of the
last century. During the period antecedent to the British occupation,
the revenue of the Government was derived from two monopolies: (1) that
of producing the more valuable crops, and (2) that of trading in all
products whatever. Meanwhile the mass of the natives were left entirely
to the mercy of the native princes, by whom they were subjected to all
manner of exactions.

The financial results of this state of things were seen in the fact that
in 1810 the gross revenue of Java was only three and a half million
florins,[16] a sum wholly inadequate to the requirements of
administration.

During the five years of British occupation (1811-1816) Sir Stamford
Raffles was Lieutenant-Governor. He at once introduced reforms. The
native princes were displaced; the village community, with its common
property and patriarchal government, was modified; a system of criminal
and civil justice, similar to that in force in India, in which a
European judge sat with native assessors, was introduced; the peasants
were given proprietary rights in the soil they cultivated; and complete
political and commercial liberty was established. An inquiry into the
nature of the respective rights in the soil of the cultivator, the
native princes, and the Government resulted in establishing the fact
that, of the subject territory the Government was sole owner of
seven-tenths. Of the remainder, two-tenths belonged to the Preanger
Regents, and one-tenth was occupied by private estates, chiefly in the
neighbourhood of Buitenzorg and Batavia. In order to teach the native
the western virtues of industry and independence, Raffles determined to
introduce the Ryotwarree system. The property in the land vested in the
Government was handed over to individual peasant proprietors. In return
for his land each proprietor was made individually and personally
responsible for the payment of his land tax, and his land was liable to
be sold in satisfaction of his public or private debts.

[Footnote 16: 12 florins = L1.]

Before the English administration the peasant had paid--(1) a land rent
for his rice lands to the native princes, amounting to a sum equivalent
to one-half of the produce of sawah (irrigated) and one-third of tegal
(unirrigated) lands; and (2) a tax of forced labour to the Dutch
Government, which took the form of unpaid labour in the cultivation of
the produce for export. Raffles abolished both, and in place of them he
established a fixed