Translation:Max Havelaar/08

The relation between European officials and Javanese peers is of a very delicate nature. The Assistant Resident of a department is responsible. He has instructions and is assumed to be the chief of the department This does not prevent that the Regent, by virtue of his local knowledge, by birth, by influence on the people, by financial undertakings and a similar standard of living, is far exalted above him. And the Regent, being the representative of the Javanese element of the region, expected to speak on behalf of a hundred or more thousand souls, who live under his regentship, is also in the eyes of the government a much more important person than the simple European official, whose dissatisfaction need not be feared, since he is easily replaced, while a bad mood of the Regent could result in a major revolt.

This results in the strange circumstances that the inferior gives orders to the superior. The Assistant Resident commands the Regent to produce reports. He commands him to send people to labour on bridges and roads. He commands him to collect taxes. He calls him to assist in the Land Council. He rebukes him when he neglects his duty. But this peculiar relationship is only possible through very polite rituals, which need exclude neither kindness nor, when it is needed, strictness, and I believe that the tone which must be in this relationship is quite well indicated in the official instruction: The European official treats the native clerk, who is his helper, like a younger brother.

But he must not forget that this younger brother is very much loved – or feared – by the elders, and that in case of a disagreement, his older age is considered a reason to blame him for treating his younger brother with insufficient consideration or tact.

However, the inborn politeness of the Javanese – even the lowly Javanese is much politer than his European peer - makes this apparently complicated relationship more bearable than it would otherwise be.

The European should be well-educated and careful, he should behave with kind dignity, and then he can be sure that the Regent will not make ruling hard for him. Quick orders, always expressed as a request, will be strictly executed. The difference in social position, birth, or wealth, is erased by the Regent himself, who elevates the European, representative of the King in the Netherlands. Eventually a relationship which, at a glance, would seem inevitably to cause a collision, is in reality often the source of pleasant cooperation.

I said that these regents also have priority over the European official because of wealth, and this is natural. The European, when he is called to govern a province with an area equal to many German duchies, is usually someone of middle age or older, married and a father. His office is his profession. His wages are just sufficient, and often less than adequate, to give his family what they need. The Regent is: Tommongong, Adhipatti, yes even Pangerang, a Javanese Prince. For him the question is not that he lives, but he should live in the way that the people is wont to see in its aristocracy. While the European lives in a house, he lives in a Kratoon, with many houses and villages, While the European has one wife and three of four children, he maintains a host of women with all that belongs to it. While the European travels, followed by a few officials, no more than are needed for an inspection, the Regent is accompanied by a train of hundreds. This is, in the eyes of his people, a requirement for his high rank. The European lives as a civilian, the Regent lives – or is expected to live – like a prince.

But all this must be paid for. The Dutch government, which is founded on the influence of those regents, knows this. So nothing is more natural than that the Regent's wages have been raised to a level which any non-Indian would find exaggerated, but in reality it is seldom sufficient to pay the cost of the way of life of a native chief. It is not uncommon that a Regent who earns 200,000 or 300,000 guilders, is in want of money. This is also caused by the, truly princely, way they waste money, by neglecting to take care of their subjects, their extravagance and in particular the abuse - for the Europeans often abuse this situation.

The income of the Javanese chiefs can be divided into four parts. First of all, the fixed monthly stipend. Next, a fixed compensation for the rights which have been transferred to the Dutch government. Third, a reward, proportional to the products of his area, such as coffee, sugar, indigo, cinnamon, etc. And last, the option of making arbitrary demands on the labour and possessions of the peasants.

The two last sources need some explanation. A Javanese is principally a farmer. The soil where he was born, which promises much for little labour, entices him, and he is completely devoted to cultivating his rice fields, in which he is therefore very skilled. He grows up in the middle of his sawahs and gagahs and tipars, accompanies his father to the field from a very early age, where he helps him in his labour with plough and spade, with dikes and water conducts to irrigate his fields. He counts his years by the harvest time, he reckons the time by the colour of his growing ears on the field, he feels at home among his friends who cut padie with him, he finds his wife among the girls of the dessah, who beat the rice in the evening, singing happily, to remove the hulls. The idea of possessing a few water buffaloes to pull his plough appeals to him. In short, the rice culture is to a Javanese what the wine harvest is in the area of the Rhine and the South of France.

But there were strangers from the West, who made themselves lords of the country. They wished to have advantage of the soil's fertility, and commanded the natives to devote part of their labour and their time to the production of other things, which would be more profitable on the European markets. It required only a little political science to get the simple man to do this. He obeys his chiefs, so it was sufficient to persuade those chiefs by promising part of the profits – and that succeeded.

Take a look at the incredible quantity of Javanese products you see on the markets in the Netherlands, and you will be convinced that this policy has been very successful, even if you don't find it noble. For, if anyone asks whether the farmer himself obtains any reward, proportional to his labour, I must give a negative answer. The government requires him to cultivate on his soil what the government pleases, he is even punished if he sells his products to anyone else, and the government decides the price that will be paid. The cost of transport to Europe, with the intermediary of a privileged trade organisation, is high. The money paid to the chiefs to encourage them, make the price even higher and – because we want profits after all, this profit can only be found by paying the Javanese a minimum amount, lest he starve, for that would diminish the producing power of the nation.

European officials also obtain a profit which is proportional to the yield.

The poor Javanese if often burdened by two authorities. Often he is pulled away from his rice fields, often a famine is caused by these measures, but the flags are happily flapping in Batavia, in Samarang, in Surabaya, in Passaroean, in Bezoeki, in Probolingo, in Patjitan, in Tjilatjap and on board of the ships which are loaded with the harvest to make the Netherlands richer.

Famine? In the rich, fertile, blessed Java, famine? Yes, dear reader. A few years ago entire districts have starved. Mothers offered their children for sale to obtain food. Mothers have eaten their children.

But the motherland interfered. There has been dissatisfaction in the councils of parliament, and the Governor at that time should have ordered that the so-called European market products would not again be expanded to the point of causing a famine.

It made me feel bitter. What would you think of someone who could write such things without feeling bitterness?

Now I must explain about the last and most important source of revenue for the native chiefs: possessing arbitrarily of the persons and properties of their subjects.

According to general understanding in all Asia, a subject and everything he possesses, belongs to the Prince. This is also the case in Java, and the descendants and kin of earlier Princes happily use the illiterate people, who do not understand that their Tommongong or Adhipatti or Pangerang is today a paid official who has sold his own right for a certain revenue, and that the poorly-paid labour in coffee garden or sugar field has come in place of the taxes which used to be required by the chiefs of the land. It is extremely common that hundreds of families are called from a remote distance to work without payment in the fields which belong to the Regent. It is extremely common that food is supplied without payment to the court of the Regent. And when the Regent happens to cast a gracious eye on a horse, a water buffalo, the daughter, the wife of a little man, it would be bad-mannered to refuse to give the coveted object unconditionally.

There are regents who make a very moderate use of such arbitrary demands – they require no more from the common man than they need to maintain their standard of living. Others go a bit further, and there is no place where this unlawfulness is missing completely. It is therefore hard, even impossible, to eradicate this abuse completely, for it is deeply rooted in the nature of the people itself which suffers it. The Javanese is generous, in particular when he wants to prove how much he is attached to his chief, to the descendant of the one who was obeyed by his fathers. Yes, he would think he would fail in his devotion which he owes the hereditary master, if he entered his kratoon without any gifts. These gifts are often of so little value that it would be humiliating to reject them, and often this custom can sooner be compared to the homage of a child who shows his love for his father by offering a little present, than to a tribute to despotic arbitrariness.

But... the result is that a good custom prevents the abolishment of abuse. If the aloen-aloen in front of the Regent's house were neglected, the nearby people would feel ashamed about that, and a lot of authority would be needed to prevent the people from removing the weeds from the Regent's garden, so that it is restored into the condition which befits a person with a Regent's rank. It would be considered offensive to give any payment for it. But beside that aloen-aloen, and elsewhere, are the sawahs waiting for the plough, or for a water conduit to produce water, perhaps from many miles away, and those sawahs belong to the Regent. To cultivate and irrigate his fields he calls everyone from a village, whose own sawahs also need to be cultivated. And that's the abuse.

The government knows this and whoso reads the state papers, which contain the laws, instructions and manuals for the officials, cheers at the charity which played an important role when they were written. Thus the European, who had authority in the inner country, gets his dearest obligation, to protect the people against its own submissiveness and the greed of their chiefs. And if it were not sufficient to prescribe this obligation in general, they require of the Assistant Residents, when they accept the government of a department, an additional oath, that they will see this parental care for the people as their first and primary duty.

This is certainly a fair vocation. In favour of justice, protect the little one against the powerful, the weak one against the force majeure of the strong one, requiring that the poor man's lamb be given back from the stables of the princely robbers – behold, it makes the heart glow with pleasure, the idea that one has been called for such a fair task. And whoso may be unsatisfied with his position or reward in the inner country of Java, he nee only glance at his exalted duty, the wonderful joy of fulfilling such a task, and he will not covet any reward.

But this duty is not easy. First of all one must judge where use stopped and was replaced by abuse And where abuse exists, where robbing and arbitrariness have been found, the victims are often guilty themselves, either because they subject themselves too much, or because they fear, or because they mistrust the willingness or the power of the person who should offer protection. Everyone knows that the European official can be called at any time to another place, while the Regent, the powerful Regent, remains there. And there are so many ways to take the property of a poor, stupid man! When a mantrie tells him that the Regent covets his horse, with the result that the coveted animal is soon found in the Regent's stables, this does not prove at all that he did not have the intention – oh sure – to pay a high price for it – some time. When hundreds of people are labouring on the Regent's field, without getting payment, this does not prove that he allowed this to happen in is own favour. Perhaps he had the intention of leaving them the harvest, since he had calculated that his field was in a more favourable position and more fertile, so that their labour would produce a better reward.

Furthermore, where will the European official get the witnesses who have the courage to testify against their lord, the feared Regent? And if he ventured an accusation, without being able to prove it, what will then remain of the relation of elder brother, who without reason had offended the younger brother in his honour? What remains of the favour of the government, which gives him bread for his service, but fires him and considers him incompetent, when he rashly suspects or accuses an important person like a Tommongong, Adhipatti or Pangerang?

No, no, this duty is not easy! This can be seen from the inclination of the native chiefs to overstep the boundaries of allowed usage of labour and property of their subjects, which is admitted everywhere – that all Assistant Residents take an oath that they will fight against that criminal idiosyncrasy – and that very rarely is a Regent actually accused because of arbitrariness or abuse of authority.

It appears that there is an almost unsurpassable trouble in fulfilling the oath: "to protect the native people against exploitation and extortion."