money payment equivalent to a much smaller
proportion of the produce of the land than had been paid before to the
native princes alone.

The Dutch regained their East Indian possessions by the Treaty of
London. On their return to Java, they restored the village community
with its joint ownership and joint liability, and abolished all
proprietary rights of the natives in the soil, only allowing ownership
of land to Europeans. They contend that this attempt of Raffles to apply
Western principles to an Eastern society had already proved disastrous.
The peasants, on the one hand, had not acquired the habits necessary for
the successful development of their holdings, but, on the other, through
their inability to pay the land rent, were becoming hopelessly involved
in debt to the Chinese and Arab money-lenders. The broad fact, however,
remains that during the short period of British rule the revenue rose
from three and a half to seven and a half million florins, and the
population from four to five and a half millions.

As the old monopolies from which the chief part of the revenue had
formerly been derived had been abolished by the policy of unrestricted
commerce introduced by Raffles, it was necessary to find some other
method of raising money. It was decided to retain the land tax as a
basis of revenue, but, in order to make it more profitable, a return was
made to the original principle of land tenure under native rule, by
which the cultivator paid one-fifth of his labour and one-fifth of his
produce in return for the usufruct of the land. One day of gratuitous
labour in seven (the European week) was substituted for one day in five
formerly given to the landlord. In certain districts, namely, those of
which the Dutch became possessed by treaty and not by conquest, this
contribution in kind and labour was paid to the native princes, and not
to the Government. On private estates, again, as the Government had
parted with their feudal rights in alienating the property, a tax of
three-fourths per cent, on the estimated value of the property was
substituted. This tax, called _verponding_, was at most equivalent to
one-fifth of the net yearly income.

As before, the produce due from the peasants cultivating Government
lands was commuted into a money payment assessed upon the rice crops;
but this payment was made, not by the individual peasants, but by the
_wedanas_, or village chiefs, on behalf of the whole community. Beside