The process of manufacturing the salt on the north-coast is very simple, and depending on evaporation by the heat of the sun alone, may be favourably contrasted with the comparatively expensive process adopted in the Bengal provinces. Reservoirs are filled from the sea at high tide, and in them the water is allowed to remain for several days; this being found necessary to prevent the salt from being bitter. It is then conveyed by means of canals and sluices to the pans, which are distributed in compartments and banked in, so as to contain the sea-water, much in the same manner as the rice fields. If the weather be dry and the sun clear, five days are found sufficient for the process of evaporation in the pans; after which the salt is collected together in heaps, where it usually remains five days longer before it is brought into store.
Under the Dutch government, the manufacture of salt was fanned out to Chinese as an exclusive privilege; and to these farms, under the plea of enabling the farmer to command a sufficient number of hands for conducting his undertaking, and enabling him to make his advances to government, extensive tracts of rice land were attached, over the population of which the farmer was allowed unlimited authority. By a continued extension of these tracts, a population far more numerous than the work at the salt-pans required was wrested from the administration of the regents and transferred to the Chinese: as they found their advantage in renting out the rice-fields, and employing the people in the transport of goods and other laborious offices of the country, the farms of course sold for more money. Under this system, it is difficult to say what was the actual cost of the salt to the farmer: the manufacturers were partly remunerated in land and partly in money, and the mode varied in every district; but this remuneration seldom amounted to more than a bare subsistence.
It was the practice of these farmers-general to underlet to other Chinese the privilege of selling salt, supplying them with the article at a certain rate, and these under-farmers sold the salt again to the petty retailers in the public markets at an advanced price. The price of the salt, after passing through the hands of the farmers, varied not only according to the distance from the place of manufacture, but according to the capital and speculation of the under-farmer; if he adopted the liberal system of obtaining small profits upon a large sale, the market was abundantly supplied at a low rate; but if, on the contrary, he traded on a small capital, and enhanced the price by insufficiently answering the demand, the price became proportionally exorbitant. In some places, as at Salátiga and Ung'arang, through which the salt was transported by inland carriage to the populous districts of the interior, the price was sometimes as high as one hundred and twenty, and even one hundred and forty Spanish dollars per kóyan, while along the coast, as at Chéribon and Surabáya, it was as low as thirty, and at Grésik twenty-five. The average in the year 1813, when the farming system was abolished, may be taken, one district with another, at about fifty-seven Spanish dollars the kógan, or rather less than thirty dollars per ton.
The quantity usually calculated for the annual consumption of Java and Madúra, including about one thousand kóyans estimated to be manufactured in the native provinces, is sixteen thousand kóyans, or thirty-two thousand tons. Under the arrangements now adopted for the manufacture and sale of this article, the average rate at which the manufacturers are paid is about six rupees the kóyan, including the charges of transport to the depôts, and the sale price varies from twenty-five to thirty-five Spanish dollars, according to the distance from the principal depôts; an adequate supply by means of smaller depôts is insured in every part of the country.
The salt of Java exported to the other islands of the Archipelago, competes with that of Siam and the Coromandel coast, and generally supersedes it, both on account of its quality and cheapness. The exportation is free to all places except Bengal, where, on account of its interference with the monopoly there established, it has, since the conquest of Java, been found necessary to prohibit its importation under penalty of confiscation.
The salt of the south coast being manufactured by a process which is much more expensive than that employed on the north, and at the same time being inferior in quality, it is only consumed in places which the latter is prevented from reaching by the difficulty of conveyance or inland tolls and prohibitions; and it has consequently been calculated, that the north coast salt, if allowed to pass toll free through the country, would in a short time supersede that from the south altogether. The inferior quality of the latter is caused by the quantity of the sulphate of magnesia it contains, which renders it by its bitterness unpleasant for culinary purposes.
Of late years, the value of the manufacturing industry of the country may be in some degree be appreciated from the assistance it has afforded to the European government, when, in consequence of the war, the importation of European articles had become insufficient for the public service. Broad cloth not being procurable for the army, a kind of coarse cotton cloth was manufactured by the Javans, with which the whole army was clothed. At Semárang were established five of these manufactories, having seventy or eighty looms each. One or two of them made cotton lace, and supplied the army agents with epaulets, shoulder-knots, tassels, &c. There were likewise manufactures of cotton stockings, tape, fringes, cartridge-boxes, sword-belts, saddles, bridles, &c. and in short every thing that could be required for the dress and accoutrements of both cavalry and infantry.
Under European superintendents were established saltpetre works, powder-mills, foundries for shells, shot, anvils, &c. and manufactories of swords and small arms; and when it is added, that the French government found means, within the the resources of Java alone, to equip an army of not less than fifteen thousand effective men, besides a numerous militia in every district, and that, with the exception of a few European superintendants in the more scientific works, all the articles were manufactured and supplied by the natives, it is not necessary to adduce any further proof of the manufacturing ability of the country.
Saltpetre is obtained in many parts of the island, and gunpowder has long been manufactured by the native inhabitants. A saltpetre manufactory was established near Grésik, under the superintendance of European officers, which it was calculated would furnish annually two thousand píkuls of that article to government, at the rate of eight rix-dollars per píkul, or one hundred and thirty-three pounds English. The importance of this establishment is manifest in the following observations of Colonel Mackenzie.
"I considered that one day would be usefully employed in viewing the saltpetre works, which a very few years back had been established here, at the risk, and by the zeal and ingenuity of private individuals, with the view of supplying this colony with that necessary ingredient for gunpowder. The best sulphur is supplied from a mountain near the straits of Báli. For further details of these mines; of the manner in which the nitre is obtained, by an ingenious application of the latest European improvements in chemistry; of the sulphureous crater of the mountain, whence the sulphur, in its utmost purity, is supplied; of the reports of the French engineers, last year, on the improvement of the gunpowder of Java; of the wood selected for the best charcoal, and of the present state of the manufactory and powder-mills at Semárang, I must refer, at present, to several papers collected by me on this subject, which may be usefully applicable to our manufactures of gunpowder in India. Passing over these and other considerations, I shall only observe, that of these mines, one of them is cut in caverns into the soft white calcareous rock; and another, more regularly designed, supported by pillars or masses of the native rock, covers regularly formed beds of the native earth, which being impregnated with the native nitre, saturated with the evacuation of the numerous bats that haunt these caverns, and mixed with a compound of wood ashes, supplies the liquid that is boiled in large kettles, and afterwards left to cool and crystallize. The whole process is carried on, in a regular manner, under the direction of the first executor of this really grand work, who now resides at Surabáya[52]."