Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/302

 these prices did not agree with the statements made a few years back. The reason of this difference was asked, and that was what Verbrugge deemed so very difficult. Havelaar, who knew very well what was concealed behind this apparently simple business, replied that he would communicate his ideas about this difficulty in writing; and I find amongst the documents before me a copy of the letter, which seems to be the consequence of this promise.

If the reader should perhaps complain of this detention with a correspondence on the price of joiners’ work, with which he has apparently nothing to do, I must beg him to observe that the question here is properly about quite another matter, viz., the condition of the official Indian economy, and that the letter which I communicate does not only throw another ray of light on the artificial optimism of which I have spoken, but paints at the same time the difficulty with which a man like Havelaar had to struggle, who would go on straightforward.

“No. 114,

“ March 15, 1856.

“

“When I sent you the letter of the Director of Public Works, dated the 16th ultimo, No. 271/354, I begged you to answer the questions which that letter contained, after having consulted the Regent and duly