142 



The Review of Reviews. 



August I. 19K. 



Varieties of Java Fruits. 



mould the Oriental in an Aryan crucible. Modern 

 writers on Political Science all agree that the best 

 results are attained when we interfere as little as 

 possible with the manners, customs, habits and 

 tribal laws of the natives, so long as the ends of 

 justice are not violated. These are the unwTitten 

 laws evolved through centuries of gradual develop- 

 ment to meet local conditions, and are instinctively 

 obeyed by the memters of the community. 



The reforms of Sir Stamford Raffles can only be 

 carried out in a modified form by a slow and careful 

 process, and this the Dutch are doing, and have 

 been doing for the last fifty years. The fact that 

 many of the natixes were immediately freed from 

 all obligations, after centuries of the strictest 

 superx-ision. tended to a condition of sloth and shift- 

 lessness, and the relinquishment of valuable cultiva- 

 tion. 



Sir Stamford Raffles was, of course, unable to 

 carry any of his reforms into full effect, and the 

 restoration of Java to the Dutch people transferred 

 his energies to other fields, and as the founder of 

 Singapore, as well as for other services, he estab- 

 lished his claim to our grateful remembrance. 



For the succeeding thirty-two years Netherlands 

 India was governed by the King of Holland, as the 

 constitution expressly conferred on him the exclu- 

 sive right of control in the State's transmarine de- 

 pendencies. That period is principally remarkable 

 for the inauguration of the " culture " system by 

 General Van den Bosch in 1830. Briefly, his pro- 

 posals were that, instead of paying to the Govern- 

 ment a certain proportion of their crops as land tax, 

 the natixes were to place at its disposal a certain 

 proportion of their land and labour-time. The re- 

 venue would then consist not in rice, which was 



almost universally cultivated, and 

 which was of comparatively little 

 value to the Government, but in 

 export products of a more lucrative 

 nature, grown under the direction 

 of the Government, and paid lor 

 by the Government at a price con- 

 siderably below its market value. 

 From a purely economic point of 

 view the system was an instanta- 

 neous success : exports increased, 

 and surpluses succeeded regular 

 deficits. In the thirty-five years 

 of its full operation it contributed 

 to the Treasury of Holland more 

 than ;^"4o, 000,000, representing 

 chiefly profits on the sale of 

 Government coffee and sugar, be- 

 sides paying all the expenses, civil 

 and military, of Netherlands India. 

 At the time of its greatest expan- 

 sion the cultures never occupied 

 more than 4 per cent, of the total 

 agricultural land of the native 

 population. One of the most difficult problems in 

 tropical government is to stimulate the industry' of a 

 slothful native population, and direct their energies 

 into the most reproductive channels. The conser- 



A Figure of Buddiia. 



