The cultivation of sugar has been long carried on in Java, and since the decline of the coffee plantations it has developed into the leading industry of the island. There are experimental stations at Pasuruan, Pekalongan and elsewhere, where attempts are made to overcome the many diseases to which the cane is subject. Many of the mills are equipped with high-class machinery and produce sugar of excellent colour and grain. In 1853-1857 the average crop was 98,094 tons; in 1869-1873, 170,831, and in 1875-1880, 204,678. By 1899-1900 the average had risen to 787,673 tons; and the crops for 1904 and 1905 were respectively 1,064,935 and 1,028,357 tons. Prices fluctuate, but the value of the harvest of 1905 was estimated at about £15,000,000.
The cultivation of indigo shows a strange vitality. Under the culture system the natives found this the most oppressive of all the state crops. The modern chemist at one time seemed to have killed the industry by his synthetic substitute, but in every year between 1899 and 1904 Java exported between one million and one and a half million pounds of the natural product. Japan and Russia were the largest buyers. As blue is a favourite colour with the Javanese proper a large quantity is used at home.
Tea was first introduced to Java by the Japanese scholar von Siebold in 1826. The culture was undertaken by the state in 1829 with plants from China, but in 1842 they handed it over to contractors, whose attempts to increase their profits by delivering an inferior article ultimately led to the abandonment of the contract system in 1860. In the meantime the basis of a better state of the industry had been laid by the Dutch tea-taster J. J. L. L. Jacobsen of the Nederlandsch Handel Maatschappij, who introduced not only fresh stock, but expert growers from China in 1852-1853. The tea-planters (often taking possession of the abandoned coffee-plantations) have greatly improved the quality of their products. Assam tea was introduced in 1878, and this has rapidly extended its area. The exports increased from 12,110,724 ℔ in 1898 to 25,772,564 in 1905. More than half the total goes to the Netherlands; the United Kingdom ranks next, and, far behind both, Russia.
In 1854 the government introduced the culture of cinchona with free labour, and it had considerable success under F. Junghuhn and his successors, though the varieties grown were of inferior quality. Later seed of the best cinchona was obtained, and under skilful management Java has become the chief producer of quinine in the world. Cacao is produced in the Preanger regencies, Pekalongan, Semarang, Pasuruan, Besuki, Kediri and Surakarta. In 1903, a record year, 1,101,835 piculs (about 6540 tons) were produced. Broussonetia papyrifera is grown for the sake of its bark, so well known in Japan (Jap. kodsu) as a paper material. The ground-nut (the widely spread Arachis hypogaea from South America), locally known as kachang china or tanah, is somewhat extensively grown. The oil is exported to Holland, where it is sold as Delft salad oil. Tapioca has long been cultivated, especially in the Preanger. The industry is mainly in the hands of the Chinese, and the principal foreign purchasers are English biscuit manufacturers. The kapok is a tree from tropical America which, growing freely in any soil, is extensively used throughout Java along the highways as a support for telegraph and telephone wires, and planted as a prop in pepper and cubeb plantations. The silky fibre contained in its long capsuloid fruits is known as cotton wool; and among other uses it serves almost as well as cork for filling life-belts; and the oil from its seed is employed to adulterate ground-nut oil. The quantity of wool exported nearly trebled between 1890 and 1896, in the latter year the total sent to Holland, Australia, Singapore, &c., amounting to 38,586 bales. The rapid exhaustion of the natural supply of india-rubber and gutta-percha began to attract the attention of government in the latter decades of the 19th century. Extensive experiments have been made in the cultivation of Ficus elastica (the karet of the natives), Castilloa elastica, and Hevea brasiliensis. The planting of gutta-percha trees was begun about 1886, and a regular system introduced in the Preanger in 1901. The Palaquium oblongifolium plantations at Blavan, Kemutuk and Sewang in Banyumas have also been brought under official control. Java tobacco, amounting to about 35,200,000 ℔ a year, is cultivated almost exclusively in eastern Java. Among other products which are of some importance as articles of export may be mentioned nutmegs, mace, pepper, hides, arrack and copra.
Particular Lands.—At different times down to 1830 the government disposed of its lands in full property to individuals who, acquiring complete control of the inhabitants as well as of the soil, continued down to the 19th century to act as if they were independent of all superior authority. In this way more than 1½ millions of the people were subject not to the state but to “stock companies, absentee landlords and Chinese.” According to the Regeerings Almanak (1906) these “particular lands,” as they are called, were distributed as follows: Bantam 21, Batavia 36, Meester Cornelis 163, Tangerang 80, Buitenzorg 61, Semarang 32, Surabaya 46, Krawang and Demak 3 each, Cheribon 2, and Pekalongan, Kendal and Pasuruan 1 each. In Meester Cornelis no fewer than 297,912 persons were returned in 1905 as living on these lands. Of the 168 estates there are not 20 that grow anything but grass, rice and coconuts. In Buitenzorg (thanks probably to the Botanic Gardens) matters are better: tea, coffee, cinchona and india-rubber appearing amongst the objects of cultivation; and, in general, it must be noted that these estates have often natural difficulties to contend against far beyond their financial strength.
Minerals.—Of all the great islands of the archipelago Java is the poorest in metallic ores. Gold and silver are practically nonexistent. Manganese is found in Jokjakarta and various other parts. A concession for working the magnetic iron sands in the neighbourhood of Chilachap was granted in 1904. Coal occurs in thin strata and small pockets in many parts (Bantam, Rembang, Jokjakarta, &c.); and in 1905 a concession was granted to a company to work the coal-beds at Bajah close to the harbour of Wijnkoopers Bay, a port of call of the Koninklijk Paketvaart Maatschappij. The discovery by De Groot in 1863 of petroleum added a most important industry to the list of the resources of Java. The great Dort Petroleum Company, now centred at Amsterdam, was founded in 1887. The production of this company alone rose from 79,179 kisten or cases (each 8.14 gall.) in 1891 to 1,642,780 in 1890, and to 1,967,124 in 1905. In 1904 there were no fewer than 36 concessions for petroleum. At the same time there is a larger importation of oil from Sumatra as well as from America and Russia. Sulphur is regularly worked in the Gunong Slamet, G. Sindoro, G. Sumbing, and in the crater of the Tangkuban Prahu as well as in other places in the Preanger regencies and in Pasuruan. Brine-wells exist in various parts. The bledegs (salt-mud wells) of Grobogan in the Solo Valley, Semarang, are best known. They rise from Miocene strata and yield iodine and bromine products as well as common salt. The natives of the district are allowed to extract the salt for their own use, but elsewhere (except in Jokjakarta) the manufacture of salt is a government monopoly and confined to the districts of Sumenep, Panekasan and Sampang in Madura, where from 3000 to 4000 people are hereditarily engaged in extracting salt from sea water, delivering it to the government at the rate of 10 fl. (nearly 17s.) per koyang (3700 ℔). The distribution of this salt (rough-grained, greyish and highly hygroscopic) is extremely unsatisfactory. The waste was so great that in 1901 the government paid a prize of about £835 (10,000 fl.) to Karl Boltz von Bolzberg for an improved method of packing. Between 1888 and 1892 the annual amount delivered was 71,405 tons; in the next five years it rose to 89,932; and between 1898 and 1902 sank again to 88,856. The evil effects of this monopoly have been investigated by J. E. de Meyer, “Zout als middel van belasting,” De Ind. Gids. (1905). The scarcity of salt has led to a great importation of salted fish from Siam (upwards of 6600 tons in 1902).
Communications.—Roads and railways for the most part follow the fertile plains and table-lands along the coast and between the volcanic areas. The principal railways are the Semarang-Jokjakarta and Batavia-Buitenzorg lines of the Netherlands-Indian railway company, and the Surabaya-Pasuruan, Bangil-Mulang, Sidoarjo-Paron, Kertosono-Tulung Agung, Buitenzorg-Chianjur, Surakarta-Madiun, Pasuruan-Probolinggo, Jokjakarta-Chilachap and other lines of the government. The earliest lines, between Batavia and Buitenzorg and between Semarang and the capitals of the sultanates, were built about 1870 by a private company with a state guarantee. Since 1875, when Dr van Goltstein, then a cabinet minister and afterwards Dutch minister in London, had an act passed for the construction of state railways in Java, their progress has become much more rapid. In addition, several private companies have built either light railways or tramways, such as that between Semarang and Joana, and the total length of all lines was 2460 in 1905. There are some 3500 miles of telegraph line, and cables connect Java with Madura, Bali and Sumatra, and Port Darwin in Australia. Material welfare was promoted by the establishment of lines of steamships between Java and the other islands, all belonging to a Royal Packet Company, established in 1888 under a special statute, and virtually possessing a monopoly on account of the government mail contracts.
Administration.—Each village (dessa) forms an independent community, a group of dessas forms a district, a group of districts a department and a group of departments a residency, of which there are seventeen. At the head of each residency is a resident, with an assistant resident and a controller, all Dutch officials. The officials of the departments and districts are natives appointed by the government; those of the dessa are also natives, elected by the inhabitants and approved by the resident. In the two sultanates of Surakarta and Jokjakarta the native sultans govern under the supervision of the residents. (For the colonial administration of Netherlands India see [Malay Archipelago].)
History.—The origin of the name Java is very doubtful. It is not improbable that it was first applied either to Sumatra or to what was known of the Indian Archipelago—the insular character of the several parts not being at once recognized. Jawa Dwipa, or “land of millet,” may have been the original form and have given rise both to the Jaba diu of Ptolemy and to the Je-pho-thi of Fahien, the Chinese pilgrim of the 4th-5th century. The oldest form of the name in Arabic is apparently Zábej. The first epigraphic occurrence of Jawa is in an inscription of 1343. In Marco Polo the name is the common appellation of all the Sunda islands. The Jawa of Ibn Batuta is Sumatra; Java is his Mul Jáwa (i.e. possibly “original Java”). Jåwå is the modern Javanese name (in the court speech Jawi), sometimes with Nusa, “island,” or Tanah, “country,” prefixed.
It is impossible to extract a rational historical narrative from the earlier babads or native chronicles, and even the later are destitute of any satisfactory chronology. The first great era in the history is the ascendancy of the Hindus, and that breaks up into three periods—a period of Buddhism, a period of aggressive Sivaism, and a period of apparent compromise. Of the various Hindu states that were established in the island, that of Majapahit was the most widely dominant down to the end of the 15th century; its tributaries were many, and it even extended its sway into other parts of the archipelago. The second era of Javanese history is the invasion of Islam in the beginning of the 15th century; and the third is the establishment of European and more particularly of Dutch influence and authority in the island. About 1520 the Portuguese entered into commercial relationship with the natives, but at the close of the same century the Dutch began to establish themselves. At the time when the Dutch East India company began to fix its trading factories on the coast towns, the chief native state was Mataram, which had in the 16th century succeeded to the overlordship possessed by the house of Demak—one of the states that rose after the fall of Majapahit. The emperors of Java, as the princes of Mataram are called in the early accounts, had their capital at Kartasura, now an almost deserted place, 6 m. west of Surakarta. At first and for long the company had only forts and little fragments of territory at Jakatra (Batavia), &c.; but in 1705 it obtained definite possession of the Preanger by treaty with Mataram; and in 1745 its authority was extended over the whole north-east coast, from Cheribon to Banyuwangi. In 1755 the kingdom of Mataram was divided into the two states of Surakarta and Jokjakarta, which still retain a shadow of independence. The kingdom of Bantam was finally subjugated in 1808. By the English occupation of the island (1811-1818) the European ascendancy was rather strengthened than weakened; the great Java war (1825-1830), in which Dipå Negårå, the last Javanese prince, a clever, bold and unscrupulous leader, struggled to maintain his claim to the whole island, resulted in the complete success of the Dutch. To subdue him and his following, however, taxed all the resources of the Dutch Indian army for a period of five years, and cost it the loss of 15,000 officers and soldiers, besides millions of guilders. Nor did his great influence die with him when his adventurous career came to a close in 1855 at Macassar. Many Javanese, who dream of a restoration of their ancient empire, do not believe even yet that Dipå Negårå is dead. They are readily persuaded by fanatical hadjis that their hero will suddenly appear to drive away the Dutch and claim his rightful heritage. Several times there have been political troubles in the native states of central Java, in which Dipå Negårå’s name was used, notably in 1883, when many rebellious chieftains were exiled. Similar attempts at revolt had been made before, mainly in 1865 and 1870, but none so serious perhaps as that in 1849, in which a son and a brother of Dipå Negårå were implicated, aiming to deliver and reinstate him. All such attempts proved as futile there as others in different parts of Java, especially in Bantam, where the trouble of 1850 and 1888 had a religious origin, and in the end they directly contributed to the consolidation of Dutch sway. Being the principal Dutch colony in the Malay Archipelago, Java was the first to benefit from the material change which resulted from the introduction of the Grondwet or Fundamental Law of 1848 in Holland. The main changes were of an economical character, but the political developments were also important. Since 1850 Dutch authority has steadily advanced, principally at the expense of the semi-independent sultanates in central Java, which had been allowed to remain after the capture and exile of Dipå Negårå. The power of the sultans of Jokjakarta and Surakarta has diminished; in 1863 Dutch authority was strengthened in the neighbouring island of Madura, and Bantam has lost every vestige of independence. The strengthening of the Dutch power has largely resulted from a more statesmanlike and more generous treatment of the natives, who have been educated to regard the orang blanda, or white man, as their protector against the native rulers. Thus, in 1866, passports for natives travelling in Java were abolished by the then governor-general, Dr Sloet van de Beele, who also introduced many reforms, reducing the corvée in the government plantations to a minimum, and doing away with the monopoly of fisheries. Six years later a primary education system for the natives, and a penal code, whose liberal provisions seemed framed for Europeans, were introduced.