MALAY LAND TENURE. 95 



pay their functionaries and shew favour to their relations 

 and favourites, not with hard cash, but by a delegation of 

 sovereign rights consisting in the right to exact a share of 

 the produce of the soil (from one to four tenths) and that 

 of requiring the cultivator to work (in some cases, one day 

 out of every five) either for the pecuniary profit of the lord 

 or merely to gratify his taste for ostentation by swelling his 

 train . 



" The delegated ruler (who exercises police control and even 

 administers justice to some extent) is not the owner of the 

 soil in the European sense of the word. He cannot, for 

 instance, evict the cultivator from it; but the latter is obliged 

 to pay the tithe and to take a part in the forced service. 

 (< Our ancestors found this system in force in Java and 

 imitated it. 



" These sovereign rights have been conceded by the influ- 

 ence of money, but in perpetuity, contrary to Muhammadan 

 law. 



" The European governments which have followed have 

 often done this and have had cause to repent it. 

 " Be that as it may, in the Residencies of Bantam, Batavia, 

 Krawang, Cheribon, Tagal, Samarang, Japara, Sourabaya 

 and Pasaruan, there are these c private lands' (terres par- 



" by Europeans. They, never natives or Chinese, take on lease, with the 

 " consent of the Dutch Government and for twenty years at most, the rights 

 ' ' delegated to members of the royal family and to the officers of their High- 

 " nesses. It is the Europeans, who, instead of using the corvee to secure a 

 " numerous suite, turn it to account in indigo factories, sugar -mills and coffee 

 " plantations. Often, instead of a share of the produce of the soil, they 

 " take a share of the soil itself. This organisation has given incredible 

 " scope to European enterprise, has demoralised the native nobility, and 

 " has given more intelligent and therefore more indulgent masters to the 

 " common people. 



" If, as it is high time it should be the case, these phantoms of sovereigns 

 " were deprived of their power, and the administration were put on the footing 

 " of the ' Government' lands, the source of European industry would dry 

 ' ' up, and the common people would not gain very much, from a practical 

 "point ofvieio ; the minor chiefs alone would profit. Effort was made fifty 

 " years ago to put a stop to the ' farming out of the land' (bail des terres J, 

 " but the ancient system was reverted to, tempered by the, by no means no- 

 " minal, control of the Dutch officials." 



