But Although The System May Be A Good One, And As Well Adapted To
The Development Of Arts And Industry
In a half civilized people
as it is to the material advantage of the governing country, it
is not pretended
That in practice it is perfectly carried out.
The oppressive and servile relations between chiefs and people,
which have continued for perhaps a thousand years, cannot be at
once abolished; and some evil must result from those relations,
until the spread of education and the gradual infusion of
European blood causes it naturally and insensibly to disappear.
It is said that the Residents, desirous of showing a large
increase in the products of their districts, have sometimes
pressed the people to such continued labour on the plantations
that their rice crops have been materially diminished, and famine
has been the result. If this has happened, it is certainly not a
common thing, and is to be set down to the abuse of the system,
by the want of judgment, or want of humanity in the Resident.
A tale has lately been written in Holland, and translated into
English, entitled "Max Havelaar; or, the "Coffee Auctions of the
Dutch Trading Company," and with our usual one-sidedness in all
relating to the Dutch Colonial System, this work has been
excessively praised, both for its own merits, and for its
supposed crushing exposure of the iniquities of the Dutch
government of Java. Greatly to my surprise, I found it a very
tedious and long-winded story, full of rambling digressions; and
whose only point is to show that the Dutch Residents and
Assistant Residents wink at the extortions of the native princes;
and that in some districts the natives have to do work without
payment, and have their goods taken away from them without
compensation.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 139 of 419
Words from 37468 to 37770
of 114260
