Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies

“ The coming of the child—the hope of the Netherlands—has given new spirit to the Dutch people, and is wakening them up; there is no longer any talk of coming under other flags. But they must not fall asleep again; they must no longer leave their isles and seas to a lonely solitude. The day has gone by when a nation can claim a land—as the Dutch did their part of New Guinea—and warn all others off, though they do not occupy it themselves. Effective occupation alone can make it theirs, and that gives promise now of taking place. ”

“ The Dutch East India Company charter was granted in 1602, to trade to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope and the Strait of Magellan for twenty-one years, and no other of the East India companies has been so successfully managed. The Dutch have derived large revenue from the islands they still hold there, viz.: Java, the Moluccas or Spice islands, a large part of Borneo, Sumatra, Celebes and several small islands in the Malay Archipelago. ”

“ Indeed the aims and ambitions of Germany in these seas are what we talk and think most about. The Dutch make nothing of many of their rich possessions; unless they wake up and do so, all may pass from them. Yet a treaty with us by which the Netherlands agreed never to part with an inch of territory here save to us, on condition that we guaranteed her safe possession of her over-seas' lands and the absolute integrity of the Netherlands, would for ever crush all these German and other aspirations, and render New Guinea valueless to Germany ”

“ Consequently everybody [Pg 385] in a village is directly interested in seeing that everybody else behaves properly.
"Well, to sum up the results of the Dutch system of culture in Java, we can say as follows:
"From being an expense to Holland, the island now yields an annual revenue of more than five millions of dollars to the royal treasury, after paying all the costs of the colonial rule. The expenses of the latter are by no means small, as the salaries of the officials are on a liberal scale. The Governor-general receives $100,000 a year, besides $60,000 additional for entertainments. ”

“ It is also the chief city of Netherlands India, or the Dutch East Indies. Their possessions in this Eastern Archipelago are numerous, including as they do the west coast of Sumatra, part of the coast of New Guinea and of Borneo, the four islands of the Moluccas and Celebes, the islands of Madura, Sambawa, Lombok, and Baly, and part of Timor, the five latter of which we passed in the Torres Straits, and Banka and Riou, near the Straits Settlements. ”

“ The Governor and Company of Batavia formed a local administration under the presidency of the Company of the Indies at Amsterdam, which latter consisted of seventeen delegates from the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands. In the year 1623, in which Carpenter commenced his governorship in the east, an event occurred in Amboina which threatened to produce a war between Holland and England. Some English ciiiofficials, in concert with some Japanese soldiers, had formed a conspiracy to kill the Dutch in the island and to gain possession of the fortress. ”

“ The king's ministers are now responsible to the Parliament. Liberty of the press and of public worship is recognised. The chief questions in Holland have been the reduction of its heavy debt, the increase of its army and navy, the improvement of agriculture and commerce, and the management of large and difficult colonial possessions." Holland "has to manage 28,000,000 subjects over the seas, mostly in Malaysia. She there holds all Java, parts of Borneo, Sumatra, Timor, the Moluccas, Celebes, and the western half of New Guinea; in South America, Dutch Guiana and, the Isle of Curaçoa. ”

“ Not much of this large island is known. The Dutch commenced trading in 1607, and in 1660 a fleet under Van Dam took it, expelling the Portuguese, who were allies of its sovereign. It is healthy on the whole. There are many lakes and mountains. Bantaeng is a great but quiescent volcano; Bonthian and Koruve both exceed 10,000 feet in height. The Bugis are a mercantile people and have done much for the prosperity of the place. There are Dutch officials in fifteen towns and villages. The territory of the Raja of Goa extends to within two miles of Macassar town. ”

“ Sir W. Temple mentions other two causes, the great application of the whole province to the fishing trade, and the mighty advance the Dutch made towards engrossing the whole commerce of the East Indies. "The stock of this trade," he observes, "besides what it turns to in France, Spain, Italy, the Straits, and Germany, makes them so great masters in the trade of the northern parts of Europe, as Muscovy, Poland, Pomerania, and all the Baltic, where the spices, that are an Indian drug and European luxury, command all the commodities of those countries which are so necessary to life, as their corn ”

“ The people not so long ago were savages and head-hunters. They are short, well-made, and fair, and are said to bear traces of a supposed Japanese origin. They are now very quiet, peaceable, and gentle—most attractive in every way; and are the best clothed, best housed, fed, and educated, most industrious, peaceable, and civilised people in the whole of the islands. And all this was done by the missionaries and the Dutch in a very short time! In 1822 coffee was introduced and roads and plantations made. The system of government by the Dutch is good and suits the people. ”

“ The people, though professedly Mohammedans, are in reality mostly pagans. This rich, beautiful, populous land is a Garden of Eden, despite the volcanoes, and the people are both contented and happy under Dutch rule, which suits them; and long may they continue under it, despite some present clouds in the sky.
The great buildings and cities of former days seem to have been extraordinary in size and magnificence. How strange, then, it seems that the dwellers in Java of those days had not penetrated south from island to island on to New Guinea and Australia. ”

“ The Dutch West India Company, modeled after the Dutch East India Company, having powerful fleets, sailing along the coasts of South America and the West Indies, preying on the Spanish commerce, capturing their vessels and cargoes and amassing wealth thereby, sought to induce men of wealth, daring, and ambition to relieve them of the undertaking of settling and developing the New Netherlands, which, instead of a source of revenue, had become a burden. ”

“ At the time when the Treaty of Münster gave to the United Provinces the legal title to that independence for which they had so long fought, and conceded to them the freedom to trade in the Indies, that trade was already theirs, safe-guarded by the fleets, the forts and the armed forces of the chartered company. The governor-general at Batavia had become a powerful potentate in the Eastern seas; and a succession of bold and able men, by a policy at once prudent and aggressive, had in the course of a few decades organised a colonial empire. ”

“ That the day of the British is over—that is the idea that is spread now through the Dutch East Indies—purposely spread—and which has extended to our own priceless possessions of Singapore and Hong-Kong, that is spreading throughout the whole East, and is it the East alone? The natives of all sorts believe it. We only hold India, Ceylon, and our Eastern possessions through prestige— that gone, they go too. ”

“ At the present day, a periodical, appropriated to the affairs of the Dutch East Indies, appears regularly at Amsterdam. But Englishmen take little interest in Dutch colonies and colonists; and although now and then some Eastern traveller has devoted to them a casual chapter, for a quarter of a century nothing worth the naming has been written in our language with reference to the island of Java.
Most men have a pet country which, above all others, they desire to visit. ”

“ The officer who presides here has the title of Governor General of the Indies, and the Dutch governors of all the other settlements are subordinate to him, and obliged to repair to Batavia that he may pass their accounts. If they appear to have been criminal, or even negligent, he punishes them by delay, and detains them during pleasure, sometimes one year, sometimes two years, and sometimes three; for they cannot quit the place till he gives them a dismission. ”

“ Excepting Belgium (Flanders, Antwerp, Brabant) the Dutch language is heard outside Holland in Dutch East India and in the West Indies. In East India pure Dutch has been preserved, though some Javanese and Malay bastard words may have slipped in by the habit of speaking to the population in the Malay tongue or in the native idiom. Hence no Indo-Dutch was formed there. This is different in the West Indies, where a great number of negro words and English words as well as English syntactical constructions have slipped in. ”

“ The Dutch East India Settlement, as it was officially called, attracted hundreds of immigrants. The reports of a salubrious climate, good soil, and, more than all, the promised religious toleration, were the allurements that brought more immigrants from Holland, Germany, and France. Cape Town even then was one of the most important ports in the world, owing to its great strategic value and to the fact that it was about the only port where vessels making the long trip to the East Indies could secure even the scantiest supplies. ”

“ In the Dutch Indies, for instance, they live in the most important commercial towns, and though the Government has never favoured them, and though they have had to compete with Chinese and with Europeans, they have succeeded in making their position sufficiently strong. ”

“ The Dutch East Indies hold out small temptation either to civil or military adventurers. Few visions of speedy fortune, fewer still of rank and glory, dazzle the young and ardent, and lure them from their native land to the fever-breeding swamps of Batavia. Thus the Dutch government cannot afford to be very squeamish as to the character and quality of the men it sends thither. Dr. Selberg’s account of his fellow-passengers is evidence of this. “Amongst the soldiers,” he says, “were natives of various countries, Dutch, Belgians, French, Swiss ”

“ Any one contemplating a tour in what is so truly called a Wonderland, can do no better than place himself in the hands of the above-named companies, from whose officials they will receive every aid, courtesy, and information. They may wander for months in the fascinating Dutch East Indies and not exhaust their varied interests.
I also would here like to take the opportunity of thanking all those people, personally unknown to me, who, on reading another publication of mine, did me the honour and the kindness to write me such very pleasant and friendly letters. ”

“ All other things are plenty, which, with the commerce of navigable streams, of which we will treat, quantities are sent to the islands in the West Indies, with which we have long since assisted the islands; and as the population increases, the productions will increase. The settlers who now come to the country raise their own provisions in the second year, and in the third year they have a surplus, which they exchange for wares and tobacco. ”

“ They might be extensively cultivated by the natives, if encouragement was given them; and a sufficient supply obtained for all the markets of Europe and America.
The Island of Bali, lying east of Java, from which it is separated by a narrow strait, has recently been subjected by the Dutch. Some difficulty growing out of the commerce with the people, is the alleged cause. It is an island of great importance to Holland, and would seriously injure her commerce with Java, should any other European nation take it under its protection, or plant a colony there. ”

“ Thirdly, by this survey, these countries are for ever marked out, so long as the map or memory of this voyage, shall remain. The Dutch East India Company have it always in their power to direct settlements, or new discoveries, either in New Guinea, from the Moluccas, or in New Holland, from Batavia directly. ”

“ In the Eastern Hemisphere, the productive field of the Dutch East Indies is under absolute control of British-Dutch interests, the Royal Dutch-Shell Syndicate. Prospecting licenses and concessions are granted only to Dutch subjects and to Dutch companies, and this, with the economic monopoly of the controlling British-Dutch interests, prevents foreign enterprise. ”

“ One cause, perhaps, which has prevented us from turning our attention in this direction has been, an unwillingness to interfere with the Dutch, who have been supposed to have been in possession of all the valuable islands in the archipelago, and from long-standing to have a prior right to this portion of the East; but, although the Dutch have not been idle, and are gradually adding to their possessions, there is little chance of our interfering with them, as there is room, and more, for the Dutch, ourselves, and every other nation which may feel inclined to compete with us. ”

“ For this, no one can blame the Dutch; for the chiefs require looking after, and are apt to give trouble. While the Island was held by the British Government, a mutiny broke out at Solo among the Bengal sepoys: on its suppression, it was found they had been tampered with by these chiefs, [26] and that numbers had been gained over to their cause.
Nothing can exceed the hospitality of the Dutch inhabitants of this part of Java: their houses are always open to the stranger, of whom they think too much cannot be made. ”