Page:History of the Indian Archipelago Vol 3.djvu/86

 7^ PUBLIC REVENUE. instruments either sufficiently cheap, or sufficient- ly expert. They are both unwiUing for, and un- equal to the task of bestowing the attention ne- cessary to the minute details of a laborious business. Under their management the inferior agents of the revenue commit depredations on the trader, the re- venue suffers defalcation, and nothing is gained. The employment of the Chinese farmers, therefore, as long as the impolitic principle of interdicting European colonization is persisted in, is far less injurious both to the subject and the state. The native trader, who woukl hesitate to complain of the injustice of an European agent, will not fail to com- plain of that of a Chinese one, who possesses no po- litical power, and is an object of jealousy, but not of fear, both to the trader and the man in power. On this subject I speak distinctly from the results of my own personal experience in the control of two of the most considerable commercial establish- ments in the Archipelago, those of Samarang, and Surabaya, in Java. Until, in the progress of colo- nization, an active race of Europeans, by constitu- tion fit to bear the climate, and by education and experience equal to transact business with the va- rious inhabitants of these countries, be available, the assumption of the dhect management of those branches of the public revenue, to which I have al" luded, by the servants of the European government, will prove injurious both to the sovereign and the subject. 11