determined at any numerical proportion, nor have
the Balinese any regular land measure by which
these dues are assessed. The tax is fixed upon the
seed-corn, and not upon the produce. Observing
that a given quantity of land, of a given fertility,
which fertility is determined by long usage, requires
an estimated number of sheaves of seed-
corn, they assess each sheaf at a fixed amount, payable
partly in money, but mostly in kind.
Among the Sundas, or mountaineers of the
west end of Java, a tithe is, as in Celebes, the portion
of the crop claimed by the sovereign authority,
by whatever name that authority is distinguished ;
but, from some very good lands, we find double
this proportion, or one-fifth claimed.
It is among the Javanese, properly so called, that
the proprietary right of the sovereign in the soil
is most unequivocally established, and, perhaps,
most arbitrarily exercised. The principle is openly
avowed and proclaimed. In his patents of nobility,
the sovereign bestowing a revenue on the
noble, or other chief, distinctly terms the land
“ our royal property,” and he expressly specifies
that it is lent or given in trust, and not alienated.
Such is the universality of this principle, that I do
not believe,' in the whole territory of the native
princes, there are a hundred acres, over which, by
the customs or laws of the country, any distinct
proprietary right could be pointed out, independent
of the sovereign. There may be here and there a
little forbearance, from motives of religion or superstition,
but a proprietary right in the soil, on the
part of a subject, according to the present notions
of the people, it will not be going too far to assert,
would be unintelligible to them, so strongly contrasted
are their opinions and ours on this point.
. The more absolute authority of the sovereign in
Java,—the greater servility of the people;—the superior
fertility of the soil,—and the superior modes
of husbandry which prevail, have enabled the sovereign
to exact a larger share of the produce of the
soil than in any other part of the Archipelago.
One-half the produce of wet lands, and one-third
of that of dry lands, are the long established and
well known shares of the government. Whether
these ratios have been assumed by the Javanese of
themselves, as the highest possible scale of exaction
which decorum could suggest to such rude
financiers, or have been copied from the Hindus,
it is not easy to determine, but the exact accordance
of this scale with that established among the
Hindus of the Deccan, from whom the Javanese
borrowed so many of their ancient institutions, is
good ground for believing that the latter had at
least some share in the establishment of this rate
of taxation.
In the condition of the cultivators there is considerable
nominal, though perhaps little essential