Some Notes on Java: And Its Administration by the Dutch

Overview

From the PREFACE.

AT Sydney in the spring of 1889 A. D., while I was negotiating a passage to England for my wife and myself via China and Japan, an opportunity unexpectedly offered itself of visiting Java en route to Hong Kong. We did not let the chance slip, and at once, as became globe trotters, searched the booksellers' shops for anything which might enable us, on reaching the island, to pose before our fellow-travellers as experts in the matter of "Krises" and connoisseurs in coffee. To our disappointment we were unable to find any books of any kind relating to Java, except a record of travel called "The Australian abroad," and we had to content ourselves with the determination to make the best use of our eyes and ears while we were in the island, and to pay an early visit to the British Museum after our arrival in England to get at the best books which have been written on this most interesting Dutch possession.

From the day when, passing through the straits of Lombok, between the two mighty peaks of Lombok and Bali, we found ourselves within the great volcanic girdle which encircles the Malay Archipelago, until we left Batavia on our way to Singapore, we never ceased to wish that every day which was available might be extended to a month, and that many a friend whom we had left in India could be brought to our side to share in the very thorough enjoyment which our visit to the beautiful region secured for us.

The following pages are the outcome of our short sojourn in Java and of the renewal of the pleasures of that sojourn obtained from what has been written about the island and its administration by the Dutch. Little, except some comparisons between the methods of government adopted by Holland and by the English in the government of their Eastern possessions, and some vain regrets that we, as well as the Dutch, cannot sometimes see ourselves as others see us, can claim in this pamphlet to be original, but I have not shrunk on this account from issuing it, judging that some who have not the time or opportunity to consult the works from which much of my information is drawn, will be glad of that information in a compact form, while I am sure that I myself, on nearing the Javan coast, would have welcomed any such notes on the country I was about to visit.

It is too much to hope that any remarks which I have ventured to make on our administration in Hindustan, or that any description which I have given of the results of a directly contrary system pursued in Java, will have the slightest effect in making our rulers pause and consider whether European methods are in all cases suited to Oriental peoples, and especially whether we are justified in deliberately denationalizing the land. But unquestionably a study of Java and of its government is one of the first duties of an Indian governor, and if that is fairly undertaken it will lead, I think, inevitably to this conclusion, that in many matters it is a mistake to insist that our Oriental subjects should conform to our Western ideas and that, above all, the salvation of the Dutch Government has been its resolute determination to maintain the State's right in the soil, rigidly excluding the middleman and permitting no growth of any proprietary right....

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