THE ECONOMIC ORDER

The menwere always busy in the ricefields, but rice cannot be considered an important source of cash income. The Balinese grow rice for personal consumption and for offerings, selling only what is left over from the second planting, which they regard as unfit for offerings to the gods.

Their main source of income is in the sale of cattle and pigs, and of coconuts for making copra; a second source is from coffee, rice, and tobacco which they sell for export to Chinese middlemen. The trades and crafts are incidental sources of income and in the markets one may see people selling pottery, mats, baskets, and so forth, together with the vendors of vegetables, dried fish, spices, and flowers. Some craftsmen, such as the gold-and silverworkers, the blacksmiths, carpenters, weavers of palm, and pottery-makers, have regular incomes, but they remain independent artisans.

The Balinese men work for wages only spasmodically and as an adventure. In the larger towns they engage as chauffeurs, clerks, and servants - positions which are regarded as superior. With the affluence of tourists, some now derive an income from the sale of sculptures, paintings, silverwork, weavings, and so forth.

Ruled by the principle of live and let live, landowners allow others without land to share their crop in exchange for help. There are, however, organizations of labourers (seka medjukut) who work the earth for a communal wage. They are paid by time recorded by water-clocks (gandji) similar to those used in cockfights: a half coconut-shell with a small hole in the bottom, placed in a basin of water, the time it takes to sink being the measure. The fees are arranged by the head of the group.

At the present time, however, the economic balance has, tem. porarily at least, ceased to exist. With taxes and imported com. modities on the increase, and the price of Balinese products for export at rock-bottom levels, the whole population has come to find itself in need of cash, not in kepengs (Chinese cast valued at a fraction of a cent with which they buy the daily necessities) , but in Dutch guilders worth from five hundred to seven hundred kepeng according to the exchange. There is no demand for their insignificant products, and the deflated Dutch currency has become harder than ever to obtain.

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