The Australian National University (ANU) Library - Asia-Pacific Digital Collections: Boyes/Some Notes on Java

Java and Madura are now divided into twenty-five residencies, which comprise seventy-eight regencies, each of which latter divisions is ruled by a native regent, "assisted" by an assistant resident, who has as his lieutenant in his work a "controller." At the head-quarters of each residency is the resident, with powers of supervision over the officers in charge of the regencies. The work of administration is supposed to be done by the native regent, and all orders to the people are issued through him. The actual rulers are of course the Dutch; but it is their settled policy to carry, if possible, the native upper classes with them in their administration, and they endeavour to secure this object, even at the risk of much inconvenience and ineffectual government, which but too often results from this dual rule. The regency is again divided into small districts, each under the immediate orders of a "Wedana," who is, like the regent, a native of high family, with "mantries" under him. These "mantries," who are officials corresponding to the petty officers of police and the irrepressible chuprassies of India, are the relations

generally of the regent and the Wedanas. A regency thus is usually packed full of the regent's own people. How difficult therefore Max Havelaar found it to convict a regent of oppression and abuses may easily be understood. This impunity for native wrong-doers in high places is a necessary consequence of the Dutch policy. In each village there is a head-man, who is elected by the villagers. This man collects the land tax, allots the rice-fields, keeps the roster of men to work on the plantation or the roads, sees to the supply of gratuitous provisions for the mantries and others, and tells off the villagers as watchmen in their turn. He settles small disputes, and being chosen by the people he is trusted by them and is really a protection to them.

The work of governing this patient people is done smoothly - too smoothly. Where the surface is so unrippled, one may suspect strong currents underneath, and it is one of Max Havelaar's charges that it is well understood in Java all round that reports are usually to have couleur de rose. The Government of Dutch "India," he says, "likes to write home to its masters in the mother-country that all goes on satisfactorily. The residents like to announce this to the Government. The assistant residents,

who receive themselves from their controllers nothing but favourable accounts, send again, in their turn, no disagreeable tidings to the residents. From all this there arises in the official written accounts of these matters an artificial optimism, contradictory not only to the truth, but also to the real opinion of these optimists themselves." How great the under-currents maybe sometimes maybe judged from the fact that in April, 1889, no less than a hundred natives of Bantam (Max Havelaar's district) were lying under sentence of death for insurrection.

The principle upon which the courts of justice are based is the conferment of very limited powers indeed on both European and native officers sitting alone, even the resident himself being unable to inflict a severer punishment than ten days' imprisonment, while the Joint Court, called the "Landraad," in which the resident and regent with one other native of high rank sit together, can inflict the penalty of death subject to confirmation of the Supreme Government at Batavia. No Europeans, however, are subject to any other than purely Dutch courts. The Landraad is the principal civil as well as criminal court for natives, the resident, regent and Wedana exercising petty

civil jurisdiction when sitting alone. Great consideration is shown for the sensibilities of natives of high rank, even when charged with serious offences, and arrests of such persons are not made except under high authority. The Dutch have avoided one of our difficulties in absolutely declining to sanction anything in the shape of a native bar. The vakil is not, and no one is allowed to plead for another who is not his personal friend. For this mercy the Javan may be thankful that the English rule did not continue. Litigation receives therefore no unhealthy stimulus. Perhaps some might be inclined to think that the criminal courts are unduly idle, for the Landraads are said to sit not oftener than thirty days in the year. Probably a large amount of crime never comes to light at all.

The dual system, which pervades all the Dutch institutions in Java, holds good in the army also. Each regiment is composed both of Europeans and natives, the former taking the flank companies, the latter the centre, and the plan is said to work extremely well. There are also a number of negroes in the ranks, and the Government takes Europeans of all kinds as recruits for its white army. After the Crimean War the Foreign Legion largely found

service in Java. All Dutchmen in the island are liable to military service; but in ordinary times their obligations only extend to putting in a certain number of drills every year. These are rigorously exacted, and there is therefore, besides the 35,000 regular troops, a large body of this militia on which to fall back upon in time of need. As there is no landed aristocracy and the natives of position mostly hold lucrative appointments under Government, and as an Arms Act is strictly enforced among the lower orders, the Dutch are not likely to be annoyed with insurrections. Their only troublesome neighbours are the two Sultans of Surakarta and Jokyokarta; but these potentates are only allowed to keep a small body of troops, and they are watched by a force at Magellang, on the northern border of these Principalities. The Sultans receive large money allowances from the Dutch and also have private domains; but they are, it seems, well nigh powerless for mischief. In the Indian Netherlands the Dutch have, of course, a standing trouble in Achin, at the N.-W. of Sumatra. For the past fifteen years the Achinese have kept the Dutch at bay, and the latter's rule in this part of Sumatra is limited to the range of their guns from the fort. The whole of Java's fine surplus

revenue is swallowed up in this weary struggle, and Holland no longer credits the Home treasury, as she was wont, with three or four millions annually. She would gladly hand over to England Sumatra, and thus get honourably quit of her unprofitable possession.

From the slight sketch of Java and its institutions which has been given it will have been seen how different are the methods of government adopted by Holland and England in their administration of their Oriental possessions. We strive our very best to rule India in the interest of the native population. The Dutch do not profess to study the well-being of their Javan subjects, save as an object secondary to their own advantage. England expends the whole of her enormous revenue in India and sends not a rupee westwards, save for goods purchased, while Holland receives ordinarily from Java, as pure tribute, more than one-third of her colony's income. We lay ourselves out to give every Indian who cares to come forward for it what is practically a free education right up to the Universities which we have established, and still continue to establish, all over India: Holland of set purpose keeps its Eastern subjects as stupid and ignorant as is possible. We are scrupulously exact in all our dealings with

the natives, insisting on a full wage being paid for all work done, and checking, by all the means in our power, the tendency on the part of all natives in authority to compel labour, while the Dutch have no hesitation in utilising to the full this tendency and practically draw from this source a large portion of their revenue. The English protect all rights in land, however shadowy they may be, and confer others: the Dutch admit no such rights and studiously avoid the introduction of the proprietary principle. We persist in impressing on the native mind that the Western and the Oriental, the heir of Europe's civilisation and successor to Eastern conservatism, are all equal and equally fitted for, and capable of, understanding and of profiting by those social institutions and forms of government to which we ourselves are so attached: the Dutch frankly deny the equality and ridicule the notion that all the world should be ruled on the same principle.

To the Anglo-Indian visiting Java and viewing these great differences it is somewhat humiliating to feel that the Dutch have most unquestionably, in one point at any rate, succeeded where we have partially failed. Conscious of the absolutely upright intentions of his own Government, and convinced that it is the first

wish of every English official connected with the administration that all classes should share in the blessings which should flow from its benevolent measures, he is startled to find the great mass of agriculturists in Java manifestly in a far better material condition than our own ryots. This is unquestionably the case, and the fact undoubtedly proves that our treatment of the great questions relating to land-tenures, which a hundred years ago were partly similar to those which have from time to time arisen in Java, have not been dealt with in the manner best calculated to secure the happiness of the people. The denationalisation of the land, which from the time of Lord Cornwallis till the present day has been more and more completely effected, has resulted in the aggrandisement of a class of wealthy landlords and middlemen at the expense of the cultivator of the soil, and we have surrendered that splendid position as owners of the land which, enables the Dutch to appropriate for State purposes the whole rental of the country and to ensure that that rental shall always be so moderate in amount as to enable the peasant to pass his days in comfort and without care. Doubtless Holland would do well to treat her rich dependency in a more generous, more unselfish

spirit, and in many points she could undoubtedly take lessons from England - but the impartial student of the economics of the Eastern possessions of the two countries will certainly come also to the conclusion that India has much to learn from Java.

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Some notes on Java: Section 6