of payment of Raffless land-rent; the peasant-farmers would also receive

cash payments for their crops, although not large ones, which they could
use to improve their land or (more likely) pay off their outstanding debts
from the old land-rent system.61
Although it undoubtedly fulfilled its primary goal of gaining revenue
for the Dutch treasury, the cultivation system increasingly came under
attack from liberals in the Dutch parliament, especially after crop failures
in 1844 resulted in severe famines that persisted into 1845 and 1846;
famine struck again in 1849. While it is unclear whether these famines
can be directly attributed to the burdens on the peasants imposed by the
cultivation system,62 it certainly presented the Dutch with an uncomfortable
paradox. As one of the leading spokesmen for the liberals,W. R. van
Hoevell, succinctly put it: we have in Java the strange phenomenon that
this island annually produces almost 40 million guilders in profit, but that
the people of this same island are unable to provide for their own needs. 63
Administrative changes in the Netherlands in 1848 also contributed to
the liberal backlash against the cultivation system. Prior to 1848, in the
Constitutions of 1806 and 1815, control over colonial policy had been
vested exclusively in the monarch; after 1848, the States-General was
given a role in colonial policy, especially in terms of supervision of the
budget. The new role for the Dutch legislative body simultaneously increased
the liberals awareness of the acuteness of the problems associated
with the cultivation system, and also gave them the means to do something
about them. However, the liberals faced a dilemma posed by the
fiscal success of the cultivation system: how could a more liberal system of
property rights be introduced without losing the colossal revenue that the
Dutch treasury was receiving from its colonial possessions? 64 Dutch colonial
policy only gradually began to move in a liberal direction, painfully
slowly and with considerable qualification, since new ways of raising revenue
had to be found to replace those secured by the cultivation system.
There were two main strands to the liberal plan. On the one hand, they
believed that the customary Javanese adat land use practices should be
respected, and this concern was built into the new Colonial Constitution
(Regeerings Reglement) of 1854. While it permitted the continuation
of the cultivation system, it insisted in Article 56 that so far as the cultures
occupy land cleared by the native population for its own use, this
land be disposed of with justice and with respect for existing rights and
customs.65 On the other hand, the liberals believed that the revenues of
As well as ibid., see Day, Dutch in Java, and R.E. Elson, Village Java under the Cultivation
System, 18301870 (Sydney: Allen and Unwin, 1994).
62 See Elson, Village Java, pp. 11418. 63 Cited in ibid., p. 102.
64 For an excellent summary, see Fasseur, Politics of Colonial Exploitation, p. 160.
65 Cited in Day, Dutch in Java, p. 328.
61