24° 



Jhe Review of Reviews. 



Afyutt 1, 1906 



u.is iiinju\erisht- 1 and the people enfeebled by 

 chronic misrule. 



In any imparlial survey of the regime of the 

 Dutch East India Company it is absolutely essential 

 that we should understand the local conditions and 

 the material upon whidi this great trading compaji) 

 had to <-onstruct its fabric of government. It was 

 manifest Iv impossible for the Dutdi to directly 

 govern by white officials the millions of Java. 

 Neither the British East India Company, nor any 

 Hiitish Government, ever successfully essayed such 

 a task under similar conditions. 



They .were forced to' avail themselves of the cor- 

 rupt and complicated native organisation, and rule 

 'hrough the native chiefs, and by means of the ma- 

 i hinerv of government which was already in exist- 

 ■ nce. While the immediate result of Dutch rule was 

 ,1 substantial amelioration of the conditions of the 

 ;"Torer class, undoubted hardships continued to exist, 

 uwing chiefly to the extortion and self-aggrandise- 

 ment of the officials of the native organisation. 



The Dutch East India Company was disbanded 

 in 1798. after an existence of two hundred years. 

 In passing any verdict on its policy and accomplish- 

 iinnts, we must judge it with a full knowledge of 

 the actual conditions and difficulties, and by the 

 standard of contemporary history, and not by the 

 enlightened altruism of modern polity. We must 



A Type of Javanese Woman. 



partial historian th.it the rule of the Company in 

 Java and elsewhere was intlnitely superior to the 

 Moslem hierarchy they superseded. 



Many of the ^Iohanlmedan Sultans who were rul- 

 ing when the Dutch reached Java were monsters of 

 cruelty, " crazed to an Imperial frenzy " by the un- 

 restrained absolutism of their power. Compared to 

 some of these fiends, Xero and Caligula stand out 

 in history as urbane and philanthropic gentlemen. 

 It is related of Sultan Amangkoe Rat that he sig- 

 nalised his succession to the throne by the murder 

 of 20,000 individuals, and on the death of a 

 favourite wife he manifested his grief by starving 

 to death one hundred women, and committing other 

 nameless horrors. 



The lot of the pcxsr cultivator was wretched in 

 the extreme; the idea of property, even in wife and 

 children, was unknown to the native whenever the 

 will of his rulers intervened ; he was surrounded by 

 a cloud of spies, and harried by Sultans, rajahs, 

 district chiefs and tax-gatherers, until the poor 

 peasant became spiritless and apathetic, accepting 

 in dumb misery the exactions and cruelties of his 

 many rulers, and content to gain a bare subsistence 

 in the cultivation of a plot of rice. While these con- 

 ditions were not uni\ers.xl in Java, and instances of 

 better rule are recorded, the fact remains that there 

 was no good native government; and the country 



A Niche for a Deity 



