Loss of Dutch Colonies.
“Once upon a time a gentleman had a beautiful bird, and the beauty of this beautiful bird was this, that he laid every year a golden egg. Naturally enough, the man was very much afraid that this bird should escape, or perhaps be stolen from him. He therefore first cut its wings, and then put it into a solid cage. When the children of that gentleman grew up, they gradually became of opinion that the bird had not been properly treated by their father. One thought that some portion of the golden egg ought to be used in ornaments on the cage of the bird. Another hinted that not only should the cage be embellished, but also enlarged; the bird would then enjoy more liberty, and might perhaps lay two golden eggs in a twelve-month, ‘in which case,’ whispered he, ‘I myself might come in for a little windfall.’ The third son went another step further; he would like to see the cage not only enlarged and gilded, but completely renewed as well; it ought to have much thinner bars to allow the bird more light and more air; this was its natural birth-right; for no bird was ever created to drag along its dreary existence in the dark. Finally, the fourth of the sons went so far as to say that it was ‘a burning shame’ to have cut the bird’s wings. That was simply misusing the right of the stronger, and showed great want of foresight in him that had entrusted his ‘governor’ with the bird.
“The old gentleman was not a little embarrassed. He was not blind to the danger of all these juvenile counsels, but he was an indulgent parent, and never turned a deaf ear upon his children. First then the cage was gilded, then enlarged, and ultimately replaced by another, brand new, and as light as light could be. Meanwhile the bird’s wings had been daily growing, and the animal at last managed to do that which every other bird would have done in its place. It escaped through the thin bars, and flew away.”
“I fully understand; the bird’s name was Java?”[16]
“Exactly so,” replied the “trunculant figure.”
“But what became ultimately of the bird?” I inquired.
“Ah, sir! it was after all a silly thing for the bird to fly away; it was not so badly off in its master’s house; but birds will be birds. It had not flown far yet when it was attacked by two enormous birds of prey; they pulled it right and left with their sharp talons, and thereby injured one another severely. Of course the weaker bird lost a good deal of its plumage, and was bandied from the talons of one vulture into those of the other. At last the two monsters dropped their prey on the ground in piteous condition, whilst they pursued the combat between them with their own weapons, until both were so crippled and exhausted that there could have been no question on either side of looking after the weaker bird.”
“If then I rightly understand your metaphor, France and England have both been compelled to let the island slip, and the Javanese are a free people by this time.”
“Oh, free, of course; so is the dormouse,” answered the Dutchman.
I suggested that his former remarks appeared to me to be more liberal.
“Those concerned the land, but not the people.”
“Well?”
“The Javanese will never change their skin. Those of the present day are simply a few grades lazier than their progenitors. Since the last great war Java has been declared a neutral territory; all nationalities have equal rights to trade on it, and what do you think has been the result? That of the few hundred-weights of coffee and sugar which the island continues to produce, scarcely anything finds its way to our own market; most of it goes to Marseilles and other parts of the Mediterranean.”
At this point Bacon interrupted our conservative friend, and spoke as follows: “I am no trader, sir; but unless I am improperly informed, the Javanese people feel much happier now than when they were under the rule of the East Indian Company or the Culture System. It appears to me that possessions which are not colonies proper impose peculiar obligations on the temporary possessor, and that the latter is hardly justified in dealing with the inhabitants as the leech does with the patient. Wherever a superior race holds sway over an inferior one, it is the duty of the former to raise its inferiors to any such state of culture as they may prove themselves susceptible of. From the nature of things, such rule is always temporary, as history has often taught us. The time must come when the bonds will be rent asunder; but they will hold so much longer together, and be so much more easily dissolved, as the government has less borne the character of oppression. A moral ascendancy is on the whole the most powerful, and that maintains itself best by fair and just treatment of the weaker by the stronger. I for one feel perfectly convinced that the only reason why your country has even kept the island as long as it has, was exclusively owing to the few necessary reforms which your government consented to make in the nineteenth century. But for those concessions, Java would have been lost to you long before; and with regard to the shifting of the market, don’t you think yourself, sir, that that was chiefly brought about by the Suez Canal?”
“Perhaps so,” replied the Hollander, not very good-naturedly; “I won’t argue the point with you; you are an Englishman, and you fellows think that you know everything better than we do; this, however, I maintain, that if this kind of thing is to continue, we shall go down as fast as we can.”
I silently rejoiced to think that my telescopical observations had more than convinced me of this, that my countrymen had by no means so visibly yet come down, and I was inclined to conclude from this consoling fact that they had known in time how to apply the old Dutch proverb: “When the tide turns, turn your beacons.” However, I did not venture to set my thoughts to words, for I should certainly have given offence to the “trunculant figure,” whose solitary line of conduct apparently went along his own individual interests, and whose knowledge of political economy and of the rights of man was evidently at a very low ebb.