PEASANT FARM-HOUSES.
"Down to 1830, the expenditure to maintain the Dutch government in Java was a steady burden on the treasury of Holland, as it was greater than the revenue from the island. General Van den Bosch was sent out in that year with plans of his own for making Java profitable; but there were many who considered him a visionary schemer, whose experiments were sure to result in disastrous failure. He proposed to offer liberal terms to the respectable Europeans in Java for cultivating the soil, and producing such things as were needed in Europe. He further proposed to make the peasants who lived on the government lands plant a certain portion of those lands with crops needed in Europe, and which the government would buy of them at a certain fixed rate. His scheme was shaped to cover the following principles:
"1. Profit to the peasant, to make the new system acceptable.
"2. Profit to the contractor, to induce its extension by private enterprise.
"3. A percentage to the officials, to secure their active support.
"4. Personal interest of the village community in its success, so as to secure careful cultivation.
"5. Improvement in the tax-payer's means, in order to increase the revenue and facilitate its payment.[3]
"The plan for making advances to the contractors was carried out by crediting each one with the money estimated necessary to start his manufactory; and he was expected to apply it under government supervision to the construction of his mill, and placing it in working order. It was loaned to him for twelve years, without interest; but he was expected to repay a tenth of it the third year, and a similar amount in each succeeding year till the whole amount was repaid. Many persons refused the proposal, but there were others who gladly accepted it, and went to work at once.