Enough, these grounds do not belong to the official inhabitant. For he would take care not to buy or to hire grounds the maintenance of which was too much for him. Now, when the grounds of the house assigned to him are too large to be maintained in good order, they degenerate in a few weeks (so luxuriant is the growth of plants) into a wilderness. And yet, such grounds are seldom if ever to be seen in a bad condition——yes, the traveller is often astonished at the beautiful park that surrounds a [[256]]Resident’s house. No functionary in the interior has a sufficient income to get this labour done for fair wages, and as a respectable appearance of the administrator’s house is necessary, in order that the population, attaching so much importance to externals, may find nothing in it to excite contempt, the question is, how has this result been obtained?
In most places the administrators have at their disposal persons condemned elsewhere, but not, however, kept at Bantam, on account of political reasons. But even in places where such are located, their number, considering the other kinds of labour required of them, is seldom in proportion to the work that would be required to keep large grounds in good order. Other means must be found, and the summoning of labourers to perform feudal tasks is had recourse to. The Regent or Demang who receives such a summons makes haste to obey it, for he knows very well that it will be very difficult for the administrator who abuses his power, afterwards to punish a native chief for a similar fault, and so the error of the one becomes the passport of the other.
Yet it seems to me, that such a fault on the part of an administrator must not, in some cases, be judged of with too much severity, and, above all, not according to European notions. The population itself would think it strange, perhaps because so unwonted, if he always and in every case held too strictly to the stipulations that prescribed [[257]]the number of those destined for feudal labour, as circumstances may occur which were not foreseen when these stipulations were made.
But as soon as the limit of what is strictly lawful has been exceeded, it is difficult to fix the point where such an excess would become criminal; above all, great circumspection is wanted, when it is known that the chiefs only wait for a bad example to imitate it in still greater excess. The story of that king who ordered that every grain of salt which he had used at his simple dinner, when he travelled through the country at the head of his army, should be paid for, because otherwise, as he said, this would be a beginning of an injustice that would at last destroy his kingdom——his name may have been Tamerlane, Noer-eddien, or Genghis Khan—certainly either this fable, or if it is no fable, the occurrence itself, is of Asiatic origin; and just as looking at sea-dikes makes you think of the possibility of high water, so it must be admitted that there exists an inclination to such abuses, in a country where such lessons are given.
The persons whom Havelaar had lawfully at his disposal could only keep clear a very small part of his grounds, in the immediate neighbourhood of his house, from weeds and underwood. The rest was in a few weeks a wilderness. Havelaar wrote to the Resident about the means of remedying this, either by paid labour, or by proposing to the Government to cause persons under [[258]]sentence of hard labour, to work in the Residency of Bantam, as elsewhere. Thereupon he received a refusal, with the observation that he had a right to put to work on his grounds the persons who had been condemned by him, as a magistrate, to “labour on the public roads.” Havelaar knew this very well; but he had never made use of this right, neither at Rankas-Betong, nor at Amboina, nor at Menado, nor at Natal. It shocked him to have his garden kept in good order as a fine for small errors, and he had often asked himself how the Government could permit stipulations to remain, of a nature to tempt the functionary to punish small excusable offences, not in proportion to the offences themselves, but in proportion to the condition or the extension of his estate. The very idea, that he who was punished, even justly, might think that self-interest was hidden under the sentence pronounced, made him, where he was obliged to punish, always give preference to the system, otherwise very objectionable, of confinement.
And it was from this cause that little Max could not play in the garden, and that Tine had not so much pleasure from the flowers as she had anticipated on the day of her arrival at Rankas-Betong. Of course, this and suchlike small misfortunes had no influence on the minds of a family that possessed so much material to procure itself a happy domestic life; and it was not to be ascribed to these trifles when Havelaar sometimes entered with a clouded brow, [[259]]after his return from an excursion, or after having listened to some one who had asked to speak to him. We have heard from his speech to the chiefs that he would do his duty, that he would oppose injustice; and at the same time, I hope that the reader may have seen from the conversations which I have communicated, that he certainly was a person capable of discovering and bringing to light what was hidden from others, or but dimly seen. It might therefore be supposed that not much of what happened in Lebak escaped his observation. We have also seen that many years before he had paid attention to this province in such a manner that, from the very first day when he met Verbrugge in the ‘pendoppo,’ where my history begins, he showed that he was no stranger in his new sphere of duty. By investigation on the spot, he had discovered much that was confirmatory of what he had previously suspected; and, above all, the official records had made him acquainted with the exceedingly miserable condition in which this country was. From the letters and notes of his predecessor, he observed that the latter had made the same observations. The letters to the chiefs contained reproach upon reproach, menace upon menace, and showed very clearly how this functionary would at last have said, that he intended to apply direct to the Government if this state of affairs continued.
When Verbrugge communicated this to Havelaar, the latter had replied that his predecessor would in that case [[260]]have acted very wrongly, as the Assistant Resident of Lebak ought in no case to pass over the Resident of Bantam; and he had added, that this could in no case be justified, as it was not likely that that high functionary would side with extortion and tyranny.
Such countenance of injustice was not to be supposed, in the way that Havelaar meant, namely, that the Resident would derive any advantage or gain from these crimes; but still there was a cause which made him unwilling to do justice to the complaints of Havelaar’s predecessor. We have seen how this predecessor had often spoken to the Resident about the prevailing abuses, and of how little use this had been. It is therefore not quite without interest to examine why he who, as the head of the whole Residency, was obliged to take care as much as the Assistant Resident, yes, even more than he, that justice was done, chose rather continually to oppose it.
When Havelaar was staying at the Resident’s house at Serang, he had already spoken to him about the Lebak abuses, and had received for answer,—“that this was everywhere the case in a greater or less degree.”
Now Havelaar could not deny this. Who could pretend to have seen a country where nothing wrong happened? But he thought that this was no motive to tolerate abuses where they were found; above all, not when one is appointed to oppose them; and, moreover, that after all that he knew of Lebak, the question was not of [[261]]abuses “more or less,” but of abuses on a very large scale, whereupon the Resident replied, “that it was still worse in Tjiringien” (likewise belonging to Bantam).