150 



THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 



[Sept. r, 1886. 



while on leave, in Holland, issued several papers 

 on the cinchona enterprise, its position and pro- 

 spects. We may rely on it that he kept himself well 

 informed of the progress of private culture of the 

 fever trees in .Tava, and he has never represented 

 the extent of this private culture as a specially 

 important factor in estimates of the total production 

 of the world. It was not until 1882 and 1883, in 

 reality, tliat Ledger seed was available and disposed 

 of in any quantity by the Batavian (rovernment. 

 Then, no doubt, considerable areas of nursery 

 ground were prepared and sown, but we have no 

 hesitation in saying that the requisite labour for 

 planting IT^.OOO acres, or half, or quarter that 

 area, was not and is not now forthcoming. If 

 there are at this moment 20,000 acres of cinchonas 

 in all stages of growth, in Java, that we confidently 

 believe is the very maximum. A reference by our 

 Government to the British Consul in Batavia, will 

 no doubt result in approximate figures being pro- 

 duced ; but, if Mr. Macneil, the present Consul 

 indicates that Mr. Mundt's figures are other than 

 the wildest exaggerations, we shall be much 

 astonished. For neither in Mr. Macneil's latest 

 report nor in those by his predecessor Mr. Cameron, 

 any more than in Mr. Moens' well-considered 

 papers, have we ever seen the slightest hint given 

 that the private culture of cinchonas had pro- 

 gressed in Java at the utterly incredible rate stated by 

 Mr. Mundt. 



The silence of both authorities is only negative 

 evidence, to be sure, but under the circums- 

 tances such evidence is very significant. Those 

 who have not visited Java, and carefully invest- 

 igated its systems of tenures, culture and compul- 

 sory service, canhave little idea of the " labour diffi- 

 culty " in that magnificent island of twenty millions 

 of a population. There are plenty of people, but very 

 few wilhng toworkjOr at liberty to work away from the 

 rice fields and other lands which they hold on condition 

 of rendering service to Government, or to estate- 

 owners, who are also the feudal lords of villages 

 connected with their estates. The reason why sugar 

 cultivation made such enormous progress in Java, 

 was, that a parentally despotic and benevolent Gov- 

 ernment supplied European or other planters, whom 

 they favoured with land, the labour attached to the 

 land and actually, through the co-operation of the 

 Java Trading Company, with capital ! The system 

 has been materially altered of late years, the 

 proportion of labour exacted by Government itself 

 having been lessened, and no such interference (now 

 being gradually withdrawn,) as took place in favour 

 of sugar planters, has been repeated or will be repeated 

 in favour of private cultivators of coffee, tea or cin- 

 chona. Some years ago Mr. Pretorious, a member of 

 the Java Civil Service and Private Secretary to the then 

 Governor-General, was deputed to Ceylon specially to 

 Inquire into our system of road construction and 

 upkeep by means of the Thoroughfares Ordinance. 

 He fully discussed the question with us and when 

 we stated, as we correctly did at that period, that 

 practically all the inhabitants of this island liable 

 under the Ordinance, paid a money commutation 

 for the six days per annum of labour required 

 from them, the real work on the roads being per- 

 formed by a class of immigrant labourers, who worked 

 for wages, the Dutch Civilian's countenance fell, and 

 he said " such a system would be impossible in Java, 

 where service is already exacted from the people 

 and where theie is no immigrant class to fall back 

 upon." There is, as a matter of fact, no class of 

 absolutely free labourers in Java, except it be the 

 Chinese, "and beyond the precincts of the great towns 

 we never saw "John Chinaman" at work, unless as 

 an arti7.an or labourer on railway construction, 

 or as a contractor to supply manure to estates. 



The Javanese agriculturists are not strictly slaves, 

 but they hold their lands not " in free and 

 common soccage " as the highly favoured Sin- 

 halese and Tamil yeomen do hero ; but on con- 

 dition of yielding certain service to the lord of 

 the soil, whether Government or proprietors to 

 whom Government has sold or leased its rights. 

 No doubt of many the cultivators of the rich rice- 

 lands of Java have time at their disposal, over 

 and above that exacted by the tenures on which 

 they hold their lands and the exigencies of their own 

 cultivation and harvesting, but the Malays have as 

 little liking for steady work as the Sinhalese have, 

 and it was quite an exception for Mr. Moens to 

 issue a Keport in which complaint was not made 

 of the paucity of labour on the Government cin- 

 chona plantations. If, then, Government experienced 

 this difficulty when dealing with forest lands out- 

 side the boundaries of settled population, we 

 leave our readers to judge how much greater 

 the difficulties of the private planter must be 

 under similar circumstances. It was equally a 

 rarity for Mr. Moens to issue a Report in which 

 the ravages of HeJopehis were not recorded; 

 and if canker is not quite so great an evil in 

 Java as it has proved to be in Ceylon, we suspect 

 there is ample compensation of disadvantages in the 

 damage done to the bark as well as the leaves 

 by the insidious sucking insect. For all the rea- 

 sons stated, we entirely distrust, as wild and un- 

 reliable, the statement made by Mr. Mundt to Mr. 

 Beck of 175,000 acres of 5-year old cinchonaa in Java, 

 which will be fit for shaving two years hence, the 

 bark so gathered in quantity and quality casting 

 Ceylon into the shade. There can be no question 

 that Java with its rich volcanic soil and its suit- 

 ability for the culture of the rich Ledgeriana* is 

 destined ultimately, to be a formidable competitor with 

 Ceylon in the cinchona markets of the world, and a 

 debade hence it may really supply the world from 

 something like 100,000 acres of mature trees. But 

 up to the end of 1890, at least, we suspect the most 

 formidable competitors with Ceylon cinchona planters 

 will be their fellow-planters. 



Since writing the above we have referred to 

 what Mr. Mundt said to our reporter in March. 

 He did not specify any acreage in cinchona : 

 merely asserted vaguely and generally that a 

 very large extent of ground was planted with re- 

 ally good cinchona yielding 10 to 11 per cent 

 sulphate of quinine. Mr. ]Mundt also regretted the 

 absence of roads and railways in Java " which 

 prevented miUiom of acres of good tea and cin- 

 chona land bemg j)lanted up." Now, in the first 

 place large as Java is, it is densely peopled and 

 the best lands are either under culture, or, after 

 exhaustion abandoned to the everywhere prevaelnt 

 alang aUinu (illook) and lantmia. In the Preauger 

 Regency we saw valleys of ten square miles in extent 

 occpuied by alung alang and laiitana. A large portion 

 of the untouched forest, again, is on the tops and 

 sides of volcanic mountains, elevated and stee^j, and 

 thei'efore not available. There are not miUions of 

 acres in Java suitable for cinchona and tea, and 

 if there were and railways were running througli 

 them, the labour difficulty on which we have 

 dwelt, would render the clearing and planting of 

 such land a slow process, not to speak of the 

 deterring infiuence of markets which would be 

 utterly swamped by the produce of half or even a 



* Mr. Muudt's 10 to 12 per cent quinine iu the 

 b.irk, is as wild as his other statements regarding 

 175^000 acres iu the south of Java, which he had never 

 seen. Bark with 5 to 8 per cent will be verj' good 

 for an aver.age. A return of 12 per cent is extreme 

 and such a.s Mr. Moens got only from a few specially 

 choice old trees. 



