Edible Product*. 



whites, including the manager, upon the pay rolls in both manufacturing and 

 planting departments. Field hands are paid eight cents a day without rations 

 in east Java, and get $2'7 an acre for cutting. In the province of Kadoe, in 

 middle Java, the rate was about the same, varying from six to ten cents a 

 day. In this district the more common method of paying for field labour is by 

 the stint, but earnings average the sum just mentioned. Cane is stripped, 

 but on the older plantations it is no longer possible to rattoon. Native over- 

 seers are employed almost exclusively for field supervision, though they are 

 under the general direction of Europeans. One European to every 350 or 400 acres 

 is considered sufficient, with a half-caste assistant during the busy season. Planting 

 and cutting usually come together in Java. 



The Madurese, who possess more typical Malay characteristics than the 

 Javanese proper, give evidence of a lawless and probably revengeful disposition 

 in their habit of burning the cane of planters against whom they have a 

 grievance. Whether this is always a method of silently remedying real abuses 

 is not clear. In several cases where offenders have been detected and puuished, 

 it appeared that they were not employees of the plantation where the fire 

 occurred, and were actuated by little else than love of mischief and excite- 

 ment in their incendiary undertakings. These fires are on the increase. Those 

 occurring in a single district rose from 29 in 1889 to 218 in 1899, and to 616 

 in 1903. Mills have never been burned in this manner. The labourers will 

 strive to destroy new and soft cane, especially seedling crops, which they find 

 difficult or disagreeable to strip. 



European employees are generally well paid, especially in comparison 

 with the low salaries of white workers in other occupations in Java. Some 

 managers receive $100 a month and 10 percent, of the net profits of the plant- 

 ation. Head engineers are paid up to $250 a month. In 1899 the average cost 

 of making a short ton of sugar, including all expenses, except those for new 

 machinery, improvements and new areas brought under cultivation, was $2970, 

 and on one plantation in 1903 it was $26 a short ton. For the plantations 

 mentioned the former year, dividends averaged 15 per cent. Possibly the cost 

 of production is falling on account of the growing competition for employment, 

 but to an increasing population, for wages are said to be decreasing throughout 

 the sugar districts of Java. 



An average of about 12 per cent, sugar is obtained from the cane of the 

 better Javanese plantations, and the yield per acre is about 4'5 short tons. 

 Fertilization and intensive cultivation are practised, and attention is given to 

 selected varieties and seedling cane. 



