Almost Every Year There Is An
Earthquake Here, And At Intervals Of A Few Years, Very Severe
Ones Which Throw Down Houses And Carry Ships Out Of The Harbour
Bodily Into The Streets.
Notwithstanding the losses incurred by these terrific
visitations, and the small size and isolated position of these
little islands, they have been and still are of considerable
value to the Dutch Government, as the chief nutmeg-garden in the
world.
Almost the whole surface is planted with nutmegs, grown
under the shade of lofty Kanary trees (Kanarium commune). The
light volcanic soil, the shade, and the excessive moisture of
these islands, where it rains more or less every month in the
year, seem exactly to suit the nutmeg-tree, which requires no
manure and scarcely any attention. All the year round flowers and
ripe fruit are to be found, and none of those diseases occur
which under a forced and unnatural system of cultivation have
ruined the nutmeg planters of Singapore and Penang.
Few cultivated plants are more beautiful than nutmeg-trees. They
are handsomely shaped and glossy-leaved, growing to the height of
twenty or thirty feet, and bearing small yellowish flowers. The
fruit is the size and colour of a peach, but rather oval. It is
of a tough fleshy consistence, but when ripe splits open, and
shows the dark-brown nut within, covered with the crimson mace,
and is then a most beautiful object. Within the thin, hard shell
of the nut is the seed, which is the nutmeg of commerce. The nuts
are eaten by the large pigeons of Banda, which digest the mace,
but cast up the nut with its seed uninjured.
The nutmeg trade has hitherto been a strict monopoly of the Dutch
Government; but since leaving the country I believe that this
monopoly has been partially or wholly discontinued, a proceeding
which appears exceedingly injudicious and quite unnecessary.
There are cases in which monopolies are perfectly justifiable,
and I believe this to be one of them. A small country like
Holland cannot afford to keep distant and expensive colonies at
a loss; and having possession of a very small island where a
valuable product, not a necessity of life, can be obtained at
little cost, it is almost the duty of the state to monopolise
it. No injury is done thereby to anyone, but a great benefit is
conferred upon the whole population of Holland and its
dependencies, since the produce of the state monopolies saves
them from the weight of a heavy taxation. Had the Government not
kept the nutmeg trade of Banda in its own hands, it is probable
that the whole of the islands would long ago have become the
property of one or more large capitalists. The monopoly would
have been almost the same, since no known spot on the globe can
produce nutmegs so cheaply as Banda, but the profits of the
monopoly world have gone to a few individuals instead of to the
nation.
As an illustration of how a state monopoly may become a state duty,
let us suppose that no gold existed in Australia, but that it had
been found in immense quantities by one of our ships in some small
and barren island. In this case it would plainly become the duty of
the state to keep and work the mines for the public benefit, since
by doing so, the gain would be fairly divided among the whole population
by decrease of taxation; whereas by leaving it open to free trade
while merely keeping the government of the island; we should certainly
produce enormous evils during the first struggle for the precious
metal, and should ultimately subside into the monopoly of some wealthy
individual or great company, whose enormous revenue would not
equally benefit the community. The nutmegs of Banda and the tin
of Banca are to some extent parallel cases to this supposititious
one, and I believe the Dutch Government will act most unwisely if
they give up their monopoly.
Even the destruction of the nutmeg and clove trees in many
islands, in order to restrict their cultivation to one or two
where the monopoly could be easily guarded, usually made the
theme of so much virtuous indignation against the Dutch, may be
defended on similar principles, and is certainly not nearly so
bad as many monopolies we ourselves have until very recently
maintained. Nutmegs and cloves arc not necessaries of life; they
are not even used as spices by the natives of the Moluccas, and
no one was materially or permanently injured by the destruction
of the trees, since there are a hundred other products that can
be grown in the same islands, equally valuable and far more
beneficial in a social point of view. It is a case exactly
parallel to our prohibition of the growth of tobacco in England,
for fiscal purposes, and is, morally and economically, neither
better nor worse. The salt monopoly which we so long maintained
in India was in much worse. As long as we keep up a system of
excise and customs on articles of daily use, which requires an
elaborate array of officers and coastguards to carry into effect,
and which creates a number of purely legal crimes, it is the
height of absurdity for us to affect indignation at the conduct
of the Dutch, who carried out a much more justifiable, less
hurtful, and more profitable system in their Eastern possessions.
I challenge objectors to point out any physical or moral evils
that have actually resulted from the action of the Dutch
Government in this matter; whereas such evils are the admitted
results of every one of our monopolies and restrictions. The
conditions of the two experiments are totally different. The true
"political economy" of a higher race, when governing a lower race,
has never yet been worked out. The application of our "political
economy" to such cases invariably results in the extinction or
degradation of the lower race; whence, we may consider it probable
that one of the necessary conditions of its truth is the
approximate mental and social unity of the society in which it is
applied.
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