36 PEOGKESS IN OTHEK COUNTEIES 



good years paid 12 per cent, in 1913 when a typhoon 

 destroyed a large part of the cane. The farmers who 

 grow the cane for the mill could just keep their heads 

 above water in the good years and must have been 

 almost ruined during that year. This state of things, 

 however, can hardly continue ; and in any case the 

 poor cane grown by unwilling farmers would hardly 

 make a satisfactory basis for a large industry. The 

 sugar companies have come to stay. They have 

 erected expensive mills and laid their railway lines 

 through the farmers' fields to bring in the cane. Some 

 mills are buying out the farmers. Possibly this will 

 be the solution of the difficulty in many cases; or 

 possibly they may adopt the system in force in Java, 

 and rent the land from the farmers. However, when 

 the mills plant their own cane they will have to face 

 the serious losses from occasional typhoons which 

 hitherto the Chinese farmers have borne for them. 

 The Japanese Government has fostered and supported 

 the sugar industry in Formosa, and will presumably 

 continue to do so. With the system of import duties, 

 consumption tax, bounties and official support in force, 

 the price of sugar in Japan and the profits of the 

 companies rest on a purely artificial basis. The 

 Japanese Government can at any time make or break 

 the sugar companies by a stroke of the pen. 



Java. — The example of Java is very instructive, 

 In 1830 General Van den Bosch undertook to restore 

 the finances of Java, by reorganising and stimulating 

 the agricultural system of the island. He did so by 



