SUGAK INDUSTKY IN JAVA 39 



for one season only ; but the situation amounts to this 

 that the sugar companies enjoy a practical security of 

 tenure. They have erected mills and laid out a net- 

 work of lines and roads to bring the cane from a 

 distance of 8 or 10 miles, without owning an acre of 

 plantation land. In any country where the use of the 

 land depended on a free annual bargain between the 

 company and a large number of small holders this 

 would be impossible, since the company might at any 

 time be embarrassed or even compelled to stop work for 

 want of land to grow cane. If it were a matter of free 

 bargaining between the companies and the land- 

 holders the latter might easily take advantage of their 

 monopoly and demand double the rent that they now 

 get, which the companies could afford to pay. The 

 position is, of course, totally different from the 

 position under the "forced culture" system of fifty 

 years ago, but the old system has left its mark, and, 

 whether the causes be regarded as political or as purely 

 economic, the fact remains that the Java sugar 

 companies are in a position of advantage for securing 

 land and labour for cane production such as no other 

 country enjoys. They have certainly made the most 

 of the physical and economic advantages which they 

 enjoy, for their methods of cane production and sugar 

 manufacture are extremely efficient and well carried 

 out. They are far more economical in many respects 

 than the Hawaiian and Formosan companies, but 

 spend money freely on scientific research, and owe 

 much to the system of organisation and mutual control 



