Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/90

 Regent were in an uncultivated condition, the neighbouring population would be ashamed of it, and much force would be required to prevent them from clearing that square of weeds, and putting it in a condition suitable to the rank of the Regent. To give any payment for this would be considered as an insult to all. But near this ‘aloon-aloon,’ or elsewhere, there are ‘sawahs’ that wait for the plough, or a channel to bring water, often from a distance of many miles. Those ‘sawahs’ belong to the Regent. He summons the population of whole villages, whose ‘sawahs’ need labour as well as his.There you have the abuse.

This is known to the Government; and whosoever reads the official papers, containing the laws, instructions, regulations, etc., for the functionaries, applauds the humanity and justice which seem to have influenced those who made them. Wherever the European is intrusted with power in the interior of Java, he is clearly told that one of his first obligations is to prevent the self-abasement of the people, and to protect them from the covetousness of the chiefs; and, as if it were not enough to make this obligation generally known, a special oath is exacted from the Assistant Residents that when they enter upon the government of a province, they will regard this fatherly care for the population as their first duty.

That is a noble vocation. To maintain justice, to protect the poor against the powerful, to defend the weak