“Oh! oh!” again cried van Rheijn and van Beneden as in protest.
“Well gentlemen,” asked Grenits, “am I exaggerating? Tell me now, are they not, at home, exceeding all limits and bounds in the heavy taxation which they heap on the shoulders of the industrial and commercial classes?”
“Aye, but,” remarked van Beneden, “you must remember that in Holland people have to pay taxes as well as out here.”
“If you will take the trouble to look into the matter,” said Grenits, “you will find that they do not pay anything like what the people have to pay here. Then again, I ask, do they not exceed all bounds and limits in increasing the burdens, already too heavy, which the poor native population has to bear?”
“I quite agree with you there,” said Verstork.
“Do they not,” continued Grenits, “exceed all limits in the pitiful and niggardly way in which they treat their soldiers out here?”
“How so?” asked van Rheijn.
“Why, to give you but one instance, by loudly declaring that there is peace at Atjeh—a peace which has no real existence whatever—and thereby robbing the poor soldiers and doing them clean out of their already too meagre pay?”
“Oh, what need we bother ourselves about those soldier fellows!” cried van Rheijn.
“Do they not again,” continued Grenits, “overpass all reasonable limits, by encouraging and fostering the abuse of opium?”