History - external developments that impacted sg as a port city

suez canal, tin and rubber industries, the great depression, port facilities

Port facilities- expansion of port facilities (problem of the old harbour, solution of the new harbour (keppel harbour)) PROBLEM IS YELLOW, SOLUTION IS PURPLE +effect (blue)

• Old Harbour at the Singapore River had become increasingly overcrowded.

• There was insufficient space along the river banks to build more warehouses for storing goods and coal, or to build dry docks for ship-repairing.

• The new harbour (keppel harbour ) was built in 1852

• The keppel harbour had deep waters, allowing steamships and sailing ships to sail right up to it. It was also sheltered from strong winds and big waves by the two smaller islands.

• singapores port facilities expanded further in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries as its trade and industries continued to grow.

• A railway system was also set up to link the port to parts of Malaya.

• Subsequently, in 1924, the Causeway between Singapore and Malaya was opened.

Suez canal (general idea) - before and after suez canal was built, and its effects

THIS WAS BEFORE THE OPENING OF THE SUEZ CANAL

-ships travelling between Europe and Asia had to make a long and often dangerous journey around the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of africa

-journey from London to Singapore usually took at least 120 days.

THIS WAS AFTER THE SUEZ CANAL WAS BUILT

-opening of the suez canal was on 17 november 1869

-the faster steamships were increasingly used instead of the slower sailing ships.

-journey from London to Singapore now only took about 50 days.

-suez route was shorter than the cape route

Impact of opening the suez canal

-it shortened the time needed for people, mail and cargo to travel from Europe to Singapore.

• This meant lower shipping costs because of the savings in distance and time.

-increased the volume of ships passing through the Straits of Melaka and calling at the port of Singapore to refuel and collect food supplies.

-The Straits of Malacca overtook the Sunda Straits as the main route from Europe to the Far East, thus securing Singapore's dominance in the region.

-it led to the increased use of steamships as sailing ships could not use the Suez Canal throughout the year.

-This enhanced Singapore's role as a coaling station.

-Despite advances in marine technology, steamships travelling long distances had to stop at regular intervals to refuel with huge quantities of coal and fresh water.

Tin industries (cause and effect) pink is the cause, green is the effect.

• spread of British control to parts of Malaya after 1874 led to peaceful conditions there.

• canning industry in the United States was expanding, which resulted in a corresponding increase in the demand for tin.

• the amount of tin produced in Malaya increased rapid,

• In 1874, Malaya was the fourth-largest

• tin producer in the world. By the 1890s, it was producing more than half of the world's tin.

• Malayan tin was brought to a singaporean factory to smelt

• By the early 20th century the factory had become the leading tin smelter in the world

• THe tin smelting industry and the tin trade brought handsome profits to many businessmen in sg.

Rubber industries - cause and effect (cause is red, effect is green)

-The production of millions of cars in the United States led to a great demand for rubber for making tyres.

-As the supply of rubber from Brazil and Africa was insufficient to meet this demand, the price of rubber shot up very quickly.

-Malaya overtook Brazil as the world's biggest producer of rubber, with most of the

rubber exported through Singapore.

(basically malaya was the one who planted these rubber trees and sg was the one who exported them as a trading port){ rubber was lucrative trade as ppl had to make tyres to build cars and bicycles)

The great depression , explained (dont have to know the story, just know the main iidea of it++ share prices went up too high)

The Great Depression (1929–1939) was the worst global economic crisis in modern history, triggered by the US stock market crash and massive bank failures in October 1929. Because factories and farms had produced more goods than people could buy, businesses collapsed, wiping out savings and leaving a quarter of the US workforce unemployed. This economic disaster quickly spread worldwide as global trade ground to a halt, severely impacting colonies like Singapore and Malaya that relied on exporting rubber and tin. The crisis finally ended when countries mobilized for World War II in 1939, forcing factories to reopen at full capacity to manufacture military supplies and putting millions of people back to work.

HOW did the great depression affect the tin and rubber trade

• The United States was the biggest buyer of Malayan rubber (for car tyres) and tin (for the canning industry).

• When the US economy crashed, American car factories and canning companies stopped manufacturing goods, causing the global demand for these raw materials to vanish almost overnight.

• With no buyers, prices collapsed. The price of rubber dropped by over 90%, and tin prices fell by nearly half.

• To stop prices from falling even further, international committees stepped in to strictly limit how much rubber and tin countries could produce and export.

• This ruined Singapore and Malaya’s economies, leading to mass closures of tin mines and rubber plantations, heavy wage cuts, and widespread unemployment for thousands of workers.