ジャワの共同占有の解體をめぐって

Abstract

Beginning the latter half of the nineteenth century, plantations by the private capital replaced gradually the cultuurstelsel i.e., the forced cultivation system as the main pillar of exploitation economy in the colonial Java. At the same time, the communal ownership of rice fields widespread in the central and eastern Java emerged as a major problem for the colonial rule. The government of Dutch East Indies attempted in various ways to turn this into a personal and hereditary ownership ; the efforts, however, ended up eventually in failure. Within the communal ownership itself, on the other hand, there was a tendency to have the members' share fixed, resulting in the growing number of so-called comunaal bezit met vaste aandeelen, that is the communal ownership with fixed share. Moreover, as the increasingly easier sale of the land shows, the restrictions governing community became virtually meaningless. The communal ownership in Java, to sum up, was dissolved not in the drastic way the colonial government wanted, but rather through a gradual course. That the heerendienst, a forced labour system for public purposes, was not reduced radically was mainly responsible for this. At the same time, certain demerits of the communal ownership, for example its inability to meet with the increased production led to its dissolution. All told, the communal ownership of land in Java followed the course to dissolution. That is to say that the conditions necessary for the partition of peasantry were formed.