Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/75

 PUBLIC REVENUE. 63 would be the perpetuation of the present abjectness and indigence of the cultivator, and, consequently, the poverty and debasement of the whole society. If, according to Adam Smith, the opulence or po- verty of a nation " depends very much, in every country, upon the proportion between that part of the annual produce which, as soon as it comes either from the ground or from the hands of the productive labourers, is destined for replacing a capital, and that which is destined for constituting a revenue either as rent or as profit,'* Java, and every other country of the Archipelago, are really poor countries, and must, in spite of a soil the most eminently gifted, always continue so while a land- tax, founded on the native principle, or almost any modification of it, is persevered in. It is only in reference to countries in the occu- pation of Europeans, that it can be necessary to propose any scheme of amelioration. In doing so, the interests of a very heterogeneous population must be considered. We have to legislate for Eu- ropeans, for Chinese, and for a mixed mass of na- tive inhabitants. The law should make no distinc- tion between them. Java is the coimtry which £ have chiefly in view in throwing out these suggestions. The first point is to establish a right of private pro- perty in the land. In the present abject state of society, there is no class of the native inhabitants to whom it belongs, or that has a better claim to it