140 MALAY LAND TENURE. 



Raffles' system was the raHyat-icdri system of Bengal ;a 

 proprietary right was accorded to the cultivator, and a tempo- 

 rary settlement was arrived at with him as to the amount of 

 assessment payable by him in lieu of the miscellaneous lia- 

 bilities of former times. The assessment was -payable in 

 money or kind (grain). It was intended that this should be a 

 stepping-stone to a permanent settlement, when experience 

 should have shewn the justice or otherwise of the scale first 

 determined upon. This was : — 



For sawah lands ( rice-fields ) . 

 1st quality of soil, one-half of the estimated produce. 

 2nd quality of soil, two-fifths of the estimated produce. 

 3rd quality of soil, one-third of the estimated produce. 



For tegal lands ( maize, &c). 

 1st quality of soil, two-fifths of the estimated produce. 

 2nd quality of soil, one-third of the estimated produce. 

 3rd quality of soil, one-fourth of the estimated produce. 

 Chiefs and headmen of villages were continued in office as 

 Collectors of Revenue. Individual rights were recorded in a 

 document, kept for inspection in every village office, in which 

 the name of every land-holder in the village and the amount 

 of his assessment were to be found. 



About the year 1818, two years after the restoration of 

 Java to the Dutch, Raffles' experiment was abandoned as 

 unsuccessful, and the Government of Netherlands India went 

 back to the system of settlement with the village for the 

 whole village lands. " The yearly allotment of lands was 

 " then left to be made as before, and the legal fiction of the 

 " separate property of each village in certain specified fields 

 " was abolished." 



The present system of land-tenure in Java, which is founded 

 on the native customary law, is thus explained by Mr. 

 Money : — * 



" Old Land Tenure and Rent under Native Rule. — The old 

 " idea under the Native rule was, that the land belonged to 

 t: the prince, the usufruct of it to the cultivator. The price of 



* Money's Java, I, 76. 



