Sugar production in the Dutch East Indies has doubled between 1870 and 1885; new crops such as tea and cinchona have flourished, and rubber has been introduced, leading to dramatic increases in Dutch profits.

Changes have not been limited to Java, or agriculture; oil from Sumatra and Kalimantan has become a valuable resource for industrializing Europe.

Dutch commercial interests have expanded off Java to the outer islands, with increasingly more territory coming under direct Dutch control or dominance in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

However, the resulting scarcity of land for rice production, combined with dramatically increasing populations, especially in Java, has led to further hardships.