TEMMINCK’S GENER AL VIEW OE THE DUTCH POSSES¬ 
SIONS IN THE INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO. 
A work recently appeared in Holland under the title of {t Coup 
el'Oeil General sur les Possessions Neeriandaises dans Y Inde Archi- 
pelagique,” and as the circumstances under which it has been written, 
no less than its own merits, give it an unusual claim to attention, we 
shall lay the more important portions of its contents before our rea¬ 
ders. It may he received as containing that view of the policy pur¬ 
sued by Holland in her eastern empire which her government is de¬ 
sirous of impressing on the world. The author (M. Teinmiuck, Di¬ 
rector of the Royal Museum of Natural History at, Leyden and a 
distinguished naturalist) states in his preface that a large proportion 
of the facts contained in the work have been derived from official 
documents, to which he had received access from the Minister of Co¬ 
lonies; and from the manner in which he alludes to the strictures of 
the English, German and French presses on the colonial policy of 
the Netherlands, and particularly to what he terms the diatribes of 
Raffles, Crawfurd and the Singapore newspapers, there can be little 
doubt that the Coup d’Oeil has been compiled with the concurrence 
of the government, and is intended as a vindication of that policy. 
What confirms the surmise is the fact that the book was advertized in 
May last in the Javasche Conrcmt (the only newspaper that Is pub¬ 
lished in Netherlands India, and, it is hardly necessary to add, an 
official one) and the attention of the public directed to it, by the Ge¬ 
neral Secretary to Government. 
Although we are very far from approving of many of the features 
of the policy which M. Temininck seeks to justify, we deem it just 
not to mar the effect of his vindication by any running comment. 
The first chapter is a precis of the modem history of Java. As a 
considerable portion of tire facts contained in it are already before 
the English reader, in the works of Sir S. Raffles and Mr. Crawfurd, 
we shall pass at once to the more novel and interesting contents of 
chapter 2nd. 
PRESENT ADMINISTRATION ,CULTURES, AND FINANCES. 
After numerous essays, more or less happily combined the one 
than the other, our government has been convinced that a nation can¬ 
not hope to be truly prosperous and powerful, unless her inferior 
classes are happy, and have enough of work and the means of provid- 
