The History of Malay Archipelago. Alfred Russel Wallace

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      CHAPTER VII.

       JAVA.

       Table of Contents

      I SPENT three months and a half in Java, from July 18th to October 31st, 1861, and shall briefly describe my own movements, and my observations of the people and the natural history of the country. To all those who wish to understand how the Dutch now govern Java, and how it is that they are enabled to derive a large annual revenue from it, while the population increases, and the inhabitants are contented, I recommend the study of Mr. Money's excellent and interesting work, "How to Manage a Colony." The main facts and conclusions of that work I most heartily concur in, and I believe that the Dutch system is the very best that can be adopted, when a European nation conquers or otherwise acquires possession of a country inhabited by an industrious but semi-barbarous people. In my account of Northern Celebes, I shall show how successfully the same system has been applied to a people in a very different state of civilization from the Javanese; and in the meanwhile will state in the fewest words possible what that system is.

      The mode of government now adopted in Java is to retain the whole series of native rulers, from the village chief up to princes, who, under the name of Regents, are the heads of districts about the size of a small English county. With each Regent is placed a Dutch Resident, or Assistant Resident, who is considered to be his "elder brother," and whose "orders" take the form of "recommendations," which are, however, implicitly obeyed. Along with each Assistant Resident is a Controller, a kind of inspector of all the lower native rulers, who periodically visits every village in the district, examines the proceedings of the native courts, hears complaints against the head-men or other native chiefs, and superintends the Government plantations. This brings us to the "culture system," which is the source of all the wealth the Dutch derive from Java, and is the subject of much abuse in this country because it is the reverse of "free trade." To understand its uses and beneficial effects, it is necessary first to sketch the common results of free European trade with uncivilized peoples.

      Natives of tropical climates have few wants, and, when these are supplied, are disinclined to work for superfluities without some strong incitement. With such a people the introduction of any new or systematic cultivation is almost impossible, except by the despotic orders of chiefs whom they have been accustomed to obey, as children obey their parents. The free competition of European traders, however introduces two powerful inducements to exertion. Spirits or opium is a temptation too strong for most savages to resist, and to obtain these he will sell whatever he has, and will work to get more. Another temptation he cannot resist, is goods on credit. The trader offers him gay cloths, knives, gongs, guns, and gunpowder, to be paid for by some crop perhaps not yet planted, or some product yet in the forest. He has not sufficient forethought to take only a moderate quantity, and not enough energy to work early and late in order to get out of debt; and the consequence is that he accumulates debt upon debt, and often remains for years, or for life, a debtor and almost a slave. This is a state of things which occurs very largely in every part of the world in which men of a superior race freely trade with men of a lower race. It extends trade no doubt for a time, but it demoralizes the native, checks true civilization—and does not lead to any permanent increase in the wealth of the country; so that the European government of such a country must be carried on at a loss.

      The system introduced by the Dutch was to induce the people, through their chiefs, to give a portion of their time, to the cultivation of coffee, sugar, and other valuable products. A fixed rate of wages—low indeed, but, about equal to that of all places where European competition has not artificially raised it—was paid to the labourers engaged in clearing the ground and forming the plantations under Government superintendence. The produce is sold to the Government at a low, fixed price. Out of the net profit a percentage goes to the chiefs, and the remainder is divided among the workmen. This surplus in good years is something considerable. On the whole, the people are well fed and decently clothed, and have acquired habits of steady industry and the art of scientific cultivation, which must be of service to them in the future. It must be remembered, that the Government expended capital for years before any return was obtained; and if they now derive a large revenue, it is in a way which is far less burthensome, and far more beneficial to the people, than any tax that could be levied.

      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. Every statement of this kind is thickly interspersed with italics and capital letters; but as the names are all fictitious, and neither dates, figures, nor details are ever given, it is impossible to verify or answer them. Even if not exaggerated, the facts stated are not nearly so bad as those of the oppression by free-trade indigo-planters, and torturing by native tax-gatherers under British rule in India, with which the readers of English newspapers were familiar a few years ago. Such oppression, however, is not fairly to be imputed in either case to the particular form of government, but is rather due to the infirmity of human nature, and to the impossibility of at once destroying all trace of ages of despotism on the one side, and of slavish obedience to their chiefs on the other.

      It must be remembered, that the complete establishment of the Dutch power in Java is much more recent than that of our rule in India, and that there have been several changes of government, and in the mode of raising revenue. The inhabitants have been so recently under the rule of their native princes, that it is not easy at once to destroy the excessive reverence they feel for their old masters, or to diminish the oppressive exactions which the latter have always been accustomed to make. There is, however, one grand test of the prosperity, and even of the happiness, of a community, which we can apply here—the rate of increase of the population.

      It is universally admitted that when a country increases rapidly in population, the people cannot be very greatly oppressed or very badly governed. The present system of raising a revenue by the cultivation of coffee and sugar, sold to Government at a fixed price, began in 1832. Just before this, in 1826, the population by census was 5,500,000, while at the beginning of the century it was estimated at 3,500,000. In 1850, when the cultivation system had been in operation eighteen years, the population by census was over 9,500,000, or an increase of 73 per cent in twenty-four years. At the last census, in 1865, it amounted to 14,168,416, an increase of very nearly 50 per cent in fifteen years—a rate which would double the population in about twenty-six years. As Java (with Madura) contains about 38,500 geographical square miles, this will give an average of 368 persons to the square mile, just double that of the populous СКАЧАТЬ