The History of Java, v. 1-2Raffles, Thomas Stamford, Sir
History
The History of Java, v. 1-2
Raffles, Thomas Stamford, Sir
Java (Indonesia) -- History
Potatoes have been cultivated during the last forty years, in elevated
situations, near all the principal European establishments, and are
reckoned of a quality superior to those ordinarily procured in Bengal
or China. Few of the natives, however, have as yet adopted them as a
common article of food. Besides potatoes, most of the common culinary
vegetables of Europe are raised in the gardens of the Europeans and
Chinese. It must be confessed, however, that they degenerate, if
perpetuated on the soil without change; and that their abundance and
quality depends, in a great measure, on the supplies of fresh seed
imported from Europe, the Cape, or other quarters.
Having now given an account of the different kinds of produce raised
within the island, and the arts of husbandry practised by the natives,
I shall conclude this short sketch of Javan agriculture by an account
of the tenure of landed property, the rights of the proprietor and
tenant, the proportion of the produce paid for rent, the division of
farms among the inhabitants of villages, and the causes that have
obstructed or promoted agricultural improvements.
The relative situation, rank, and privileges of the village farmer and
the native chief in Java, correspond in most instances, with those
of the Ryot and Zemindar of Bengal; but the more frequent and more
immediate interference of the sovereign, in the former case, with any
tendency to established usage or prescriptive claim, has left no room
for that difference of opinion, concerning proprietary right, which
exercised the ingenuity of the highest authorities in the latter. In
Bengal, before the introduction of the permanent revenue settlement,
there were usages, institutions, and established modes of proceeding
with regard to landed estates, that rendered it doubtful in which of
the three parties more immediately interested, the proprietary right
should finally and lawfully be settled. The claim of the Ryot to
retain the land which he cultivated, so long as he paid the stipulated
contribution, seemed to raise his character above that of an ordinary
tenant removeable at pleasure, or at the conclusion of a stipulated
term. The situation of the Zemindar, as the actual receiver of the
rents, standing between the sovereign and the cultivator, although
merely for the purpose of paying them over with certain deductions to
the sovereign, and his frequently transmitting the office with its
emoluments to his children, although held only during pleasure, gave
his character some affinity to that of an European landholder. And
lastly, the sovereign himself, who ultimately received the rents, and
regulated them at his pleasure, and removed both Zemindar and Ryot, in
case of negligence or disobedience, was arrayed with the most essential
attributes of proprietary right, or at least exercised a power that
could render any opposite claims nugatory. Thus the Ryot, the Zemindar,
and the Sovereign, had each his pretensions to the character of
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