NETHERLANDS TRADING COMPANY, a chartered joint-stock association, with limi ted liability, formed to aid in developing the resources of the Dutch East Indian possessions. The company possesses peculiar privileges, acting exclusively as the com mission-agents of the Netherlands government in importing and selling the produce of the colonies, as well as doing a large business as merchants. Private enterprise having failed to develop the trade of Java, after that island was restored to the Netherlands, King William I., in 1824, erected the trading company, with a capital of upwards of 3 millions sterling, not only becoming a large shareholder, but guaranteeing an interest of 1 par cent on the paid-up capital. The early transactions were unprofitable, and in 1827 the king had to pay a part, and in 1830 the whole of the guaranteed interest. Front that date, it has prospered and handed over, front the trade of Java (q.v.), large surplus balances into the tuitional revenue, The head office of the directors is at Amsterdam, with agents at Rotterdam, Middleburg, Dordrecht, and Schiedam; the principal factory at Batavia, with agencies at the chief ports iu Java and the other Netherlands possessions in the Eastern Archipelago. • Formerly the company sent large quantities of goods to the colonial markets for the account of the Dutch government; but since the beginning of 1875, the business for the government has been confined to colonial produce, which is placed in factories, forwarded to Holland, and disposed of at the company's sales in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, etc. In 1875, they sold for the government 756,959 bales of coffee, which realized £4,378,292; 136,768 blocks of Noma and 2,936 of Billiton tin, at £376,548; 432 packages of cinchona bark and powder at £3,977. On the company's account, colonial produce was sold to the value of £761,267; and calicoes, yarns, woolen stuffs, various goods, precious stones, and money to the value of £214,688, were sent to Netherlands-India, Singapore, British India, China, .Japan, and Surinam. The company also advance money to planters and manufacturers in the colonies, who bind themselves for a number of years to consign their produce. They are also owners of a large sugar plantation, Resolutie, in Surinam. The present capital is 36,140,000 guilders, or £3,011,666. The commission paid by government is a chief source of profit. For 1873,
the net gain was £180,354, from which the shareholders received 51 per cent. The result would have been more favorable had not heavy loss been sustained in the Japan trade.
The success of the trading company depends mainly on the culture system, which was introduced into Java in 18,30. Under the native rule, the land belonged to the princes, and the cultivators paid one-fifth of the produce, and one-fifth of their labor as ground-rent. The Dutch, by conquest. are now the proprietors of the greater part of the island, and exact the old produce rent, relaxing the labor to one-seventh, and causing the holders of crown-lands to plant one-fifth of their cultivated fields with the crop best adapted for the soil and required for the European nyr het. The government also has supplied, free of interest, enterprising young men with the capital necessary to erect and carry on works for the preparation of the raw materials, to be repaid in ten yearly instalments, begin ning with the third year. The land-holders of a certain district allotted to a sugar-mill were bound to supply a fixed quantity, receiving advances upon the crop to enable them to bring it forward. The rule of fixed quantity was relaxed in 1860, and has caused great discontentment among the contractors. The European residents and their assist ants, the native princes, chiefs, and village head-men, receive a percentage according to the quantity which is manufactured from the produce delkered, so that all are interested in taking care that the lands are cultivated and the crops cared for. Sugar, tobacco, and tea are prepared by contractors; indigo, cochineal, coffee, cinnamon and pepper, by the natives under European surveillance, all passing into the trading company's factories for shipment to the Netherlands. The objections to the system are, that it does not leave the labor of the natives free, and that the passing of so much of the export and import trade through one favored company injures the general merchant. On the other hand, it must be said that the Dutch government only carries out the old law, and it is there fore not regarded by the peasantry as an infringement of their rights; and the merchants and capitalists of the Netherlands did not of themselves put forth sufficient efforts to work out the natural capabilities of Java'when it returned under Dutch rule.