The History of Java, v. 1-2

by Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles

The quantity of coffee delivered to government in the year 1815, exceeded seventy thousand píkuls; about thirty thousand píkuls more may have been exported by individuals, and the produce is greatly on the increase[63].

The Batavian arrack is well known in the European market, and was at one time imported in considerable quantities into the continent of Europe. It is distilled in a great measure from molasses, in which respect, as well as in the process employed, it differs so materially from the arrack of continental India, that it cannot with propriety be considered as the same spirit: it is in fact vastly superior to it, and capable of competing in the European market with the rum of the West Indies. Its price at Batavia, where any quantity can at all times be procured, is for the first sort about sixty Spanish dollars, for the second sort fifty, and for the third thirty Spanish dollars the leaguer; the first sort, which is above proof, thus selling by the leaguer of one hundred and sixty gallons, at the rate of about twenty-pence the gallon. In consequence of the prohibitory duties against the importation of this article into Great Britain or British India, this branch of commerce has latterly declined, and many of the distilleries have been discontinued.

The Dutch possessions of Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, and the Moluccas, dependent on the government of Batavia, always received their principal supplies of rice from Java, and considerable quantities have of late been occasionally exported to those places, as well as the Coromandel coast, with great advantage. During a scarcity of grain in England, the Java rice has also found its way to that market[64].

From Europe the most important imports, and those in constant demand for the native population, are iron, steel, copper, printed cottons of a peculiar pattern, and woollens. Of iron, not less than from one thousand to fifteen hundred tons are annually imported, which is worked up into the implements of husbandry, and into the various instruments, engines, and utensils, required in the towns and agricultural districts. The price has varied, during the last four years, from six to twelve Spanish dollars: the average has been about eight dollars per hundred weight for the English, and about nine per hundred weight for the Swedish iron. The small bar iron is always in demand in the market, in consequence of its convenience for working up into the different implements required. Steel is also in demand, to the extent of two or three hundred tons annually.

English printed cottons, of peculiar patterns adapted to the taste of the natives and Chinese, and white cotton sheeting cloth, always meet a ready and extensive sale; but the great objection to the former is the want of permanency in the colours, a disadvantage which all the English printed cottons labour under. A very extensive and valuable assortment of these cottons, imitated after the Javan and Malayan patterns, was recently imported into Java by the East India Company, and on the first sale produced very good prices; but before a second trial could be made, the natives had discovered that the colours would not stand, and the remainder were no longer in any demand. Would it not tend greatly to the improvement of the British manufacture, and consequently greatly extend the export, if the enquiries of scientific men in India were directed, in a particular manner, to an observation of the different dye-stuffs used in Asia, and to the manner followed by the natives in different parts, for fixing the colours and rendering them permanent?

Broad-cloths, velvets, glass ware, wines, and in short all articles of consumption and use among Europeans, may on Java be considered also, in a great measure, in demand by the native population, who free from those prejudices which preclude an expectation of the introduction of European manufacture into Western India, generally indulge in them according to their means. The climate of many parts of the Island renders the broad-cloth, particularly at some seasons of the year, an article of great comfort, and among the higher orders it is usually, as with Europeans, worn as a jacket: sometimes this is of velvet. A constant demand, limited only by the means of the purchaser, is also daily increasing for gold-lace and the other European manufactures used in dress, furniture, saddlery, &c.; it may therefore be easily conceived, to what an extent the demand for these articles is likely to be carried, among a native population of more than four millions and a half of souls, advancing in wealth and intelligence.

It is unnecessary to notice the extent of the articles required from Europe by the European population, as they are the same in all parts of India. The demand is, of course, partially affected by the extent of the military force, and by the wants of the officers; but where there is a permanent resident European population, of not less than a thousand souls, generally in good circumstances, it may be inferred that the demand is always great.

A continual traffic is carried on between Batavia, the Isle of France, and the Cape of Good Hope, by which the latter in particular is supplied with timber, rice, oil, and a variety of articles of consumption, the voyage being frequently effected in five weeks. While the Bourbon coffee bore a higher price in the European market, considerable quantities of coffee were sent from Java to that island, and from thence re-exported as Bourbon coffee.

The American trade was carried to the greatest extent during the existence of the anti-commercial system of the late French ruler, when American traders purchased the Java coffee at the rate of eighteen Spanish dollars the píkul at Batavia, and by a circuitous route imported it into France, at an advance of one hundred per cent. During this period, the purchases of the Americans in the market of Batavia amounted in some years to nearly a million sterling, for which they obtained principally sugar, coffee, and spices.

Having thus given some account of the internal and external trade of Java as it at present exists, of the advantages for an extensive commerce which it enjoys, of the articles which it can supply for the consumption of other countries, and those which it receives in return for its own consumption, and of the places with which its dealings are or might be most profitably conducted on both sides, I might now be expected to enter into the history of that trade since the subjection of the Island to the Dutch, the regulations enacted and enforced by them, for restraining or directing it, and the fluctuations it has undergone during two centuries of a rigid monopoly; but this inquiry would lead me to swell this part of the work to a disproportionate size. I shall now merely present my readers with a few extracts from the orders made in 1767, and strictly enforced throughout the Archipelago, for regulating the trade and navigation of the dominions subject to Batavia, and with a brief abstract of the amount of exports and imports during some of the subsequent years.