THE JAVA BEKEY. 69 



now there are a considerable number of private planters in Java, 

 from whose enterprise the government derives a large revenue, 

 not only in the sums received for leases but also for "export and 

 import duties on the articles produced and consumed by them. 

 Dutch rule in the East has not been very beneficent to the gov- 

 erned, but, on the other hand, it may probably be said with truth 

 that the people of these countries are no worse off now than they 

 were before, while Holland has been greatly benefited. 



The soil in the island of Java is rich, never seems to be ex- 

 hausted, and when apparently used up on the surface, the planter 

 has only to go deeper and secure a richer soil at once. For coffee- 

 growing, plantations formed on forest clearings, one thousand five 

 hundred to four thousand feet above sea-level, are the best ; al- 

 though the lowlands are also used for coffee culture, but the tree 

 in that case is not as productive or as long-lived. 



Under the system of government monopoly, each family of 

 natives is required to raise and take care of about six hundred 

 and fifty trees, and to pick, dry, and deliver at the government 

 stores the product thereof. The price received by the natives 

 from the government is placed at a figure low enough to leave an 

 enormous margin of profit to the government, which deducts from 

 the gross price paid to the growers a duty of ten florins ($4) per 

 picul. It may well be doubted, however, whether the plan of 

 compulsory culture by natives, whose eagerness to be rid of the 

 task induces them to hastily perform it, with great waste of pro- 

 duct, and the exclusion of foreign capital and enterprise from the 

 vast stretches of unimproved lands are calculated to develop the 

 full resources of the country, and to compete successfully with 

 the unfettered and scientific industry of the wealthy and ener- 

 getic Anglo-Saxon cultivators. 



The first of the Java crop, as previously stated, was sold in 

 Amsterdam, in 1712, by the Dutch East India Company, which 

 monopoly, or its successors, has controlled the sale of the coffee- 

 product of Java ever since. It exists to-day under the name of 

 the Netherland Handel Maatschappy, with headquarters in Am- 

 sterdam, and branches in all parts of the world, including New 

 York, at which point an agency was established in January, 1879. 



In the fifteenth century the nations of Europe contended for 



