ABSTRACT
Of more than 60 million inhabitants counted at the 1930 census for the whole of Netherlands India, over 40 million were resident in Java and Madura. Yet these two islands make up only 7% of the total area of Netherlands India. The territories which account for the other 93%, known technically as the Outer Provinces, and often as the Outer Islands, are usually dismissed in popular surveys of the Dutch Empire and its problems. A more important part of the labor force required for European enterprises in the Outer Islands has been drawn from Java. Indeed the transfer of native workers and their families from overcrowded Java to the other islands where their labor is much in demand has become one of the major phases of the Dutch administration's policy. The domestic economies of the various islands of Netherlands India have become to an increasing extent interlocked, mainly as a result of this exchange of food supplies.
