the people, the number of cultivators reserved by
the prince for the production of a direct revenue
in money or kind, is very inconsiderable. So familiar
is the manner of payment by assignments of
land to the notions of the people, that one of the
distinctions of official rank is founded upon i t ; and
as the Tartar sovereigns of Hindustan ranked
their military captains by the nominal establishment
of horses assigned to them by the sovereign,
so we find the rank of the nobles of Java frequently
determined by the number of cultivators on their
assignments of land, from the chief of fifty jCha-
chahs, or families, to him of five hundred, of'a
thousand, or upwards. The first minister, for example,
whose income, after that of the heir to the
throne, is the highest of all, is denominated 1 the
lord of two th o u s a n d th a t is, of two thousand
cultivators.
As long as a revenue is paid in kind, and as long,
indeed, as the character of the people continues
what it is, I cannot help thinking that there is an
evident advantage in this rude mode of conducting
the business of the treasury, if I may so call it. It
is, in the first place, attended by marked economy,
for the inevitable waste which would accompany its
collection by the officers of government is avoided.
The cultivator is placed, by this system, either
under the protection of an individual, whose interests
are assimilated with his own, or who is too
insignificant to injure them, instead of being subjected
to the scourge of the venal officers of the revenue.
But the greatest advantage which accrues
from it is its superseding the employment of a
crowd of revenue agents, and that system of chicanery
and tergiversation which must ever accompany
such employment. I feel convinced that it is to the
absence of this system, in no small degree, that we
must ascribe the candour and good faith which has
been remarked in the Javanese cultivator, so strikingly
in contrast with the notorious chicanery and
mendacity of the demoralized cultivators of Hindustan.
Before concluding this branch of the subject of
taxes, some observations will be necessary on its influence
on agricultural improvement, and upon the
circumstances of society more generally. Except
the advantages resulting from superior soil ^nd climate,
and a greater abundance of good land in proportion
to the number of inhabitants, the agriculture
of the Indian islands cannot be deemed to be in a
more favourable situation than that of Europe in
the middle ages, when the soil was cultivated by
wretched bondmen, or tenants at will, whose condition
was little better. When the sovereign, as he
does in Java, exacts, as tax, one-half the produce of
the best and greater part of the cultivated lands,
and one-third of that of the poorest, it is evident
that, in such an exorbitant impost, he demands not