June i, 1882.] 
THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
1007 
what appears to be a prejudice against our island, 
and whether there is any traditionary ground for it. 
One thing, however, is certain, that if the rulers 
and directors of the new colony, wish I o attract Chinese 
to their territory, they must abandon the idea which 
seems to have taken possession of some of them— de- 
rived from Mr. Money's fascinating but fallacious 
book "How to make a Colony pay?" — of resorting 
to the culture system which Governor-General Vandor 
Bosch initiated in Java — which was so successful for 
a tinio, in enriching Holland at the expense of Java, 
but which has broken clown and which the Hutch 
are rapidly modifying and getting rid o. 1 '. Injustice 
and impolicy were stamped on a system which reversed 
tho positions of Government and the tiller of the soil, 
so that the poor peasant received only the tithe, while 
the bulk of his earnings was appropriated by Govern- 
ment, and that not to be spent in the land where 
it was earned but sent to Holland to help her to 
pay the legacy of debt which Belgium dishonestly 
handed over to her ! Monopoly of trade and ship- 
ping in the hands of the Company who lent the ne- 
cessary funds, was a necessary concomitant of the 
system, while, as regards coffee, the competition of 
private planters was and still is, as much as possible 
discouraged. Even if the Achin war had never oc- 
curred, a system which crippled commerce and shut 
out what, is the vitality of a country, capital and en- 
terprize, must have ultimately broken down. The 
soil of Java is so fertile that even a wrong policy 
cannot prevent the population from being generally 
well-to-do. Dutch rule in this generation ia a great 
improvement on days of old and is immensely better 
than any rule the people could organize for them- 
selves. The way to look at it is this. If Java has 
flourished notwithstanding a wrong system, how must 
she not prosper when commerce and capital are al- 
lowed fair play. In any case, the policy which the 
Dutch applied to - a largo resident population, hold- 
ing their lands by a species of feudal tenure, can- 
not possibly be applied in such a country as the 
New Ceylon, und we trust no attempt at trying it 
will be made. Revenue to carry on Government must 
be obtained, but except in the case of natural mon- I 
opolies, such as our own pearl fishery, revenue I 
should consist of a moderate percentage of the 
earnings of the people. If the Dutch policy should I 
be tried on the C hinese, we suspect they wouhl make 
short work of Hie experiment nod its author'. An 
American poet has immortalized the henthen Chinee, | 
and poor Wingrove Cook, who was in Colombo on 
what proved his fatal mission to China, has painted 
them in prose. "Where," he wrote, "the roses 
have no fragrance, and the women no petticoats ; 
where tho labourer has a) Sabbath, and the magis- 
trate no sense of honour ; whero tho needle points 
to the south, and the sign of being puzzled is to 
► cratch tho antipodes of the head j whero tho place 
of honour is on the left hand, and the seat of in- 
tellect is in tho stomach ; whore to take < If you* 
hat is an insolent gesture, and to wmr white 
menti is to put yourself into mourning," it would 
scorn useless to seek for any point "f similarity with 
oumolvos. But, " ouo touch of nature makes t he- 
whole world kin" and in an ignorant impatience of 
taxation, the Chinaman fraternizes with the English- 
man. The Directors and the Governor of North 
Borneo have a difficult and an important task be- 
fore them, and those who, like ourselves, wish them 
success, are naturally anxious that they should not 
endanger that success, by experiments which have 
not succeeded in a densely populated country and 
which would be sure to end in disastrous failure, if 
tried in a scene where the chief want is population 
and the chief duty of the Government to attract it 
and retain it. 
MR. CROSS AND THE GOVERNMENT 
CINCHONA ESTATES. 
It may be remembered that in January last Dr. 
Bidie was deputed by Government to proceed to the 
Hills to investigate certain matters in connection with 
the Government cinchona plantati»us at Naduvattam. 
The instructions given to Dr. Bidie were to test the 
accuracy of Mr. Cross's alarming assertion regarding the 
identity of the plant, hitherto known as the red-bark 
tree, cinchona succirubra, and to make a careful collec- 
tion of bark, leaf, and flower of all the cinchonas 
growing at Naduvattam for transmission to England 
for purposes of examination and nnalysi*. On his 
arrival at Naduvattam, Dr. Bidie's first object was to 
ascertain what Mr. Cross's views were exactly, and 
these he found to be as follows: — "That the plant 
hitherto regarded as the Cinchona Succirubra was no 
other than the comparatively useless Cinchona Micran- 
tha ; that what was termed ' Mclvor's Hybrid,' and 
' Pubescens' was the true Cinchona Succirubra, and that 
the 'Magnifolia 1 was the Pata-de Gallinazo of the 
South American Red bark region. After a careful 
consideration of all the hotanical evidence on the 
subject, Dr Bidie arrives at the conclusion that 
the tree known as the red bark on the 
Government plantation is the t ue cinchona succirubra, 
Mi 
JUt 
micranlha, but without names attached, and asked him 
for his opinion regarding the species ; but there was 
considerable hesitation on his part, and the matter was 
allowed to drop. Besides, notwithstanding his pre- 
sumed familiarity with the botanical characters of the 
cinchonas, it took him the whole period of bis stay on 
the hills, which extended to more thau a year, to 
arrive ut his conclusion, and, though he was in fre- 
quent intersouree with such botanical experts as Colonel 
Beddome, he never once hinted at the possibility of 
Regarding Mr. Cross's identification of the plant 
known as ""Mclvor's Hybrid," Dr. Bidie concludes 
from the facts at his command that it is not the 
true cinchona succirubra, as asserted by him, bill (from 
its strong resemblance to a cinchona known in Ecuador 
as ' Cucliicara') a cascarilla srrrnna or hill bark w hich 
was discovered by Spruce, the great explorer in the 
forests of Llalla, nt the toot of the Mountain Assuay, 
and described by him in IS">9, and he thinks that it 
will probably prove a pubescent variety of this species. 
To set aside all doubts on the matter, however, he 
recommends that the Nilgiri specimens be compared 
with th -e sent to Kew by Spruce in 1889. 
With reference to Mr. Cross* identification of our 
magnitolu with tho Pata-de^alliuaao, Dr. Bidio is of 
opinion that ho i* probablj Qftjnee . as it ngnon suffi- 
ciently in its characters with Samoa's description to 
warrant its being considered a smortth-laavftd euohi- 
cara or L'aU-do-Oalliunio. 
