The Khaw Concern

Abstract

Testifying before the Straits Settlements and Federated Malay States. Opium Commission in October 1907, the managing director of the Singapore opium and spirits farm, Khaw Joo Choe, denied that he had any vested interest in inducing people to smoke the drug. Involved in the operation of revenue farms in Siam for twenty-one years and in the Singapore farm since 1904, this stout man from a respectable and wealthy Penang family confessed that, unlike his father Khaw Sim Khim, he was an opium smoker himself. Perhaps doubly hesitant to condemn ‘moderate smoking’ as an evil, he did acknowledge that it could be debilitating to workers and eventually agreed with his inquisitor, Tan Jiak Kim,¹ that ‘it would be better if it were abolished’. He had, in fact, lost money on the previous farm (1903–6). Pressed further on the possible effects abolition of the farm might have on his personal finances, Khaw Joo Choe replied rather nonchalantly: ‘How should I care, it is not my estate or property.’ What was more, he always had ‘other business to do’ (OC, vol. II, pp. 215–17).

Written by Michael Godley, this chapter is largely based on Jennifer Cushman’s work. (eds)