Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/215

 very first day, when Verbrugge met him in the pendoppo where my story begins, he showed that he was no stranger in his new sphere of work. By investigation on the actual spot he had found confirmed many things which formerly he suspected, and above all from the archives it had become evident to him that the province of which the administration had been entrusted to his care was really in a most deplorable condition.

From letters and notes of his predecessor he found that this officer had made the same observations. The correspondence with the Chiefs contained reproach upon reproach, threat upon threat, and made it quite credible that in the end the former Assistant-Resident should have said, as was reported, that he would address himself direct to the Government if this state of affairs were not put a stop to.

When Verbrugge had informed Havelaar of this, the latter had answered that his predecessor would have acted very wrongly if he had done so, as in any case the Assistant-Resident of Lebak had no right to pass by the Resident of Bantam, and he had added that also it would not have been in any way justified, as surely it could not be thought that so highly placed an officer would take the side of exploitation and extortion.

And such taking sides was indeed not to be assumed in the sense suggested by Havelaar: that is to say, not as if the Resident were to derive some advantage or gain from those offences. But yet there was undoubtedly a reason which made him most reluctant in doing justice with regard to the complaints of Havelaar’s predecessor. We have seen how this predecessor had repeatedly spoken to the Resident about the existing abuses—aboucher, as Verbrugge said—and how little this had availed. It is therefore not without interest to inquire why so highly placed an official, who as head of the entire residency was bound as much as, nay more than, the Assistant-Resident to see that justice was done, nearly always judged that there were reasons to arrest the course of justice.