Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/282

 smuggled into my Residency, for so little business is done here, that nobody would venture his capital in the trade.”

I have read a Report that commenced with the words, “During the past year, in this Residency, ” Such phrases certainly testify to a very founded on the indulgence of the Government to every one who spares it disagreeable tidings, or, as the saying goes, “does not bother it with sad reports!”

Where the population does not increase, it is ascribed to inexactness in the census of former years. Where the taxes do not rise, this circumstance must be attributed to the necessity for a low taxation, in order to encourage agriculture, which will eventually—that is to say, when the writer of the Report shall have retired from office,—be sure to produce inestimable treasures. Where disturbances have taken place, that be concealed, they were occasioned by a few malefactors, and need be no more feared for the future, as there exists a  contentment. Where poverty or famine has thinned the population, this was the consequence of scarcity, drought, rain, or something else,.

The memorandum of Havelaar’s predecessor, wherein he ascribed the emigration of the people from the district of Parang-Koodjang to “excessive abuses,” lies before me.