The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1856-1888, 1876-03-25
The Dutch in Java.

EOI AGAIig buACS III u nv OOlSbS U SLnaAt
nation, have succeeded in maintaining their footing
among populous and warlike races thousands of miles
away; and at the present day we have the singular
spectacle of three millions of people in Europe ruling
with a high hand their twenty millions of Eastern
subjects. among whom are many of the most warlike
of the Malay races and Mahometan bigo,s. But the
chief PECULIARLY is the system by which they not
only monopolise largely the trade with their colonies.
Rbut obtain from the colony of Java alone an annual
subsidy to the Dutch Treasury in Europe Of some
thing like e. 500 900 sterlingE The whole manage
ment is SO opposed to our ideas Of the government
of native races that the account is doubly interest
ing. The best description we have yet read is that
of the Count de Beauvoir, who accompanied the late
Prince of Condo on o tour to the East and to Austria
liza, where the unfortunate Prince died q couple of
years ago.
The population of Java-an island about the size
of one of the counties of California; lis over fourteen
millions. They are nearly all natives or Chinese,
the European population being about twenty-five
thousand. The army consists of 81 900 men, of
whom II 200 are Europeans, 5000 natives, and
1000 negroes. The Dutch found the population in
much the same state of slavery to their chiefs as the
present population Of FIJI. They were much more
advanced in civilization, but had the additional
drawback of being in slavery to their priests as well.
For many years the Dutch could make little of the
Island and found their expenditure SO far exceeding
their revenue that a public debt Of considerable
amount had to be incurred. In 1924 q Netherlands
Company was formed with a capital of two millions.
King William I. was one of the largest shareholders
and patriotically guaranteed a dividened of Al per
cent. to those who would take shares with him. The
company did not pay and till 1882 the King had to
pay this interest out of his own pocket to keep it to-
--kI-- r. q N---I w.
command, conceived a new idea and began the new
system under which for the last 40 years such e-
traordinary results have been attained. The chiefs
and priests had long lived upon the people. Then,
said Van den Bosch, let the Government 90 in and
take its share. Every man was obliged, if living in
the Hills, to plant 600 coffee trees with a reserve of
80 many more as the European inspectors might con-
slider necessary to replace weak plants and keep up
the full number. This coffee they were forced to
sell to the Government at a little over six shillings
the picul (133 tbs). The Government shipped it to
Europe and sold the picul for three pounds. The
same process was applied to sugar cane growers on
the low lands. A contractor was employed and a
large sum advanced to him for II years without iu-
terest. With this he erected sugar mills and refner-
les. The natives were compelled to bring their cane
to him and sell it at IS. He in his turn sold to the
Government at a fixed price of los. Cd. and they
re-sold in Holland at els. The only saving clause
was, that the natives were allowed to keep one-ifth of
their produce and sell it at the best price they could
get for internal trade only; while in the case of
sugar the contractor was allowed to keep ons-third
of the remaining four-ffths for the same purpose.
The contractor made immense profits and the Gov
eminent still greater. The chiefs and the priests
have to get their share, yet enough is left to yield
the handsome annual surplus we have already men,
toned.
The same system was applied to spices, indigo,
tea, and tobacco and under the specious guise of
taxes paid in kind this nefarious system has been SO
long pursued. 1t has been found practicable to
maintain it only in sugar and coffee and the prices
Of both have been materially raised since Van den
Bosch's day. The natives now get 20s. per picul for
their coffee, and they sold in 1867 to the amount of
81, 100000. This the Government sent home in the
company's ships and re-sold for ca, 400, 900. As to
sugar, there are 81 mills at work. They receive the
produce of 250, 900 acres of land and make sugar to
the value of seven million pounds sterling a year.
The imports into the island for 1871 were four and 8
half millions. The exports were seven and a half
millions, a fact which we present to our Protectionist
readers for their cogitation and instruction. The
excess of exports is not casual, but the ordinary
course of affairs, and has marked the commerce of
Java ever since the admirable discovery of Van den
Bosch was made. The revenue Of the Government
in 1871 was over ten million pounds sterling, and
the expenditure less than eight millions, and this
surplus, larger or smaller but always enormous, has
also characterized the finances of Java for many a
year.
1t is almost incredible that a colony should be so
long held on such conditions aud it shewe the degra-
dation to which the great mass of the people must
have been reduced by long habits Of servitude.
Something similar exists in the colonies Of Spain
where monopolies of tobacco and other articles be-
come a source of revenue to the home Governments
but it has never been carried to the extent or re-
duced to the system which the Dutch have brought it
to in Java. In the old English Colonial days there
was also a like regulation. Before the American
Revolution, none Of the Colonies in that continent
could sell their tobacco or their wool to foreign
powers. They could only send it to London or some
English port, to be thence shipped abroad by Eng
lish merchants or sold by the same merchants at
home. No American ship could trade north of Cape
FiniSterre, and it was then that the colonists opened
the only trade in their power-that with Madeira,
which stocked American cellars. All else that they
required must be supplied through English hands.
In looking back on these regulations we see how
little the welfare of the people was regarded in those
days. The profits which now fructify in their pockets
were transferred to Corporations or Government. en-
joying a monopoly supported by a force for which
the profits of that monopoly paid. 1t is a vile sys-
tenn, and happily carries with it the seeds of decay.
In England it has long given way to a higher and
robler view Of colonization. In Spain It is fast