ABSTRACT
GENERAL ASPECTS THE outstanding and characteristic ventures of the Westerners in South East Asia were their large-scale agricultural enterprises. Through these they not merely transformed the economies of the countries in which they operated but also exerted a profound influence upon industrial developments in Europe and America and, in the twentieth century, upon the whole pattern of international trade. A description of the conditions in which the various agricultural industries began and developed during the last century and a half has been given in Chapter I, and a more detailed account of their structure and operation will follow presently. In this chapter it is proposed to treat of certain issues that affect all, or most, branches of Western agriculture in South East Asia, to distinguish between the various methods and forms of organisation found there, and to call attention to the system of land tenure under which the properties were held and the relations of the enterprises with the native or immigrant peoples who supplied the labour force.
