Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/391

 ARTICLES OF EXrORTATION. SJ5 said to pay any rent, or to have any price, where- as in the West Indies, Edwards estimates the price of lands fit for growing coffee at L.2= per acre. Un- der tliese circumstances, and the cheap rate of labour, the quantity which might be grown appears ahnost interminable. It is only necessary for this, that the culture should h^^completely free and unshack- led, and that no injudicious impost should be levied upon it. The existing administration of the co- lony has made some liberal advances towards such a system, but half enough has not yet been effected, for it may safely be asserted, that a government that understands the ever-inseparable interests of itself and its subjects, has no more to do with the culture or trade in coffee, than in that of bread corn. Under the present management, it is aS' sorted by competent judges, that in five years from the time in which the high prices began to affect the free culture, or 1817, the quantity of coffee which Java will be capable of yield- ing will not be less than 70,000,000 of pounds, which will equal the production of St Domingo in the year 1790, when its cultivation was carried to the highest pitch under the French. From the rates at which coffee has been of late years sold in Java, it is impossible to form any opi- nion of its natural price. The supply of coffee grown in all the countries which produce it has j)ot, in fact, been equal to the demand of the