264 Celebes. 



whole cargoes of arrack, which would be carried over the 

 country and exchanged for coffee ; that drunkenness and pov- 

 ei'ty would spread over the land ; that the public coffee-plan- 

 tations would not be kept up ; that the quality and quantity 

 of the coffee would soon deteriorate ; that traders and mer- 

 chants would get rich, but that the people would relapse into 

 poverty and barbarism. That such is invariably the result of 

 free trade with any savage tribes who j)ossess a valuable j)rod- 

 uct, native or cultivated, is well known to those who have 

 visited such people ; but we might even anticipate from gen- 

 eral principles that evil results would happen. If there is one 

 thing rather than another to which the grand law of continu- 

 ity or development will apply, it is human progress. There 

 are certain stages through which society must pass, in its 

 onward march from barbarism to civilization. Now one of 

 these stages has always been some form or other of desi^otism, 

 such as feudalism or servitude, or a despotic paternal govern- 

 ment ; and we have every reason to believe that it is not pos- 

 sible for humanity to leap over this transition epoch, and pass 

 at once from pure savagery to free civilization. The Dutch 

 system attempts to supply this missing link, and to bring the 

 people on by gradual steps to that higher civilization which 

 we (the English) try to force upon them at once. Our system 

 has always failed. We demoralize and we extirpate, but we 

 never really civilize. Whether the Dutch system can per- 

 manently succeed is but doubtful, since it may not be possi- 

 ble to compress the work of ten centuries into one ; but at all 

 events it takes nature as a guide, and is therefore more de- 

 serving of success, and more likely to succeed than ours. 



There is one point connected with this question which I 

 think the missionaries might take up with great physical and 

 moral results. In this beautiful and healthy country, and 

 with abundance of food and necessaries, the population does 

 not increase as it ought to do. I can only impute this to one 

 cause — infant mortality, produced by neglect while the moth- 

 ers are working in the plantations, and by general ignorance 

 of the conditions of health in infants. Women all work, as 

 they have always been accustomed to do. It is no hardship 

 to them, but I believe is often a pleasure and relaxation. They 

 either take their infants with them, in which case they leave 



