It is no uncommon thing to find Regents in pecuniary difficulties who have an income of two or three hundred thousand guilders.[6] This is brought about by the princely indifference with which they lavish their money, and neglect to watch their inferiors, by their fondness for buying, and, above all things, the abuse often made of these qualities by Europeans. The revenue of the Javanese grandees may be divided into four parts. In the first place, their fixed monthly pay; secondly, a fixed sum as indemnification for their bought-up rights, which have passed to the Dutch Government; thirdly, a premium on the productions of their regency,—as coffee, sugar, indigo, cinnamon, etc.; and lastly, the arbitrary disposal of the labour and property of their subjects. The two last-mentioned sources of revenue need some explanation. The Javanese is by nature a husbandman; the ground whereon [[67]]he is born, which gives much for little labour, allures him to it, and, above all things, he devotes his whole heart and soul to the cultivating of his rice-fields, in which he is very clever. He grows up in the midst of his sawahs, and gagahs, and tipars;[7] when still very young, he accompanies his father to the field, where he helps him in his labour with plough and spade, in constructing dams and drains to irrigate his fields; he counts his years by harvests; he estimates time by the colour of the blades in his field; he is at home amongst the companions who cut paddy with him; he chooses his wife amongst the girls of the dessah,[8] who every evening tread the rice with joyous songs. The possession of a few buffaloes for ploughing is the ideal of his dreams. The cultivation of rice is in Java what the vintage is in the Rhine provinces and in the south of France. But there came foreigners from the West, who made themselves masters of the country. They wished to profit by the fertility of the soil, and ordered the native to devote a part of his time and labour to the cultivation of other things which should produce higher profits in the markets of Europe. To persuade the lower orders to do so, they only had to follow a very simple policy. The Javanese obeys his chiefs; to win the chiefs, it was only necessary to give them a part of the gain,—and success was complete. [[68]]
To be convinced of the success of that policy we need only consider the immense quantity of Javanese products sold in Holland; and we shall also be convinced of its injustice, for, if anybody should ask if the husbandman himself gets a reward in proportion to that quantity, then I must give a negative answer. The Government compels him to cultivate certain products on his ground; it punishes him if he sells what he has produced to any purchaser but itself; and it fixes the price actually paid. The expenses of transport to Europe through a privileged trading company are high; the money paid to the chiefs for encouragement increases the prime cost; and because the entire trade must produce profit, that profit cannot be got in any other way than by paying the Javanese just enough to keep him from starving, which would lessen the producing power of the nation.
To the European officials, also, a premium is paid in proportion to the produce. It is a fact that the poor Javanese is thus driven by a double force; that he is driven away from his rice-fields; it is a fact that famine is often the consequence of these measures; but the flags of the ships, laden with the harvest that makes Holland rich, are flapping gaily at Batavia, at Samarang, at Soorabaya, at Passarooan, at Bezookie, at Probolingo, at Patjitan, at Tjilatjap.
“Famine——? In Java, the rich and fertile, famine?”—Yes, reader, a few years ago whole districts were depopulated [[69]]by famine; mothers offered to sell their children for food, mothers ate their own children.——But then the mother-country interfered. In the halls of the Dutch Parliament complaints were made, and the then reigning Governor had to give orders that the extension of the so-called European market should no longer be pushed to the extremity of famine.
“Oh! this angelic Parliament!——”
This I write with bitterness—what would you think of a person that could describe such things without bitterness?
I have yet to speak of the last and principal source of the revenues of the native chiefs, viz., their arbitrary disposal of the persons and property of their subjects. According to the general idea in nearly the whole of Asia, the subject, with all that he possesses, belongs to the prince. The descendants or relatives of the former princes like to profit by the ignorance of the people, who do not yet quite understand that their “Tommongong,” “Adhipatti,” or “Pangerang” is now a paid official, who has sold his own rights and theirs for a fixed income, and that thus the ill-requited labour of the coffee plantation or sugar field has taken the place of the taxes which they formerly paid their lords. Hence nothing is more common than that hundreds of families are summoned from far remote places to work, without payment, on fields that belong to the Regent. Nothing is more common than the furnishing [[70]]of unpaid-for provisions for the use of the Court of the Regent; and if the Regent happens to cast a longing eye on the horse, the buffalo, the daughter, the wife of the poor man, it would be thought unheard-of if he refused the unconditional surrender of the desired object. There are Regents who make a reasonable use of such arbitrary powers, and who do not exact more of the poor man than is strictly necessary to uphold their rank. Some go a little further, and this injustice is nowhere entirely wanting. And it is very difficult, nay even impossible, entirely to destroy such an abuse, because it is in the nature of the population itself to induce or create it. The Javanese is cordial, above all things where he has to give a proof of attachment to his chief, to the descendant of those whom his forefathers obeyed. He would even think himself wanting in the respect due to his hereditary lord, if he entered his Kratoon without presents. These gifts are often of such small value, that to refuse them would be a humiliation, and the usage is rather more like the homage of a child who tries to give utterance to filial love by offering his father a little present, than a tribute to tyrannical despotism.
But the existence of such a good custom makes the abolition of a bad one very difficult.
If the aloon-aloon[9] in front of the residence of the [[71]]Regent were in an uncultivated condition, the neighbouring population would be ashamed of it, and much force would be required to prevent them from clearing that square of weeds, and putting it in a condition suitable to the rank of the Regent. To give any payment for this would be considered as an insult to all. But near this ‘aloon-aloon,’ or elsewhere, there are ‘sawahs’ that wait for the plough, or a channel to bring water, often from a distance of many miles. Those ‘sawahs’ belong to the Regent. He summons the population of whole villages, whose ‘sawahs’ need labour as well as his.——There you have the abuse.
This is known to the Government; and whosoever reads the official papers, containing the laws, instructions, regulations, etc., for the functionaries, applauds the humanity and justice which seem to have influenced those who made them. Wherever the European is intrusted with power in the interior of Java, he is clearly told that one of his first obligations is to prevent the self-abasement of the people, and to protect them from the covetousness of the chiefs; and, as if it were not enough to make this obligation generally known, a special oath is exacted from the Assistant Residents that when they enter upon the government of a province, they will regard this fatherly care for the population as their first duty.