Max Havelaar (Siebenhaar)/Chapter 5
About ten o’clock in the morning there was an unusual amount of movement on the main road in Java that connects the division of Pandeglang with Lebak. “The main road” is perhaps a slight exaggeration in respect to the wide footpath that, from politeness and for want of a better name, one called the “road.” But when, with a coach and four, one started for Serang, the chief township in the residency of Bantam, intending to drive to Rang-Betoong, the new centre of Lebak, one might be fairly sure of arriving there some time or other. It was, therefore, a road. It is true that time after time one would be stuck in the mud, which in the Bantam lowlands is heavy, clayey, and sticky; it is true that again and again one would be compelled to call to one’s assistance the inhabitants of the nearest villages—even though they were not very near, for the villages are not numerous in those parts—but when at last one had succeeded in getting together some twenty agricultural labourers from the vicinity, it was usually not very long before horses and coach had once more been launched on terra firma. The driver would crack his whip, the “runners”—in Europe one would, I suppose, say “footmen,” or rather, there is nothing in Europe that corresponds with these “runners”—those incomparable “runners” then, with their short thick whips, trotted again by the side of the four horses, shrieked indescribable sounds, and beat the horses under the stomach by way of encouragement. And in that way one would jolt along for some time, until again the unpleasant moment arrived when one sank into the mud beyond the axles. Then the shouts for assistance would begin once more. One waited patiently till help arrived, and . . . jogged further along.
Often, when coming along that road, I felt as if in one place or another I should find a coach with travellers from the last century, who had sunk into the mud and been forgotten. Yet this never happened. I must suppose, therefore, that all who ever came this way arrived at last at their destination.
One would make a decided mistake if one imagined one could form a conception of the entire main road through Java from the character of this road in Lebak. The real highroad with its many branches, which Marshal Daendels had constructed with considerable sacrifice of life, is indeed a magnificent piece of work, and one is amazed at the energy of the man who, in spite of all the obstacles which his envious opponents in the motherland placed in his way, dared brave the unwillingness of the populations and the discontent of the Chiefs, in order to bring something into existence which to this day excites and deserves the admiration of every visitor.
As a consequence, no post-horse service in Europe—not even in England, Russia or Hungary—could be compared with that in Java. Across high mountain-backs, on the edge of precipices that make one shudder, the heavily packed mail-coach flies onward in an even gallop. The driver sits as though nailed to the box, for hours, nay for whole days at a stretch, and wields the heavy whip with an iron arm. He knows exactly how to calculate where and how much he must hold back the plunging horses, in order that, after a headlong flight down a mountain-slope, at yonder turning. . .
“Great God, the road is . . . gone! We are going down into the precipice,” shrieks the inexperienced traveller, “there is no road . . . there is only the abyss!”
Yes, so it seems. The road bends, and just when one galloping leap more would make the leaders lose their foothold, the horses turn off, and swing the coach round the corner. They fly up the mountain-rise, which a moment before you did not see, and . . . the precipice lies behind you.
There are, on such occasions, moments when the carriage rests on nothing but the wheels on the outside of the curve you describe; the centrifugal force has lifted the inside wheels from the ground. It requires self-control to refrain from shutting one’s eyes, and he who travels in Java for the first time writes home to his people in Europe that he has been in danger of his life. But when one feels at home there, one laughs at such fear.
It is not my intention, especially at the outset of my story, to occupy the reader at any length with descriptions of places, landscapes, or buildings. I fear too much that I might put him off by what would perhaps seem wire-drawn diffuseness; and only later on, when I feel that I shall have won him, when I see in his look and attitude that the fate of the heroine, who somewhere leaps from the balcony of a fourth storey, holds him spellbound, then, with a bold contempt for the law of gravitation, I shall leave her floating between heaven and earth, until I have relieved my feelings with an accurate sketch of the beauties of the landscape, or of the building that appears to have been placed there to supply a pretext for an essay covering several pages on mediæval architecture. All those castles resemble each other. Invariably their style of building is heterogeneous. The residential portion always dates back a few more reigns than the annexes that were added under some later king.” The towers are in a state of dilapidation. . . .
Dear reader, there are no towers. A tower is a conception, a dream, an ideal, an invention, an unbearable boast! There are semi-towers and . . . turrets.
The fanaticism that conceived it as a duty to place towers on edifices erected in honour of this saint or that one, did not last long enough to complete them, and the spire that is intended to point the faithful to heaven usually rests a couple of landings too low on the massive base, reminding one of the man without thighs at the fair. Only turrets, and tiny steeples on village churches, have ever been completed.
It is truly not flattering for Western civilization, that rarely the idea of perfecting a great work has been able to hold out long enough for the purpose of seeing that work completed. I am not now speaking of enterprises the completion of which was necessary to cover expenses. He that would know exactly what I mean should go and see Cologne Cathedral. Let him take full account of the grand conception of that building, in the soul of the architect, Gerhard Von Riehl . . . of the faith in the hearts of the people that enabled him to begin and continue that work . . . of the influence of such ideas as required so colossal an expression to serve as the visible image of the unseen religious feeling . . . and let him compare this tremendous strain with the movement that a few centuries after gave birth to the moment in which the work was suspended. . . .
A deep chasm lies between Erwin Von Steinbach and our modern builders! I know, of course, that for years people have been trying to fill this chasm. In Cologne also they are again building at the Cathedral. But will they be able to re-connect the broken thread? Will one be able to find again in our days, what then constituted the power of church dignitary and building-lord? I believe not. Money, no doubt, will be obtainable, and for money one may buy bricks and mortar. One may pay the artist who will submit a design, and the bricklayer who does the masonry. But not to be bought for money is the lost and yet venerable sentiment that in a building-scheme saw a poem, a poem in granite, that spoke loudly to the people, a poem in marble, that stood there as an immovable eternal prayer.
On the boundary, then, between Lebak and Pandeglang, there was one morning an unusual commotion. Hundreds of saddle-horses, and at least a thousand people—a good number for the place—walked up and down in busy expectation. Here one saw the heads of the villages, and the heads of the districts of Lebak, all with their retinues, and judging by the beautiful Arab crossbreed which, in his rich trappings, stood gnawing the silver snaffle, there was also present a head of higher rank. This indeed was the case. The Regent of Lebak, Radhen Adhipatti Karta Natta Negara, had with a large attendance left Rangkas Betoong, and had, in spite of his great age, made the twelve or fourteen stages which separate his residence from the boundaries of the neighbouring division of Pandeglang.
A new Assistant-Resident was expected, and custom, which, in India more than anywhere, has the force of law, dictates that the officer charged with the government of a division shall be suitably received on his arrival. The Controller, a man of middle age, who for some months after the death of the previous Assistant-Resident had, as next in rank, looked after his late chief’s duties, was also present.
As soon as the time of arrival of the new Assistant-Resident had become known, a pendoppo had been hastily erected, a table and some chairs had been brought there, and some refreshments were placed in readiness. In this pendoppo the Regent and the Controller awaited the arrival of the new chief.
After a hat with a broad brim, an umbrella, or a hollow tree, a pendoppo is undoubtedly the simplest expression of the idea roof. Imagine four or six bamboo posts, driven into the ground, and connected at the top by further bamboos, whereon is fixed a covering made of the long leaves of the water-palm which in these parts is called atap, and you have a picture of such a pendoppo. It is, as you see, as simple as possible, and here, be it understood, it was simply meant to serve as a pied-à-terre for the European and native officials who came to welcome their new chief on the boundary.
I did not express myself quite correctly when I called the Assistant-Resident the Chief, also of the Regent. A digression on the mechanism of the government in these regions is, for a clear understanding of the things that are to follow, at this place necessary.
Netherlands India so-called—the adjective “Netherlands” appears to me somewhat inexact, but it was adopted officially—must, as regards the relation of the mother-country to the population, be divided into two very different main sections. One of these is composed of tribes whose princes and princelings have recognized the authority of the Netherlands as suzerain, but with whom the direct ruling power still remains more or less in the hands of the native Chiefs. The other, comprising—with a very slight, perhaps only apparent exception—all Java, is immediately subject to The Netherlands. There is here no question of tribute, or levy, or alliance. The Javanese is a Dutch subject. The King of The Netherlands is his King. The descendants of his former princes and lords are Dutch officials. They are appointed, transferred, promoted, by the Governor-General, who rules in the name of the King. The criminal is convicted and sentenced under a law which is issued from The Hague. The taxes the Javanese pays flow into the treasury of The Netherlands.
It is only with this part of the Dutch possessions, which therefore forms an integral portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, that these pages in the main will deal.
The Governor-General is assisted by a Council, which, however, has no determining voice in his decisions. In Batavia the various branches of Government are divided into “departments,” at the head of which are placed Directors, who form the link between the highest Government, that of the Governor-General, and the Residents in the provinces. In cases, however, of a political nature, these officials apply direct to the Governor-General.
The title Resident derives from the time when The Netherlands Government only ruled the population indirectly as a feudal lord, and was represented at the Courts of the still reigning Princes by Residents. The Princes are no more, and the Residents have become, as district Governors or prefects, rulers of country divisions. Their sphere of activity has changed, but the name remains.
It is these Residents who actually represent Dutch authority with the Javanese population. The people know neither the Governor-General, nor the Councillors of Dutch India, nor the Directors in Batavia. They only know the Resident, and the officials who rule under his direction.
Such a residency—there are some which contain nearly a million souls—is divided into three, four, or five divisions or regencies, at the head of which are placed the Assistant-Residents. Under these, again, the executive officers are the Controllers, Inspectors, and a number of other officers necessary for the collection of the taxes, for the supervision of Agriculture, for the erection of buildings, for Water Supply Works, for Police and for Justice.
In each division a native Chief of high rank, with the title of Regent, assists the Assistant-Resident. Such Regent, although his relation to the Government, and his position, are entirely those of a paid officer, is always of the highest nobility of the land, and often belongs to the family of the princes who in the past ruled independently over that division or the neighbouring regions. An eminently shrewd political use, therefore, is made of their ancient feudal influence—which in Asia is generally of great importance, and with the majority of the tribes is regarded as a matter of religion—whilst, for the purpose of appointing these heads as officers, a hierarchy is created, above all of which is found the Dutch authority, exercised by the Governor-General.
There is nothing new under the sun. Were not the Landgraves, Margraves, Gau-graves and Burgraves of the German Empire similarly appointed by the Emperor, and mostly chosen from the Barons? Without wishing to digress on the subject of the origin of the nobility, which lies in nature itself, I must nevertheless here remark that in our own part of the world, and yonder in distant India, the same causes have had the same results. A country having to be governed at a long distance requires officials to represent the central authority. Under the system of arbitrary military power, the Romans, for this purpose, chose the Prefects, at first usually the commanders of the legions that had subdued the lands in question. Such lands remained, as might be expected, occupied provinces, i.e. conquered regions. But when later, in the case of the centralized power of the German Empire, the need was felt of binding some distant people by other means than material superiority only, as soon as a far-off region was considered, by virtue of similarity of origin, language and customs, as belonging more directly to the Empire, the necessity was realized of charging someone with the direction of affairs who not only was autochthonous to such country, but who by his own rank was elevated above his fellow citizens there, so that obedience to the commands of the Emperor should be facilitated by the coherent tendency of submission to the person entrusted with the execution of these commands. By this means, at the same time, the expenses of a standing army were entirely or partially obviated, and therewith a burden on the public treasury, or, as was otherwise mostly the case, on the provinces themselves which had to be guarded by such army. Thus the first Counts were chosen from among the Barons of the country, and correctly speaking the word Count is therefore not a title of nobility, but only the description of the person charged with a certain office. And I believe that in the middle ages the opinion was current that the German Emperor certainly had the right to appoint Counts, i.e. district-rulers, and Dukes, i.e. army-leaders, but that on the other hand the Barons held that they were the equals of the Emperor as regards birth, and were only dependent on God, save for the obligation of serving the Emperor provided the latter had been elected with their consent and from their numbers. A Count filled an office to which the Emperor had called him. A Baron considered himself a Baron “by the grace of God.” The Counts represented the Emperor, and as such flew his banner, i.e. the standard of the Empire. A Baron raised a contingent of followers under his own flag, as a bannerlord.
Now the circumstance that Counts and Dukes were usually selected from among the Barons caused them to throw the importance of their office into the balance with the influence they derived from their birth, and from this, especially when the heredity of these offices had become customary, sprang afterwards the preference those titles gained above that of Baron. Even to this day many a baronial family—without imperial or royal letters patent, i.e. such family as derives its nobility from the origin of the land, one that was always noble because it was noble—autochthonous—would decline elevation to the rank of Count as derogatory. There are instances of this.
Naturally the persons charged with the government of such a country sought to obtain sanction from the Emperor that their sons, or, in the absence of these, their relatives, should succeed them in their office. This, in fact, happened usually, though I do not believe that the right to such succession was ever organically realized, at least as regards those office-bearers in The Netherlands, for instance the Counts of Holland, Zealand, Hainault or Flanders, the Dukes of Brabant, Guelderland, etc. It was at first a favour, then a custom, and finally a necessity, but never became this form of heredity law.
Approximately in the same manner—as regards the choice of the persons, as here there is no question of equality in the duties, although even in this respect a certain correspondence is noticeable—there is at the head of a division in Java a native official who combines the rank given him by the Government with his autochthonous influence, in order to facilitate the management of affairs to the officer who represents Dutch rule. Here also heredity, without being consolidated by law, has become a custom. Already during the lifetime of the Regent these affairs are most often arranged, and it counts as a reward for zeal and faithful service when he receives the promise that he will be succeeded in his position by his son. It requires very important reasons to depart from this rule, and where this should be the case, the successor is nevertheless usually chosen from the members of the same family.
The relation between European officials and such highly placed Javanese grandees is of a very delicate nature. The Assistant-Resident of a division is the responsible person. He has his instructions, and is supposed to be the head of the division. Yet in spite of this the Regent, by virtue of his local knowledge, his birth, his influence on the population, his financial resources and corresponding mode of life, is in a much higher position. Moreover the Regent, as the representative of the Javanese element of a district, and being understood to speak in the name of the many thousands of souls that form the population of his regency, is, even in the eyes of the Government, a much more important person than the modest European official, whose discontent would occasion no apprehension, as there is no difficulty about replacing him, whilst the more or less unfavourable disposition of a Regent might become the germ of disturbance or rebellion.
From all this, then, results the strange circumstance that it is in reality the inferior who issues orders to the superior. The Assistant-Resident instructs the Regent to furnish him with reports. He instructs him to have the taxes collected. He calls upon him to attend the district council, which he, the Assistant-Resident, presides over. He censures him when found guilty of dereliction of duty. This most peculiar relation is only rendered possible by extremely courteous formalities, which, however, need exclude neither cordiality nor, when necessary, severity, and I think the tone to be observed in this relationship is fairly well indicated by the official instructions on the point: the European official must treat the native officer who assists him as a younger brother.
But he must not forget that this younger brother is greatly beloved—or feared—by the parents, and that, in eventual differences, his greater “age” would count as a reason for blaming him for not having treated his younger brother with greater indulgence or tact.
However, the innate courtesy of the Javanese grandee—even the lower-class Javanese is far more polite than his European equal—makes this apparently difficult relation more bearable than it would otherwise be.
Let the European be well-bred and discreet, let him behave with kindly dignity, and he may rest assured that the Regent on his side will make it easy for him to govern. The otherwise irritating command, when issued in the form of a request, will be carried out punctiliously. The difference in rank, birth, wealth, will be effaced by the Regent himself, who raises the European to his level, as being the representative of the King of the Netherlands, and in the end a relation which, superficially considered, would unavoidably seem to provoke conflict, becomes often enough a source-of pleasant intercourse.
I said that such Regents have also through wealth a natural precedence over the European official, and this is only to be expected. The European, when called upon to rule a province in area equal to many German duchies, is usually a person at or above middle age; married and perhaps a father. He fills the office for a living. His income is barely enough, often even not enough to provide necessaries for his family. The Regent is Tommongong, Adhipatti, or even Pangerang,[1] i.e. a Javanese prince. With him the question is not that of a living, he has to live in such manner as his people are accustomed to see among their aristocracy. While the European lives in a house, his residence is often a Kratoon,[2] with many houses and villages inside it. Where the European has one wife with three or four children, he maintains a number of women with all that this implies. Where the European goes out riding followed by a few officials, not more than are required on his round of inspection for furnishing information on the way, the Regent is accompanied by the hundreds who belong to his retinue, which in the eyes of his people is inseparable from his high rank. The European lives on a middle-class footing, the Regent lives—or is supposed to live—as a prince.
But all this has to be paid for. The Dutch Government, which has based itself on the influence of these Regents, knows this, and nothing is therefore more natural than that it has raised their income to a height which would appear exaggerated to the nonIndian, but which in reality is rarely sufficient to meet the expenses incidental to the mode of living of such native Chiefs. It is nothing unusual for Regents with an income of two or three hundred thousand guilders to be nevertheless in financial embarrassment. This is in a large measure due to the princely carelessness with which they squander their income, their negligence in watching their subordinates, their mania for buying, and especially the advantage often taken of these qualities by Europeans.
One might classify the incomes of the Javanese Chiefs under four heads. First, their definite monthly allowance. Secondly, a fixed sum as compensation for rights relinquished to the Dutch Government by purchase. Thirdly, a reward in proportion to the quantity of produce yielded by their respective regencies, such as coffee, sugar, indigo, cinnamon, etc. And, finally, the arbitrary disposal of the labour and property of their subjects.
The last two sources of income require some elucidation. The Javanese is by nature an agriculturist. The soil whereon he was born, which promises much for little labour, allures him to this, and more especially is he devoted heart and soul to the cultivation of his rice-fields, in which he displays particular skill. He grows up amidst his sawahs and gagahs and tipars,[3] and accompanies his father to the fields at a very early age, to assist him in the labour with plough and spade, and on dams and waterworks for the irrigation of his lands. He counts his years by harvests, he calculates time and season by the colour of his crops, he feels at home with the mates who have cut the paddy with him, he seeks his wife among the girls of the dessah,[4] who at eve, with the sound of merry songs, stamp the rice in order to remove the husk . . . the possession of a pair of buffaloes to draw his plough is the ideal that beckons him . . . in a word, rice culture is to the Javanese what the vintage in the Rhine-districts and the South of France is to the wine-growers of those countries.
But strangers came from the West, who made themselves lords of his land. They wished to make profits out of the productiveness of the soil and commanded the native to devote part of his labour and time to the growth of other products which would yield a greater margin of gain in the European markets. To make the lower man do this, a very simple policy sufficed. He obeys his chiefs, and so it was only necessary to win over those chiefs by promising them part of the profit, and . . . the scheme succeeded completely.
When one has regard to the immense quantity of Javanese products put up for sale in the Netherlands, one must at once be convinced of the effectiveness of this policy, though one may not judge it a noble one. For if anyone should ask whether the cultivator of the soil himself receives a reward proportionate to the results, the answer would have to be a negative one. The Government compels him to grow on his land what pleases it, it punishes him when he sells the crop so produced to anyone but it, and it fixes the price which it pays him. The cost of transport to Europe, by a privileged trading company, is high. The payments allowed to the Chiefs by way of encouragement are a further charge on the purchasing price, and . . . as in any case the whole business must yield profit, this profit can be made in no other way than by paying the Javanese exactly enough to keep him from starving, to the end that the productive power of the nation shall not decrease.
To the European officials also a reward is paid in proportion to the production.
It is true, then, that the poor Javanese is lashed onward with the whip of a double authority, it is true that he is often withdrawn from his paddy-fields, it is true that famine often results from these measures, but . . . merrily flutter the flags at Batavia, Samarang, Soerabaya, Passarooan, Bezooki, Probolingo, Patjitan, Tjilatiap, the flags on board the vessels that are being loaded with the harvests that enrich the Netherlands.
Famine? In rich, fertile, blessed Java, famine? Yes, reader. Only a few years ago whole districts were starved out. Mothers offered their children for sale to obtain food. Mothers ate their children. . . .
But then the motherland took a hand in the matter. In the Councils of the people’s representatives there was dissatisfaction, and the Governor-General of that day had to issue instructions that the increase of so-called European market-products should in future not be carried out to the limit of famine.
It seems that just then I grew bitter. But what would you think of one who could write down such things without bitterness?
It now remains for me to speak of the last and principal form of income of the native chiefs: the arbitrary disposal of the persons and property of their subjects.
According to the general conception in almost all Asia, the subject, with all that he possesses, belongs to the ruler. This is also the case in Java, and the descendants or relatives of the former princes are only too glad to make use of the ignorance of the population, who do not clearly understand that their Tommongong or Adhipatti or Pangerang is now a paid official, who has sold his own and their rights for a definite income, and that therefore the poorly paid labour in coffee-plantation or sugar-field has taken the place of the taxes which were formerly exacted from the dwellers on the land by their lords. Nothing, therefore, is of more usual occurrence than that hundreds of families are summoned from a great distance to work, without payment, fields that belong to the Regent. Nothing is of more usual occurrence than the supply, unpaid for, of foodstuffs for the requirements of the Court of the Regent. And should this Regent cast a covetous eye on the horse, the buffalo, the daughter, the wife of the inferior man, it would be unheard-of for the latter to refuse the desired object.
There are Regents who make a moderate use of such arbitrary disposals, and who only exact from the labouring man what is absolutely indispensable to keep up their rank. Others go a little further, and nowhere is this illegality altogether absent. And undoubtedly it is difficult, if not impossible, to root out such abuse entirely, as it reaches deep down into the very nature of the population which is the victim of it. The Javanese is generous, especially when it is a matter of proving his attachment to his Chief, to the descendant of those whom his forefathers obeyed. He would even hold that he fell short of the respect due to his hereditary lord if he entered the lordly kratoon without presents. And such presents are, it must be admitted, often of such small value that to decline them would have in it something of a humiliation, and often, therefore, this custom might rather be compared to the homage of a child that seeks to express his love for his father by offering a small gift, than that it should be conceived as a tribute to arbitrary tyranny.
But . . . in this way a gentle custom hinders the abolition of abuse.
If the aloen-aloen[5] in front of the residence of the Regent were in a neglected state, the neighbouring population would be ashamed of it, and it would require considerable authority to prevent them from ridding that area of weeds, and from putting it into a condition corresponding with the rank of the Regent. To offer payment for this would generally be considered an insult. But alongside this aloen-aloen, or elsewhere, lie sawahs that are waiting for the plough, or for a duct to bring the water to them, often from a distance of miles . . . these sawahs belong to the Regent. He summons, in order to work or irrigate his fields, the population of whole villages, whose own sawahs are just as much in need of being worked . . . this is the abuse.
The evil is known to the Government, and when one reads the Government publication in which are printed the laws, instructions and manuals for the officials, one applauds the humaneness that appears to have presided at the framing of these. Everywhere the European who is clothed with authority in the interior is commanded, as one of his most sacred obligations, to protect the population against their own submissiveness and the rapacity of the Chiefs. And, as though it were not sufficient to prescribe this duty in general, an additional separate oath is demanded from the Assistant-Residents, when assuming the control of a division, that they shall consider this paternal care of the population as one of their first duties.
This, assuredly, constitutes a glorious calling. To support justice, to protect the humble against the powerful, to defend the weak against the force majeure of the strong, to demand the return of the poor man’s ewe-lamb from the pen of the princely robber . . . is not this enough to make the heart glow with joy, at the thought that one is called to so glorious a task? And if at times the official in the interior of Java should be dissatisfied with his position or reward, let him turn his gaze to the sublime duty imposed upon him, to the supreme delight that the fulfilment of such a duty carries with it, and he will desire no other reward.
But . . . that duty is not easy. First of all one has to decide definitely where use has ceased to make room for abuse. And . . . where abuse exists, where indeed robbery or tyranny has been practised, the victims themselves are but too frequently accomplices, be it from too much submissiveness, be it from fear, be it from distrust of the will or the power of the person appointed to protect them. Everyone knows that the European official may be called any moment to another position, whilst the Regent, the powerful Regent, remains. Besides, there are so many ways of appropriating the possessions of a poor simple-minded person. When a mantree[6] tells him that the Regent wishes to have his horse, with the result that the desired animal is shortly after lodged in the stables of the Regent, this does not prove by any means—oh, certainly not!—that the Regent had not the intention to pay a high price for the animal . . . sometime. When hundreds are working in the fields of a Chief without receiving payment, it by no means follows that this is being done on his behalf. May it not have been his intention to make the harvest over to them, from a purely humanitarian calculation that his land was in a better position, more fertile than theirs, and that therefore it would reward their labour more liberally?
Besides, where is the European official to get witnesses who will have the courage to make a declaration against their lord, the dreaded Regent? And, were he to risk a charge without being able to prove it, what then would become of the relation of an elder brother, who in that case would, without apparent cause, have reflected on the honour of his younger brother? What would become of the good opinions of the Government, which gives him bread for his service, but which would deny him that bread, dismissing him as incapable, if he had lightly suspected or accused a person so highly placed as a Tommongong, Adhipatti or Pangerang?
No, certainly, that duty is not an easy one! This is plainly evidenced by the fact that the tendency of the native Chiefs to overstep the limit of permissible disposal of labour and property of their subjects is everywhere frankly admitted . . . that all Assistant-Residents take the oath that they will oppose this criminal malpractice, and . . . that, nevertheless, but very rarely, a Regent is charged with arbitrary coercion or abuse of power.
It appears, then, that an almost insurmountable difficulty prevents the carrying into effect of the oath that the official shall protect the native population against exploitation and extortion.