Influence and Leadership
声势与领导
Colonial Singapore was a complicated place for Asians of ambition. Within the Chinese community, many merchants who became successful in their businesses could have been said to be community leaders on the basis of their wealth and influence, but a number also acted as intermediaries between their communities and the colonial government.
对有志向的亚洲人来说，殖民地新加坡是个复杂的地方。在华族社会之中，许多有商业成就的商人因为个人的财产和声势可说是社会领袖。其中有的也当作社会和殖民政府之间的中间人。
Seah Eu Chin was one such Chinese leader. He gained his fortune by investing in large-scale plantations of gambier and pepper, and later became a leading financier and capitalist, responsible for a large part of the Teochew Chinese-dominated pepper-and-gambier agricultural economy that spanned Johore, Singapore, and Riau. His community leadership role is still remembered because he was the founder and first director of the Ngee Ann Kongsi 义安公司 , the oldest charitable foundation serving the Teochews of Singapore, which continues to operate today. He also gained the trust of the British, and was appointed to positions of responsibility, serving as a Justice of the Peace and a Grand Juror. To achieve his position, wealth was certainly a prerequisite, but it was not the only factor. Eu Chin had to carefully cultivate his position within the Chinese community, and also cultivate relations with the colonial authorities. As we shall see, these two objectives could sometimes come into conflict.
这些商人其中的一位是佘有进。他开辟大量的甘密和胡椒种植场，后来成为金融家。当时在柔佛、新加坡、廖內的甘密胡椒农业经济是由潮州华人控制的，而他有一个重要的角色。他对潮籍的服务包括了义安公司的创办。义安公司是在新加坡最早的为潮州人成立的慈善机构。佘有进也受殖民政府的器重，被任命为大陪审员和太平绅士。财富当然是其中的因素，却不一定是最重要的。他得谨慎的建立自己与华族社会和殖民政府的地位，而双方之间的关系不一定是顺畅的。
Seah Eu Chin lived an active life to achieve his status as a community leader and to keep his leading position in society. He had to balance conflicting demands and constituencies in the course of his career. These leadership activities and strategic negotiations illustrate some larger themes in the history of Chinese overseas. We see the limits within which the Chinese community as a whole and individual Chinese had to operate. These limits produced the tensions inherent in the relationship between the heterogeneous Chinese community of 19th century Singapore and the colonial authorities of that time. Furthermore, given Eu Chin’s position as a leading merchant and financier, we see how leadership can also be an economic strategy; commercial concerns influenced political activities and vice versa. This is why biography is a useful mode of historical analysis: Eu Chin’s life story lies at the intersection of several questions and issues, and provides concrete examples for them within a single narrative framework.
The dichotomy used here between the Chinese community and the colonial authorities also reflects a disparity in surviving documentation and sources. Whereas the colonial government’s point of view is amply documented in its bureaucratic archives and in the English newspapers of record, sources in Chinese were mostly in the hands of private individuals, businesses, or organizations, therefore much less material has survived. Those which remain were preserved at second hand in later works, or entered the bureaucratic record when Chinese entered into correspondence with the government; in a few cases there are epigraphic inscriptions on buildings and monuments. It is therefore difficult to give both sides of the story with the same level of detail, but a careful approach can still yield useful understanding.
Contents
- Cultivating Leadership Position within the Chinese Community
- Cultivating Relations with the Colonial Government
- Demonstrations of Loyalty
- Acting as a "Native Informant"
- Memorials and Petitions
- Keeping Order during Civil Unrest
- Judicial Activities
- Tan Tock Seng Hospital
- Negotiating Positions
内容
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