The colonial government has never welcomed aliens to the isles, whether those bent on business or on pleasure. Dutch suspicion still throws as many difficulties as possible in the way of a tourist, and it took strong preventive measures against an influx of British or other uitlander planters when the abandonment of the culture system made private plantations desirable, and the opening of the Suez Canal brought Java so near to Europe. As a better climate, better physical conditions of every kind, and a more docile, industrious native race were to be found in Java than elsewhere in the Indies, there was a threatened invasion of coffee- and tea-planters, more particularly from India and Ceylon. The Boer of the tropics, like his kinsman in South Africa, found effectual means to so hamper as virtually to exclude the uitlander planters. Land-transfers and leases were weighted with inconceivable restrictions and impositions; heavy taxes, irksome police and passport regulations, and nearly as many restraints as were put upon Arabs and Chinese, urged the British planter to go elsewhere, since he could not have any voice in local or colonial government in a lifetime.[3] Six years’ residence is required for naturalization, but the Briton is rarely willing to change his allegiance—it is his purpose rather to Anglicize, naturalize, annex, or protect all outlying countries as English.
The governor-general of the colony may revoke the toelatings-kaart of any one, Dutch as well as alien, and order him out of Netherlands India; and a resident is such an autocrat that he can order any planter or trader out of his domain if it is shown that he habitually maltreats or oppresses the natives, or does anything calculated to compromise the superior standing or prestige of the white people. The Dutch are severe upon this latter point, and the best of them uphold a certain noblesse oblige as imperative upon all who possess a white skin. The European military officer is sent to Holland for court martial and punishment, that the native soldiers may remain ignorant of his degradation, and the European who descends to drunkenness is hurried from native sight and warned. While the conquerors hold these people with an iron grasp, they aim to treat them with absolute justice. Many officials and planters have married native wives, and their children, educated in Europe, with all the advantages of wealth and cultured surroundings, do not encounter any race or color prejudice nor any social barriers in their life in Java. They are Europeans in the eye of the law and the community, and enjoy “European freedom.” No native man is allowed to marry or to employ a European, not even as a tutor or governess, and no such subversion of social order as the employment of a European servant is to be thought of. There is a romance, all too true, of governmental interference, and the dismissal from his office of regent, of the native prince who wished to marry a European girl whose parents fully consented to the alliance. The laws allow a European to put away his native wife, to legally divorce her, upon the slightest pretexts, and to abandon her and her children with little redress; but fear of Malay revenge, the chilling tales of slow, mysterious deaths overtaking those who desert Malay wives or return to Europe without these jealous women, act as restraining forces.
The Dutch do not pose as philanthropists, nor pretend to be in Java “for the good of the natives.” They have found the truth of the old adage after centuries of obstinate experiment in the other line, and honesty in all dealings with the native is much the best policy and conduces most to the general prosperity and abundant crops. Fear of the Malay spirit of revenge, and the terrible series of conspiracies and revolts of earlier times, have done much, perhaps, to bring about this era of kindness, fair dealing, and justice. The native is now assured his rights almost more certainly than in some freer countries, and every effort is made to prevent the exercise of tyrannical authority by village chiefs, the main oppressors. He can always appeal to justice and be heard; the prestige of the native aristocracy is carefully maintained; the Oriental ideas of personal dignity and the laws of caste are strictly regarded, and, if from prudential and economic reasons only, no omissions in such lines are allowed to disturb the even flow of the florin Hollandward.
Already the spirit of the age is beginning to reach Java, and it is something to make all the dead Hollanders turn in their graves when it can be openly suggested that there should be a separate and independent budget for Netherlands India, and that there should be some form of popular representation—a deliberative assembly of elected officials to replace the close Council of India. In fact, suggestions for the actual autonomy of Java have been uttered aloud. There are ominous signs everywhere, and the government finds its petty remnant of coffee-culture and grocery business a more vexing and difficult venture each year. The Samarang “Handelsblad,” in commenting on it, says:
“The Javanese are no longer as easily led and driven as a flock of sheep, however much we may deplore that their character has changed in this respect. The Javanese come now a great deal into contact with Europeans, the education spread among them has had an effect, and communication has been rendered easy. They do not fear the European as they did formerly. The time is gone when the entire population of a village could be driven to a far-off plantation with a stick; the pruning-knife and the ax would quickly be turned against the driver in our times. The Javanese to-day does not believe that you are interested in his welfare only; he is well aware that he is cheated out of a large proportion of the value of the coffee that is harvested. Some people may think it a pity that the time of coercion is coming to an end in Java, but that cannot change the facts. The dark period in the history of Java is passing away, and every effort to prevent reforms will call forth the enmity of the natives.”
The state committee on government coffee-plantations says in its latest reports:
“It cannot be denied that the intellectual status of the Javanese at the present day is very different from that during the time when the coffee monopoly was introduced. The reforms which we have introduced in the administration of justice, the education according to Western methods, and the free admission of private enterprise have all brought about a change. If the native has not become more progressive and more sensible, he is at least wiser in matters about which he had best be kept in the dark, unless the government means to remove coercion at the expense of the exchequer.”
JAVANESE COOLIES GAMBLING.