten what villagers consider their minimal ceremonial and subsistence fund.

In his two pioneer studies on the Nanyang Chinese national salvation movement between 1908 and 1941, Professor Yoji Akashi stresses developments in China, and the extension of KMT and CCP structures in the Nanyang as basic “to any investigation of Nanyang Chinese political motive and orientation”. These developments, if viewed from a rather Sino-centric standpoint, are indeed important in explaining why the Singapore hua-ch'iao (overseas Chinese) responded as they did to the Double-Seventh Incident of 1937. However, contemporary local sources reveal that forces and conditions in Singapore played a decisive part in shaping the stand and modus operandi adopted by Singapore Chinese at the outbreak of the 1937 Sino-Japanese War.

Professor P. T. Bauer's Comment on Post-War Malayan Rubber Policy re-opens discussion on policy-making and developments in the Malayan rubber industry following the Second World War. However, most of the discussion in Professor Bauer's Comment does not relate to, and in fact explicitly dismisses the specific historical subject of my article to which it purports to refer, “Rubber Strategy for Post-War Malaya, 1945-1948” (Journal of Southeast Asian Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1, (March 1970, pp. 23-36). Yet he raises certain points which call for reply, and some for brief comment.