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ing knife and the nxo would bo quicldy
turned against the driver in these latter
days. Then no longer believe that the
European is interested in their welfare ,
and arc well aware ( hat they arc cheated
out of a large proportion of the value of
the coffee harvest. However much the
colonist may regret it , the period of
darkness is passing away and the time
of coercion in Java giving place to bet
ter conditions , and any attempt to stay
the tide of progress will only call forth
the enmity of the natives. The Malay
spirit of revenge has done much , per
haps , to bring about the present govern
mental era of comparative kindness ,
fair dealing and justice in Java. "
The state committee on government
coffee plantations says in its latest re
ports :
"If the native has not become more
progressive and sensible , ho is , at least ,
wiser in matters about which ho should
be kept in the dark , unless the govern
ment means to remove coercion at the
expense of the exchequer. "
The army of the Netherlands is well
paid and cared for. After the Indian
mutiny the Dutch wore in great fear of
an uprising in Java and placed less con
fidence in native troops. Only Euro
peans can hold officers' commissions.
The native troops are all Mohammedan ;
care is exercised to prevent natives of
any one district or province from com
posing a majority in any regiment , and
they are frequently changed from one
post to another.
The Dutch officials condescend equally
to the rich planters and the native
princes , while the planters hate and deride -
ride the officials , and the natives hate
the Dutch of either class and despise
their own princes who are subservient
to the foreigners. The wars and jeal
ousies of rank and race , and the caste dis
tinction resulting from the intermingling
of the white and dark meet , flourish with
tropical luxuriance ,
The Dutch do not allow the yellow
colonials ( Arabs and Chinese and their
offspring ) so-called European freedom ,
an expression which constitutes a suffi
cient admission of the existence of re
straint over the Asiatics. The native
hatred of Chinese is the inheritance of
those past centuries when the Dutch
farmed out the revenue to Chinese.
Under this system the Chinese were
given thousands of acres of land with its
concomitant servile Malay labor.
These boundaries werogradally extended
and by increased exactions and secret
levies the wretched natives wore op
pressed by their Asiatic brethren in a
manner that the tyranny and rapacity
of the Dutch never approached. Today
the Chinese hold financial supremacy
over both Dutch and natives , in appreci
ation of which they are unmercifully
taxed by the Dutch. Formerly the Cel
estials were assessed according to the
length of their queues and for each long
finger nail. They are mulcted on or
rival and departure , for births , deaths ,
and for every business privilege. In
1740 the Chinese fomented insurrection
against the Dutch , joining with the dis
affected natives. They intrenched them
selves in a suburban fort which the
Dutch invested , and the 20,000 Chinese
then within the walls were put to death ,
neither ago nor sex being spared.
Many officials and planters have mar
ried native wives and in the eyes of the
law these wives enjoy the privileges in
full of Europeans. No native man is al
lowed to marry or employ a European ,
not oven as a tutor or governess , and no
such subversion of social order as the
employment of a European servant is to
be thought of. The laws allow a Euro
pean to put away his native wife , to bo
divorced from her upon the slightest pre
text or to abandon her and her children
with small risk of their obtaining re
dress.
Railway trains in Java do not run at
night , ( though night service would be a
great advantage in a hot country ) , for
the reason that train crows are com
posed entirely of natives ( such work be
ing considered beneath the dignity of
Europeans ) , and the cautious Dutch
will not trust native engineers after
dark.
Dutch affairs in Sumatra are not so
prosperous. In 1872 the Dutch received
Sumatra from the English in exchange
for the imaginary rights of Holland in
Ashauteo and the gold coast of Africa.
The natives of Sumatra , warned by the
sad fate of the Javanese , have resisted ,
and the warfare is still in progress
Dutch commanders are well satisfied to
hold their chain of forts along the west
ern hills. In the province of Atchoen
the war has been almost continuous , and
the native population has in thirty years
been reduced from 4150 thousand to less
than 800 thousand. In one of four years
of the war , xcventy million guilders were
spent and seventy out of ever/ ; hundred
Dutch soldiers succumbed to the climate
before going into an encounter.
At Batavia , the principal city of Java ,
which was originally situated in the
midst of a deadly swamp , the mortality
was appalling and the settlement in its
early years was known as the graveyard
of Europeans. Dutch records show that
at Batavia 1,119,876 deaths occurred be
tween the years 1780 and 1752 , or in 22
years ; and 87,000 soldiers and sailors
died in the government hospitals be
tween the years 1714 and 1776.
To indicate the small per cent of
whites to Malays , I mention , in passing ,
that at the present time the total popu
lation of the district known as the
Malay Straits Settlements is probably
650 thousand , of whom not four thous
and are whites.
Other Colonies.
"Our attention in these days is fre
quently called to the admirable , and , in
many respects , successful administra
tive machinery introduced by Great
Britain in India. But it must not bo
forgotten that this machinery was
evolved from several centuries of rapine ,
corruption , disastrous blunders , savage
struggles , murderous revolts and inde
scribable cruelties , and that oven now
many wise men in England gravely
doubt in their hearts whether it was
best for their country to undertake the
conquest of India at all , and are
troubled by gloomy forebodings of a cal
amitous catastrophe that may some day
engulf that splendid fabric of Asiatic
dominion. "
A word as to colonies further north :
Macao , a Portuguese settlementfouuded
850 years ago on a little peninsula some
50 miles south of Hong Kong , has a pop
ulation of 80,000 ; of whom 75,000 are
Asiatics Chinese , Siamese , a few Filipinos
pines and Japanese , and the usual
quota of half castes , leaving but 5,000
people who may be classed as Europeans.
This colony has a Portuguese governor-
general and a body of troops , and its
administration is but a travesty on col
onial management. The greatest local
revenue is derived froni the licenses issued
(
sued to keepers of Chinese gambling
houses , where fan tan is played , and
probably the next largest incomes ac
crue from opium boiling licenses and the
monopoly controlling 'ricksha rentals.
Hong Kong , the brightest jewel in
Britain's imperial colonial crown , more
properly called the Victoria Colony , on
the little island at the mouth of the
Pearl river , is one of the world's great
est entrepots a free port and has a
population of 250,000 , only 10,000 of
whom are whites. Hero , as in all Orien
tal colonies , there is no opportunity af
forded the white laboring man to earn a
livelihood. To illustrate by just one
example : the Hong Kong Metropolitan
Dock Co. has seven docks , and largo
machine shops ; employing in round
figures 8,000 Chinese. All these are di
rected and controlled by only half a
dozen Caucasians. Most of the steamer
lines sailing from the Orient , including
the three companies running thence to
San Francisco , are manned by Asiatic
crews.
These facts I present for the cousid-
oration of the laboring men of the
United States of America.
In discussing the question of making
tropical colonies commercially profit
able , and talcing the Congo Free State ,
because of its freedom from national
rivalries , as a i'airoxample , Mr. Court
ney , president of the royal statistical so
ciety of Great Britain , says that nine
out of eveiy ten Europeans going to
tropical colonies are either buried or re
turn home invalided within three years ;
that the largest of the 120 Belgian trad
ing companies maintains a service of
only seven months out of every twenty-
four. Against such a death rate no
commercial profits can be shown. The '
daring colonizers have labored and per-
