Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 12.djvu/845

819 INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO 819 em it. my i mission was obtained by only 749 &quot; Europeans &quot; : (in&amp;lt;-luding Arme nians and Persians) and 1421 Arabs. Slavery wns abolished in the strictly Dutch portions of the Indies on the 1st of January 1860, and under Dutch influence it is being abandoned by the native states. The functions of the governor-general of the Dutch possessions may briefly be described as those of a viceroy. He has command OTer the land and sea forces, and supreme supervision of all parts of the general administration. His also is the right of declaring war and peace, and of concluding treaties with the native princes and peoples. No sentence of death can be executed in time of peace without his authority, and he enjoys the right of mercy and amnesty within certain definite limits. The governor-general is assisted by a council (liaad van Neder landsch Indie), consisting of a vice-president and four members (all named by the king), assisted by a secretary. In relation to the executive the council is an advising body ; but in the exercise of the legislative functions, and in certain definite cases, if the governor- general disagrees with his council, he must appeal to the king for direction. The council has its seat at Batavia, and meets every Friday. The governor-general has besides a cabinet called the general secretariat,&quot; the head of which is the general secretary (assisted by two Government secretaries), who acts as referee and adviser of the administration. Besides his strictly secretarial duties he com piles the Sfaatsblad van Nederlandsch Indie and the Regcrinys Ahnanak voor Nederlandsch Indie (published since 1816). A general chamber of accounts for the Dutch East Indies, consisting of a president and six members, has its seat in Batavia. The administrative departments have undergone considerable changes from time to time. At present there are live directors (1) of inland administration, (2) of education, religion, and industry, (3) ofpubliccivil works, (4) of finances, and(5)of justice, the lastadded in 1869. To the department of justice belong, not only the supervision of the courts and law business, but that of the wccskamcrs and bocdcl- kamcrs or chambers of wardship and legacies, the granting of right of residence, the control of the press, and the right of public meeting. The supreme court has its seat at Batavia, and there is an elaborate and intricate system of subordinate courts of justice, European and native. It is only the chief officials that are Europeans, in accordance with the dominant policy in the whole constitution of the departments of inland administration and justice, that the relations of native with native should be left as much as possible in the hands of native courts. In all about two hundred native princes are tributary to the Dutch authorities. To the department of finance belong (1) the taxes and resources of the colony, farmed or unfarmed, so far as they do not depend on some other department ; (2) the control of public auctions ; (3) tl.e mint ; and (4) various duties connected with the colonial budget and the colonial treasury. The custom of farming a large part of the revenue has long been in vogue, and despite the theoretical objections to the system, it has one great advantage, it pays. The sale of opium is one of the principal Government &quot;farms.&quot; The cultivation of the poppy is absolutely forbidden in the archipelago, and the demand is satisfied by imports from British India and the Levant. From the Government supply so obtained the contractor is obliged to take a certain definite quantity at a high fixed price ; beyond this he may purchase at ordinary cost price what he finds requisite. The total gain from this monopoly was .1,259, 21 2 in 1879, though the local authorities are instructed to do all in their power to prevent the spread of opium-eating. The whole of what are called &quot; the lesser resources &quot; of the Government, consisting of a curious miscellany of taxes, do not yield a third of the opium revenue. Of the branches of the revenue not farmed, the chief are the customs or import and export duties. The average these yielded for the five years 1874-78 was 720,378. Two important taxes, known as the personal tax and the income tax, both levied on Europeans, were introduced in 1879. The most striking feature in the administration of the Dutch East Indies is undoubtedly this that, instead of being a drain on the resources of Holland, the colony pays annually a most im portant contribution into the national exchequer. &quot;When these pos sessions were taken over by the mother country they were burdened with a large debt, and the financial state of the colony remained very unsatisfactory for many years ; but on the introduction of the culture system in 1830 the aspect of affairs was speedily changed, and in the fourteen years from 1865 to 1878 there was a clear gain of about 18,000,000 from the colonial administration. On December 31, 1878, the strength of the military forces in the East Indies was 38,106 men, of whom nearly one half were Europeans. This, however, does not include the militia corps, which were estab lished in certain places. At the same date the East Indian navy comprised 27 ships and 154 cannon. The strength of the military marine was 2934 Europeans and 969 natives, while the vessels were manned by 2630 Europeans and 1012 natives. There is an elaborate department of education, public worship, 1 The technical uso of this name extends it to all except Arabs, Moors, Chinese, and generally ull Mahometans and pagans, who arc collectively classed as natives. and industry ; but it is astonishing how little has hitherto been accomplished in the European instruction and Christianizing of the natives. The educational organization consists of two departments a Educa- European ami a native ; but it is only within recent years that tion. the latter has begun to attract the active interest of the Govern ment. For secondary European education the great institution is the Gymnasium Willem 111. at Batavia. In 1878 there were 68 Government primary schools for Europeans in Java and Madura, and 28 in the Outer Possessions, with a total attendance of 7223 children. With the exception of certain medical colleges, all the institutions in the native department are for primary instruction. At the end of 1878 these schools numbered 376 ; 214 of them were in the Outer Possessions. In Java and Madura there is a grand total of 28,000 native children receiving vernacular education, and if the Outer Possessions are included the number must be more than doubled. There are nine training schools for native teachers, most of them established since 1870 ; and in 1879 four schools were opened for sons of the native princes and aristocracy. The Protestant churches of the Dutch Indies compose a church .Religion, union, administered very much according to Presbyterian usage. The number of preachers and assistant preachers is limited by Government, the former to 35 and the latter to 21, by a royal decree of 1863. The 1-ioman Catholics are under a vicar-apostolic, who is also bishop of Batavia, and 20 of their ecclesiastics are paid by the state. Christianity has not as yet made much progress among the natives, the returns for 1878 showing only 174,462 native Christians, of whom 225 were Chinese. In Java and Madura the Christians do not number so much as 1 in 2300 of the popula tion. Mahometanism is the religion of a large proportion of the natives, and is at present making more advances in relation to the heathen population than Christianity. The Dutch Government grants passes for about a shilling each to those who wish to make the pilgrimage to Mecca ; and the numbers who set out in 1877, 1878, and 1879 respectively were 6893, 5632, and 5438, besides about 1500 from the native states. The administration of the department of public works shows Public that the Dutch have not belied their European reputation for civil works, engineering and industrial activity in their Indian colony. The roads and bridges, canals and irrigation works, which they have executed in their central island win the admiration of foreign visitants. Java is the only island which has even the beginning of a railway system, but considerable progress has been made there ; and the postal and telegraph services are being rapidly developed. The total imports of private trade (including specie) amounted T ni p 0r ts. in 1876 to 116,392,762 florins (1 fiorin = ls. 8d.), and in 1877 to 126,066,462 ; and at the same time 5,118,938 florins and 27,637,954 florins respectively were imported in name of the Government. Of the 109, 177,424 florins of general imports (exclud ing specie) in 1876, 4 7, 694, 270 florins were from Holland, 33,042,854 from other countries outside of the archipelago, and no less than 27,632,294 from Singapore alone ; and of the Government imports 2,207,611 florins were from Holland and 2,033,910 from Singapore. In 1877 cotton manufactures figure among the general imports for 43,566,127 florins, and yarns for 3,325,323; rice for 7,798,348; petroleum, 5,430,103; cigars, 2,892,369; tea, 2,405,511; coals, 2,268,520; and iron and iron goods 2,362,525. The opium is the most extensive of the Government imports. The general exports (specie excluded) were 154,229,384 florins for reports. 1876 and 161, 863,449 for 1877; those of the Government, 51,168,108 and 57,116,672. In 1876 the more important articles showed as follows: coffee (private trade) 34,347,870 florins, (Government) 54,208,868 florins; sugar, 62,583,164 florins; tobacco for the European market, 27,794,755 florins ; gambir, 2,036,592 ; gutta percha, 1,651,292; benzoin, 582,581; dammar, 1,025,737; india- rubber, 83,171 ; gum copal, 128, 075; indigo forthe European market, 3,686,942 ; nutmegs, 2,815,787 ; cocoa-nut oil, 1,220,682 ; pepper, 1,883,349 ; rice, 2,292,907 florins. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to visit the Indian History, archipelago. Prior to their appearance off Sumatra in ]509 under Diogo Lopez la Sequiera, a Hindu civilization, having its chief seat in Java, had flourished and waned, and Mahometanism had succeeded to a considerable share of its inheritance. In 1521, when the Portuguese name had become familiar in the islands, the Spaniards under Magellan made their appearance from the cast. Hostilities ensued, which continued till the treaty of 1529, by which the boundary between Spaniards and Portuguese was fixed at 17 E. of the Moluccas, a line which afterwards proved matter of dispute. The two powers were undisturbed except by an un important French expedition till 1596, when the Dutch reached what was destined to be the scene of their greatest colonial achieve ments. In that year Cornelis Houtman appeared before Bantam, the chief town of a powerful kingdom in Java, and his expedition was but the precursor of many others from Holland. The com mercial success of these enterprises led in 1602 to the establishment of the Dutch East Indian Company, which obtained by Government