Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/13

 tivating novel, the author maintained that it contained nothing but facts. He boldly asked the Dutch Govern­ment to prove the substance of his book to be false, but its truth has never been disputed. At the International Congress for the promotion of Social Sciences at Am­sterdam, in 1863, he challenged his countrymen to refute him, but there was no champion to accept the challenge. In short, Mr. Douwes Dekker, who had been a functionary in the service of the Dutch Government for the space of seventeen years, rather understated than overstated the truth. Not a single fact was ever contested in Holland, and he is still ready to prove his statements. In the Dutch Parliament nobody answered a single word, but Mr. Van Twist, ex-Governor-General of the Dutch Indies, who, on being appealed to by the Baron Van Hoevell, said that he could perhaps refute Max Havelaar, but that it was not his interest to do so.

The book proves that what was formerly written in Uncle Tom’s Cabin of the cruelties perpetrated upon the