(3 of 3)
The government is moving even faster in the countryside. Hopeful that higher-yield rubber trees will enable Malayan rubber to compete with synthetics in the years ahead, Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Razak, 39, is trying to get 50,000 more acres a year under cultivation. To work the land, he is resettling farmers in self-contained communities, like those once organized for defense against Communist attacks. In one settlement in Bilut Valley, 483 Malay, Chinese and Indian families, most of whom have never farmed before, are living peacefully together, even though the Chinese breed pigs, which the Malays abhor, and the Malays slaughter cattle, which are sacred to the Indians. In two years the settlement has put 5,770 acres under cultivation, hopes to expand to 13,000. But often it takes seven years before a rubber tree yields rubber, so Bilut Valley will have seven lean years of waiting. But hopefully, the valley will then share in Malaya's years of plenty.
