Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/74

62 PUBLIC REVENUE. merely that portion of the produce of the earth paid to the proprietor for the use of the original and inde- structible powers of the soil, or that which is a re- muneration for the expenditure of capital in its im- provement, but also the whole of the legitimate pro- fits of the farmer and cultivator. The amount thus exacted is expended in revenue, and falls into unpro- ductive hands, — is spent, in short, upon the court, its officers, or agents, and not a farthing returns to be added to agricultural capital and to the improvement of the land. What but the extraordinary productive- ness of the soil, and benignity of the climate, with the peculiar relation of the land to the popula- tion, could, for a moment, render so enormous an impost tolerable, and present to us, notwithstand- ing such disadvantages, the extraordinary spectacle of a rich husbandry under such privations as those of the Javanese cultivator. Should such a system be persevered in when the wages of labour fall, the land becomes scarce, and the population begins to press against the means of subsistence, a period, according to the present rapid increase of popula- tion, not extremely remote, the peasantry of Java will be driven to wretchedness and poverty, and to crimes and immorality, to which, even in their pre- sent state of degradation, they are strangers. The very best that could be predicted of any system of revenue arrangements, founded on the extravagant and iniquitous principles of the native institutions.