Though Holland demands much of those who uphold her authority in the Indies, she is generous in her rewards. The Governor-General draws a salary of seventy thousand dollars together with liberal allowances for entertaining, and is provided with palaces at Batavia and Buitenzorg, while at Tjipanas, on one of the spurs of the Gedei, nearly six thousand feet above the sea, he has a country house set in a great English park. Wherever he is in residence he maintains a degree of state scarcely inferior to that of the sovereign herself. The residents are paid from five thousand dollars to nine thousand dollars according to their grades, the assistant residents from three thousand five hundred dollars to five thousand dollars, and the controleurs from one thousand eight hundred dollars to two thousand four hundred dollars. Though officials are permitted leaves of absence only once in ten years, those who complete twenty-five years' service in the Insulinde may retire on half-pay. Even at such salaries, however, and in a land where living is cheap as compared with Europe, it is almost impossible for the officials to save money, for they are expected to entertain lavishly and to live in a fashion which will impress the natives, who would be quick to seize on any evidence of economy as a sign of weakness.
Netherlands India is ruled by a dual system of administration—European and native. By miracles of patience, tact, and diplomacy, the Dutch have succeeded in building up in the Indies a gigantic colonial empire, which, however, they could not hope to hold by force were there to be a concerted rising of the natives. Realizing this, Holland—instead of attempting to overawe the natives by a display of military strength, as England has done in Egypt and India, and France in Algeria and Morocco—has succeeded, by keeping the native princes on their thrones and according them a shadowy suzerainty, in hoodwinking the ignorant brown mass of the people into the belief that they are still governed by their own rulers. Though at first the princes, as was to be expected, bitterly resented the curtailment of their prerogatives and powers, they decided that they might better remain on their thrones, even though the powers remaining to them were merely nominal, and accept the titles, honors and generous pensions which the Dutch offered them, than to resist and be ruthlessly crushed. In pursuance of this shrewd policy, every province in the Indies has as its nominal head a native puppet ruler, known as a regent, usually a member of the house which reigned in that particular territory before the white man came. Though the regents are appointed, paid, and at need dismissed by the government, and though they are obliged to accept the advice and obey the orders of the Dutch residents, they remain the highest personages in the native world and the intermediaries through whom Holland transmits her wishes and orders to the native population.
In order to lend color to the fiction that the natives are still ruled by their own princes, the regents are provided with the means to keep up a considerable degree of ceremony and pomp; they have their opera-bouffe courts, their gorgeously uniformed body-guards, their gilded carriages and golden parasols, and some of the more important ones maintain enormous households. But, though they preside at assemblies, sign decrees, and possess all the other external attributes of power, in reality they only go through the motions of governing, for always behind their gorgeous thrones sits a shrewd and silent Dutchman who pulls the strings. Though this system of dual government has the obvious disadvantage of being both cumbersome and expensive, it is, everything considered, perhaps the best that could have been devised to meet the existing conditions, for nothing is more certain than that, should the Dutch attempt to do away with the native princes, there would be a revolt which would shake the Insulinde to its foundations and would gravely imperil Dutch domination in the islands.
The most interesting examples of this system of dual administration are found in the Vorstenlanden, or "Lands of the Princes," of Surakarta and Djokjakarta, in Middle Java. These two principalities, which once comprised the great empire of Mataram, are nominally independent, being ostensibly ruled by their own princes: the Susuhunan of Surakarta and the Sultan of Djokjakarta, who are, however, despite their high-sounding titles and their dazzling courts, but mouthpieces for the Dutch residents. The series of episodes which culminated in the Dutch acquiring complete political ascendency in the Vorstenlanden form one of the most picturesque and significant chapters in the history of Dutch rule in the East. Until the last century these territories were undivided, forming the kingdom of the Susuhunan of Surakarta, who, being threatened by a revolt of the Chinese who had settled in his dominions, called in the Dutch to aid him in suppressing it. They came promptly, helped to crush the rebellion, and so completely won the confidence of the Susuhunan that he begged their arbitration in a dispute with one of his brothers, who had launched an insurrection in an attempt to place himself on the throne. Certain historians assert, and probably with truth, that this insurrection was instigated and encouraged by the Dutch themselves, who foresaw that it would be easier to subjugate two weak states than a single strong one. In pursuance of this policy, they suggested that, in order to avoid a fratricidal and bloody war, the kingdom be divided, two-thirds of it, with Surakarta as the capital, to remain under the rule of the Susuhunan; the remaining third to be handed over to the pretender, who would assume the title of Sultan and establish his court at Djokjakarta. This settlement was reluctantly accepted by the Susuhunan because he realized that he could hope for nothing better and by his brother because he recognized that he might do much worse.
In principle, at least, the Sultan remained the vassal of the Susuhunan, in token of which he paid him public homage once each year at Ngawen, near Djokjakarta, where, in the presence of an immense concourse of natives, he was obliged to prostrate himself before the Susuhunan's throne as a public acknowledgment of his vassalage. But as the years passed the breach thus created between the Susuhunan and the Sultan showed signs of healing, which was the last thing desired by the Dutch, who believed in the maxim Divide ut imperes. So, before the next ceremony of homage came around, they sent for the Sultan, pointed out to him the humiliation which he incurred in kneeling before the Susuhunan, and offered to provide him with a means of escaping this abasement. Their offer was as simple as it was ingenious—permission to wear the uniform of a Dutch official. This was by no means as empty an honor as it seemed, as the Sultan was quick to recognize, for one of the tenets of Holland's rule in the Indies is that no one who wears the Dutch uniform, whether European or native, shall impair the prestige of that uniform by kneeling in homage. The Sultan, needless to say, eagerly seized the opportunity thus offered, and, when the date for the next ceremony fell due he arrived at Ngawen arrayed in the blue and gold panoply of a Dutch official, but, instead of prostrating himself before the Susuhunan in the grovelling dodok, he coolly remained seated, as befitted a Dutch official and an independent prince.
The animosity thus ingeniously revived between the princely houses lasted for many years, which was exactly what the Dutch had foreseen. But, though the Susuhunan and the Sultan had been goaded into hating each other with true Oriental fervor, they hated the Dutch even more. In order to divert this hostility toward themselves into safer channels, the Dutch evolved still another scheme, which consisted in installing at the court of the Susuhunan, as at that of the Sultan, a counter-irritant in the person of a rival prince, who, though theoretically a vassal, was in reality as independent as the titular ruler. And, as a final touch, the Dutch decreed that the cost of maintaining the elaborate establishments of these hated rivals must be defrayed from the privy purses of the Susuhunan and the Sultan. The "independent" prince at Surakarta is known as the Pangeran Adipati Mangku Negoro; the one at Djokjakarta as the Pangeran Adipati Paku Alam. Both of these princes have received military educations in Holland, hold honorary commissions in the Dutch army, and wear the Dutch uniform; their handsome palaces stand in close proximity to those of the Susuhunan and the Sultan, and both are permitted to maintain small but well-drilled private armies, armed with modern weapons and organized on European lines. The "army" of Mangku Negoro consists of about a thousand men, and is a far more efficient fighting force than the fantastically uniformed rabble maintained by his suzerain, the Susuhunan. In certain respects this arrangement resembles the plan which is followed at West Point and Annapolis, where, if the appointee fails to meet the entrance requirements, the appointment goes to an alternate, who has been designated with just such a contingency in view. Both the Susuhunan and the Sultan are perfectly aware that the first sign of disloyalty to the Dutch on their part would result in their being promptly dethroned and the "independent" princes being appointed in their stead. So, as they like their jobs, which are well paid and by no means onerous—the Susuhunan receives an annual pension from the Dutch Government of some three hundred and fifty thousand dollars and has in addition one million dollars worth of revenues to squander each year—their conduct is marked by exemplary obedience and circumspection.
Ever since the Dipo Negoro rebellion of 1825, which was caused by the insulting behavior of an incompetent and tactless resident toward a native prince, to suppress which cost Holland five years of warfare and the lives of fifteen thousand soldiers, the Dutch Government has come more and more to realize that most of the disaffection and revolts in their Eastern possessions have been directly traceable to tactlessness on the part of Dutch officials, who either ignored or were indifferent to the customs, traditions, and susceptibilities of the natives. It is the recognition and application of this principle that has been primarily responsible for the peace, progress, and prosperity which, in recent years, have characterized the rule of Holland in the Indies. When a nation with a quarter the area of New York State, and less than two-thirds its population, with a small army and no navy worthy of the name, can successfully rule fifty million people of alien race and religion, half the world away, and keep them loyal and contented, that nation has, it seems to me, a positive genius for colonial administration.
Some one has described the Dutch East Indies as a necklace of emeralds strung on the equator. To those who are familiar only with colder, less gorgeous lands, that simile may sound unduly fanciful, but to those who have seen these great, rich islands, festooned across four thousand miles of sea, green and scintillating under the tropic sun, the description will not appear as far-fetched as it seems. A necklace of emeralds! The more I ponder over that description the better I like it. Indeed, I think that that is what I will call this chapter—The Emeralds of Wilhelmina.
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