Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/276

 the number of those destined for feudal labour, as circumstances may occur which were not foreseen when these stipulations were made.

But as soon as the limit of what is strictly lawful has been exceeded, it is difficult to fix the point where such an excess would become criminal; above all, great circumspection is wanted, when it is known that the chiefs only wait for a bad example to imitate it in still greater excess. The story of that king who ordered that every grain of salt which he had used at his simple dinner, when he travelled through the country at the head of his army, should be paid for, because otherwise, as he said, this would be a beginning of an injustice that would at last destroy his kingdomhis name may have been Tamerlane, Noer-eddien, or Genghis Khan—certainly either this fable, or if it is no fable, the occurrence itself, is of Asiatic origin; and just as looking at sea-dikes makes you think of the possibility of high water, so it must be admitted that there exists an inclination to abuses, in a country where  lessons are given.

The persons whom Havelaar had lawfully at his disposal could only keep clear a very small part of his grounds, in the immediate neighbourhood of his house, from weeds and underwood, The rest was in a few weeks a wilderness. Havelaar wrote to the Resident about the means of remedying this, either by paid labour, or by proposing to the Government to cause persons under