the plantations established, another advance was made by the department
to the manufacturers. This was capital sufficient to pay for the value
of the sugar crop, estimated as it stood, for the wages of the peasants,
and generally for the expenses of manufacture. This second advance was
at once repaid by the produce of the mill. At first the department
required the manufacturer to deliver the whole amount of produce to them
at a price one-third in excess of the cost of production. Subsequently
he was allowed the option of delivering the whole crop to Government, or
of delivering so much of the produce only as would pay for the interest
on the crop advance, together with the instalment of the original
capital annually due. Working on these terms, large profits were made by
the manufacturers, and there soon came to be a demand for such new
contracts as the Government had at their disposal.

[Illustration: A PRODUCE MILL. _Page_ 156.]

As for the peasants, they were undoubtedly benefited by the
introduction of the system. While the land rent continued to be
calculated as before, on a basis of the produce of ricefields, the value
of the sugar crop was so much greater than that of the rice, which it
partially displaced, that the money received for it amounted on the
average to twice the sum paid to Government for land rent on the whole
of the village land. Moreover, although the estimated price of the crop
was paid to the wedanas, or village chiefs, the wages for cutting and
carrying were paid to the peasants individually. The value of the crop,
the rate of wages, and the relations between the peasants and the
manufacturers generally, were settled by the controleurs.

In 1871, when the culture system was in full operation, there were
39,000 _bouws_, or 70,000 acres, under sugar-cane, giving employment to
222,000 native families, and ninety-seven sugar-mills had been started.
One-third of the produce was delivered to Government at the rate of
eight florins per picul,[17] and the remaining two-thirds were sold by
the manufacturers in open market. In the five years 1866-1870 the
Government profit on sugar amounted to rather more than 25,000,000
florins.

[Footnote 17: The picul = 135 lbs.]

Subsequently the cultivation of coffee, indigo, cochineal, tobacco,
pepper, tea, and cinchona was added to that of sugar. The system pursued
was not identical in the case of all produce. Cochineal, indigo, tea,
and tobacco were cult