DUTCH EAST INDIES, the islands in the Malay Archipelago owned by the Dutch; situ ated between 6° N. and 11° S. lat., and between 95° and E. long. The names, area and pop ulation of the divisions are as follows: The areas given are accurate; but, except for Java Madura, the population is estimated. he figures, however, are approximately cor rect, as the official records give the census every five years. The population of some unexplored sections is not included. The last official re turns give the total population, approximately 48,000,000, or about seven times as large as that of Netherlands. The number of Europeans in Dutch East Indies in 1912 was 80,910; of Chinese, 563,000; of Arabs, 29,000; of people from parts of Asia other than China and Arabia, 23,000, and about 37,200,000 natives. The chief occupation of the people is agriculture. The greater part of the land of the island of Java is government property, but in the western part there are a number of private estates. Formerly the government or the private owners of estates were entitled by law • to one day's gratuitous work each week from each laborer on the estate, or, instead, to the payment of one guilder per head annually. In 1882 the greater part of these enforced services was abolished, and the remainder in 1914 in return for an increased poll-tax. Since the passage of the "agrarian"' law in 1870, which granted waste lands on hered itary leases for 75 years, agriculture has increased in Java and the other islands. At first the government raised all the most produc tive articles as sugar, coffee, rice, etc.; but since 1891 the government has ceased to cultivate sugar, and it is now grown on the lands hired by the natives or on lands held on emphyteutic tenure from the government. All the usual prod ucts are cultivated on private estates. The annual production of sugar has greatly in creased, amounting in 1914 to 1,363,380 tons ; the amount of coffee produced has decreased, amounting only to 38,718 tons in 1914; cinchona has increased rapidly, amounting in 1914 to 1,626,970 pounds; tea, tobacco and indigo have increased steadily. The yield of the tin mines
of Bilton and Ihouw and of the coal mines of Java, Sumatra and Borneo have increased each year. Buffaloes, oxen, cows and horses are raised extensively. In India horses are not used for agricultural purposes.
Manufactories are increasing slowly; rice mills, saw-mills, soap factories, ice and soda water manufactories are in some of the towns. The principal articles of export are sugar, coffee, tea, rice, indigo, cinchona, tobacco, coprah and tin. Nearly all of the exports, except rice, go to the Netherlands. The railroad and the mail and telegraph service is fair and is becoming better each year. The • local revenue derived from land, taxes on houses and estates, from licenses, custom duties, personal imposts, some indirect taxes, and from the government monop olies of salt, opium and railroads and the sale of government products. About one-third of the annual expenditure is for the army and navy, another third for the general administration and the balance for the local government administra tion. The °Java is controlled by the government. There are two other Dutch banks, several branches of banks in Great Britain and a number of savings banks. The legal coins and the weights and measures are the same as for Netherlands. The local weights and measures are as follows: The Pound = 1.091331 lb. avoirdupois.
? Prico lbs.
• CattY = it lb. • • Tienslcal -= 4 yards.
In the administration of justice the prin ciple observed is that Europeans and those as similated with them are subject to laws nearly similar to those in vogue in the Netherlands, and the natives are subject to their own cus toms and institutions. The administration of justice for Europeans is in charge of European judges, while that for the natives is almost wholly in charge of native chiefs.