THE NETHERLANDS EAST INDIES 277 



will continue augmenting in the near future. Some 

 75 per cent, of the natives live by agriculture in one 

 form or another ; the Chinese and Arabs are nearly all 

 traders, and of the Europeans 50 per cent, are in civil 

 or military employment. The religion of the Javanese, 

 especially in the eastern districts, is nominally Mahome- 

 danism, but both Buddhism and Brahminism exists; 

 although professing one or other of these faiths, a 

 very large proportion of the inhabitants are still be- 

 lievers in the pagan precepts of their forefathers. In 

 1912, the number of native Christians was stated to 

 be between 60,000 and 70,000, but information on this 

 point is uncertain. 



With a population of some 35,000,000 natives it 

 appears at first sight that no difficulty should be ex- 

 perienced in Java with regard to the requirements of 

 labourers for the sugar-cane, tea, tobacco, coffee, rubber, 

 and cocoa plantations. Such, however, is not the case ; 

 with rubber estates particularly the number of coolies 

 available is inadequate in many districts. There is no 

 doubt that this scarcity of labour for plantation pur- 

 poses is due in great part to the large area under culti- 

 vation in the island, the rice-fields extending to 3,000,000 

 acres, sugar-cane to some 600,000, tobacco 200,000, tea 

 250,000, and a similar area is under crop with coffee and 

 rubber combined; native foodstuffs and fruits do not 

 occupy less than 1,000,000 acres, coconuts 200,000, and 

 probably not less than 500,000 acres altogether are de- 

 voted to other products. This means that a combined 

 demand exists for coolies to cultivate 6,000,000 acres ; 

 in addition, an annual drain takes place to Sumatra of 

 some 50,000 labourers, and to Malay of a further 10,000 





