Indonesia's Government Estates and Their Masters

Abstract

THE RESOURCE BASIS for Indonesia's economic development over the past ioo years has largely been provided by plantation agriculture.* Today it is questionable whether this will continue to be true much longer. From the middle of the i9th century, Dutch plantations pioneered the new crops and new methods which made the Netherlands Indies the remarkable example of the application of science to agriculture in the world.' They yielded most of the wealth that made possible the new investments from which the process of economic development in the former colony built up momentum. Because of them, the policy of the colonial government was constantly directed towards maintaining an export-oriented, low-wage economy, which gave Dutch estate produce much of its competitive strength on the raw material markets of the world. Naturally, Indonesian independence brought great changes for the estates, although at first they remained almost entirely foreign-owned. The inflation of costs left many marginal plantations unable to compete on world markets.2