the chief consumers, is as unexceptionable a source of revenue as any government ever
possessed. In 1843, its amount was 24,2711. The sale of timber from the teak
forests, which are the exclusive property of the government, constitutes another
monopoly, of which the produce in the same year was 42,1411. These different
items make the total revenues arising from monopolies 1,247,2011. In the public
accounts, the monopoly of the tin of Banca is set down as Javanese revenue, and
Btated at the sum of 250,0001. As the revenue of Java alone supplies the funds with
which the mining and smelting is carried on, this branch is correctly enough included
in the financial resources of that islandj
The export and import duties of Java, in 1843, including port charges, amounted
to 460,8401., and the market, transit, and ferry dues, came to 262,6721. The tax
on the slaughter of catlle was 39,3411., and that on fish and fisheries 27,9111. I t is
not necessary to add that these, as taxes on first necessaries of life, are injurious
imposts. A very strange want of attention to an obvious principle is evinced by the
European government of Java, connected with the slaughter of cattle. The slaughter
of the buffalo is expressly prohibited, with the avowed object of increasing the
number of this animal for the benefit of agriculture. The certain effect of the prohibition,
however, must of course be, the very reverse of what is intended, for the
rearing of these animals is surely discouraged, not promoted, by depriving the
owners of a market for the old, imperfect, or superfluous ones.
The excise on distilled and fermented liquors, and on tobacco, yielded between
them, in 1843, only 36,8431. The taxes on consumption yielded, in all, monopolies
included, a revenue of 2,207,4881.
The direct taxes, land-tax excepted, are of very trifling amount. Stamp duties
yielded 26,4521., and taxes on transfers and successions, 19,4701., plain proofs of the
real poverty of the ten millions of people, and similar to those which are afforded
from the same class of taxes in our own Indian possessions. The capitation tax paid by
the Chinese yielded no more than 3,4771., and that on slaves only 2,0141. A tax on
gaming was far more productive than either of these, for it produced 37,1011. A duty
on auction sales gave 24,1731., and the profits on public pawnbrokers’ shops, 27,9051.
The tax on carriages and horses kept for private use gave the small sum of 55301.
only, and the post office and stage coaches no more than 18,2261. Printing is a monopoly
in the hands of government, and is represented as yielding a profit of 4,8331.
The tribute paid by native princes amounted only to 3,2871. To these items are to
be added the sale of such articles as rice, packing sacks, gold-dust, and sundries
amounting to 78,4831. The whole amount of these direct or miscellaneous taxes
is 166,9381., or, including the sale of produce, probably not the productions of Java,
245,4211.
The account of receipts contains, in all, forty-five different heads, without, however,
any logical arrangement. The sums, too, are for the most part, gross receipts, not
including charges of collection, which are not separately given. The total revenues of
Java, in 1843, were 3,209,3571., including the monopoly of tin, but exclusive of the
profits of trade on commodities sold in Europe,—if there should be any. The rate of
taxation per head on the population of Java, subject to European rule, is about
7s. 5<2., and would probably amount to at least 10s., had not the resources of the island
been dissipated in idle and wasteful governmental speculations agricultural and commercial.
In the British settlement of Singapore, without land-tax, customs, port dues,
salt monopoly, poll-taxes, gaming tax, or stamp duties, the rate of taxation per head
is better than 18«., or 142 per cent, more than that of Java. The difference is evidently
owing to the superior industrial strength of the population of Singapore ; its superior
freedom in the exercise of that strength, and its comparative superior wealth.
The expenses of the government of Java in 1843 were given at the sum of
6,291,6062. Thus, then, the expenditure exceeded the amount of the taxes by the
enormous sum of 3,082,2492., to be made good, or otherwise, by the contingency of
produce remitted to Europe. The civil charges came to 827,8252., the military to
720,3192., the naval to 138,8462., and the extraordinary expenditure, on account of
Sumatra,’ to 220,0762. The expense of despatching government produce, exclusive
of freight and charges, amounted to 75,2121., while the interest of the public debt,
nearly all incurred in twenty-seven years’ time, came to 1,018,4632., or about half the
amount of that of British India, with a hundred and ten millions of inhabitants,
and which it has taken 80 years to incur.
The internal trade of Java embraces that of all the Netherland possessions in
India, as it is the entrepôt for the whole of it. I t includes also a large remittance for
the public revenue in the shape of produce, as coffee, sugar, indigo, tin, and spices.
Java and the other Dutch possessions were delivered over by the English in 1816,
with a considerably improved commerce, and certainly, at all events, with a clear
field for the establishment of a liberal system. The opportunity has assuredly not
been taken advantage of. Double duties have been imposed on all goods imported
under a foreign flag, and other contrivances of the exploded mercantile system have
been had recourse to, in order to give trade a direction to Holland, a costly expedient,
injurious to the eolony, and of no substantial value to the mother country. In 1824,
and within eight years after the restoration, a new East India Company was set up
as one of these contrivances, the Handel Maatschapij or trading association. This
association, is merchant, shipowner, agent, for the sale of the government produce in
Europe, carrier of this produce, and farmer of some branches of the public revenue
of Java. Originally, there was guaranteed to it, a fixed and certain interest on its
capital stock, and even the sovereign of the Netherlands was a sleeping partner of
it. The false hypothesis on which this retrograde policy was adopted, was a supposed
necessity for encountering what was called the over-grown capitals and enterprise of
England and America, as if the free capital and enterprise of Holland, which under
greater difficulties had not achieved much greater things, was unequal to carry on
the trade of its own colony without pilling and bolstering. This company has been
in existence for thirty years, and we may see by the result how little it has effected.
In 1851, the value of all the imports into the Dutch East India possessions,
exclusive of government stores, was 2,512,8932., but that of the exports 6,149,0882.
Of the exports, no lees than 3,99 6,7502. consisted of government produce, chiefly
sent to Europe through the Handel Maatschapij or Commercial Association, leaving
for the exports of private merchants no more than 2,152,3002., a large portion of it
the property of the privileged society itself. From this statement it will appear that
the exports, instead of being nearly the same as the imports, as they ought in all fair
trade, exceed them by the enormous sum of 363,6192., or by 144 per cent. I t is
evident that the difference, whether it ever reaches the treasury of Holland or not,
is mere tribute paid by Java, and this, too, in a form the most injurious. These
figures will further show that of the export trade of the Dutch possessions in India,
nearly two third parts are carried on by the government with the colonial revenue,
while little more than one third of it is conducted by private capital and enterprise.
This is assuredly the greatest violation of the sound principles of commercial policy,
which has been perpetrated since the overthrow of Indian monopolies, and one which
ought not to have been witnessed in our times.
In 1844, the total value of the imports of Java was 2,339,9712., which shows that
in the seven years ending with 1851 they had fallen off by no less than 172,9222. In
1842, the value of the exports was 5,034,5292. In the nine years, therefore, between
1842 and 1851, these had increased by the sum of 1,114,5602.
The government of Java and the other Motherland possessions of India is vested
in a governor-general, named by the king, and answerable for his acts only to him.
He is commander-in-chief of the military and naval forces, and possesses absolute
legislative and administrative power. The liberty of the press does not exist, indeed,
there is no press at all except that of the government, the political literature of Java
consisting of two newspapers, the government gazette, and another equally under a
rigorous censorship. In the three small British settlements, in the same quarter
of India, there are six, as free as the journals of England or America.
For the administration of justice, there is a supreme court sitting at Batavia, which
has a primary jurisdiction in a few cases, but is, generally, a court of appeal and
cassation for the whole Netherland possessions in India. There are three provincial
courts at the three principal European towns, Batavia, Samarang, and Sarabaya, for
the administration of civil and criminal justice, one of the judges of which performs
circuits. Justice to natives and Chinese is administered by the country courts in
which the president or chief civil administrator presides, having native chiefs for
assessors. In criminal cases, the jurisdiction of these courts is confined to offences
not capital, and, in certain civil cases, appeals from them lie to the provincial courts.
The finances are under the management of a director-general, a director of receipts
and domains, a director of produce and warehouses, and a director of cultivation,
these officers constituting the finance board. For keeping and auditing the public
accounts, there is a distinct department—the chamber of accounts. From the mixing
up of cultivation and trade with governmental affairs, the duties of these two departments
become sufficiently onerous, complex, and always greatly in arrears.
The tributary princes, of which the number of principal ones are no fewer than
one and twenty, administer the civil governments of their own countries. Of these,