Revenue Farming and Colonial Finances in the Netherlands East Indies, 1816–1925

Abstract

Throughout the nineteenth century the institution of revenue farming played a significant role in shaping the fiscal administration of the colony and its financial relations with the Netherlands. A general overview of the financial aspects of revenue farming is presented in the first part of this chapter. Section I begins with a brief outline of the circumstances in which the several revenue farms already existing in 1816 were continued and extended. This is followed by analysis and discussion of the financial contribution from the revenue farms until their virtual disappearance in 1925. The adverse effects of revenue farming upon the welfare of the population had been well known but opposition from many quarters was reinforced in the 1880s by an influential anti-opium lobby and a rising fear among Europeans of the economic power of the Chinese, many of whom had grown rich as revenue farmers. Abolition of the revenue farms was made possible by the raising of revenue from alternative sources. Section II reviews the history of individual revenue farms, not only the better known opium farm, but also the lesser ones about which little has been written in recent times. These farms displayed many variations in both regional conditions and the manner of their operation, as well as in the specific reasons for the timing of their development and piecemeal abolition.