THE POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE DUTCH IN JAVA f^^y^' THE POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE DUTCH IN JAVA BY CLIVE DAY, Ph.D. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF ECONOMIC HISTORY IN YALE UNIVERSITY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON : MACMILLAN & CO., Ltd. 1904 AU rights reservtd COPYEIGHT, 1904, By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up, electrotyped, and published January, 1904. Nortoaoti i^Ksa J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. PREFACE When I was first drawn into a study of some of the features of Dutch policy in Java, I was • surprised by the wide divergence between the descriptions of this policy current in English and the facts as they appear in the writings of Dutch historians and in the original documents. It seemed worth the while to carry the study farther than I had first proposed, and the results are presented here with the hope that they may be useful to students of colonial affairs. My aim has been to give in a volume of brief compass the significant results of the experiences of the Dutch in their most important dependency. For lack of books in Dutch constructed on the lines which I wished to follow, it has been neces- sary in many places to renounce the guidance of previous writers, and I can hardly have avoided errors in fact or in conclusion. The material at hand, however, seems full enough to justify this course, as it includes most of the important printed sources up to the period cov- ered by the last three chapters ; these last chapters have been compiled to connect the past of Java with its present, for the sake of students of modern conditions. I have attempted especially to make the most of the valuable information scattered through Dutch periodical literature, scanning the contents of the individual vol- umes of all the important periodicals, without reliance on the index except in the case of De Gids. Brief viii PEEFACE bibliograpliical notes are prefixed to some of the chapters, and the references in the text are designed in part for the benefit of students who are not conversant with Dutch literature and who may desire to extend their study ; the " Repertorium " of Hooykaas and Hartmann should be mentioned here as likely to be of aid to such students in further work in the periodicals. For permission to use parts of two articles on the culture system, which I published originally in the Yale Review in 1900, I am indebted to colleagues on the editorial board of that journal. CLIVE DAY. 267 Lawkance Hall, New Haven, Conn., October, 1903. CONTENTS CHAPTER I The Native Organization ^"^Area and position of Java. Its importance due to its remarkable fertility .^..-'^he Malay population. Importance of the native institutions in the development of Dutch colonial policy . ^„^ O bstacles to an accui'ate knowledge of the native organization History of Java before the arrival of the Dutch. Evidence of devel oped forms of government Description of the organization of the state of Mataram Powers of the provincial governors, or regents . Criticism of the native political organization . Bad effects of personal absolutism .... Recurrent wars of succession "Weakness and corruption of the administration Inability of the native political organization to maintain peace Slight positive benefits granted by the government to the people Burden of the native government Economic organization of the people .... Preponderance of the agricultural class .... In some parts of Java villages formed of individual landholder Political organization and independence of these villages . In central Java villages formed of dependent tenants Burden of the dues demanded from the tenants Their political dependence on their landlords . Unfavorable condition of the mass of the people Likeness of the native organization to that of mediseval Europe Opportunities afforded for the exercise of European influence^ . 3 4 7 10 13 16 16 18 20 21 24 25 26 27 28 30 31 31 33 34 35 36 CHAPTER II The East India Company: Policy Early commerce of the Dutch in the East. Conditions leading to the establishment of the East India Company .... 39 -7^ Necessity of establishing a government in the East for the Com- pany's affairs 42 ix CONTENTS Choice of a site in Java for the capital Inducements to territorial expansion, political and economic . The Company led to this expansion against the desires of the Direc tors Superiority of the Dutch in diplomacy and war The commercial policy of the Company ; this policy based on monopoly Monopoly maintained by wars with European competitors Attempts at breaches in the monopoly designed to attract colonists Proposals of Governor General Coen ; their failure . Failure of other attempts to secure commercial privileges for indi viduals, and of the colonizing schemes connected with them rjApplication of mercantilist notions Organization and character of the Company's commerce . The bulk of the Company's cargoes received in the form of tribute Contingents and forced deliveries Description of the contingent system by a Dutch official . Regulation of production in Java. The coffee culture Regulation of sus:ar manufacture The Company's finances ; difficulty of arriving at a knowledge of them 70 I The Company sustained through much of its history by its credit . 71 I Causes of the Company's decline 72 : The Company prosperous only in one part of the seventeenth cen- tury 74 Decline of its trade 74 This decline due mainly to the competition of foreigners ... 75 Weakness of the Company's commercial management ... 77 Growth of the Company's revenue from political sources ... 79 ' Fall of the Company occasioned by European wars .... 80 CHAPTER III The East India Company : Government The Company not a single unified corporation. Powers of the sepa- rate Chambers 82 The Committee of Seventeen, designed to direct the general policy . 84 Secrecy and corruption of the Directors 85 Freedom of the Company's directorate from any control ... 86 Influence of the directorate on the course of policy ; maintenance of monopoly, character of the colonial administration ... 88 Independence of the Indian government in most points ... 89 43 44 46 48 51 52 65 56 58 60 61 62 63 65 66 CONTENTS in its rela Organization of the Indian government. Power of the Governor General Criticism of the organization of the Indian government Salaries granted Indian officials .... Character of the Indian officials .... Mode of appointment and promotion. Examples . Corruption among the Company's officials Gains of the officials from illicit trade Peculation by officials i Gains by officials from abuse of their political position Inefficiency of the Company's fiscal administration . Abuses in the army The Company as a government over the natives ; variety tions with them ....... Government through protected kings or regents 1 Position of the regents I The Dutch residents ; difficulties and abuses of the position ji Evils of the system of government seen in the workings of the 4 ^tingent system Economic faults of the contingent system Attempts to reform the contingent system Difficulty of any reform in government .... Small contributions to civilization of the natives in the period : — ' Company's rule Opposition of the Company's interests as trader and as ruler "Benefit to the natives of the peace maintained by the Company Growth of the native population in the eighteenth century of the 91 93 95 96 97 100 102 103 104 106 107 108 109 110 112 115 117 119 119 121 122 123 125 CHAPTER IV Java after the Fall of the Company Abrupt changes in the colonial history of Java after the fall of the Company 127 Principles accepted in reorganizing Java under the Dutch state . 129 Questions of reorganization before the Dutch government . . 130 Contrast between commercial and political systems . . . 131 The political, or tax, system advocated by Dirk van Hogendorp in 1799 133 Van Hogendorp's criticism and proposals 135 Argument from conditions in districts leased to Chinese . . . 136 Van Hogendorp's proposal of restricted freedom of commerce . 137 Criticism of Van Hogendorp's proposals by Indian officials . . 138 CONTENTS Difficulty of administration the decisive objection Appointment of a commission to frame a system The commission opposed to Van Hogendorp's proposals . Adherence to the Company's system of contingents and govern ment through native rulers Report in favor of greater freedom of trade .... Beginning of a new period in government under the charter of 1803 Application of changes delayed by political changes in Europe Independence of the Indian government from home control Conditions in Java at the arrival of Governor General Daendels Reforms in the administration Abuses and reforms in the judicial organization The former system of native government maintained The contingent system retained and extended . Abuse by Daendels of the forced labor of the natives Fiscal difficulties of Daendels His arbitrary rule PAGE 139 140 141 143 143 144 147 148 150 151 153 154 157 159 160 162 CHAPTER V The Pbkiod of Bkitish Rule The British conquest of Java ; weakness of the Dutch . . . 164 Status of Java under British rule 166 Organization of the British colonial government; Raffles made Lieutenant Governor 167 Career and abilities of Raffles 168 Change of system attempted by Raffles 170 Motives for the change 172 Far-reaching character of the proposed reforms .... 173 The land-tax the central feature 174 Scheme of the land-tax 175 Question of the form of tax settlement 176 Provisional adoption of the village settlement 177 Change to individual settlement ; reasons 178 Novelty of Raffles's plan the attempt to introduce administration entirely under European control 181 Reasons for the failure of Raffles's land-tax. Imperfections in the scheme 181 Practical difficulties in the way of executing such a plan . . . 183 Collapse of the scheme of the land-tax in application . . 188 Maintenance of some of the forced cultures 188 CONTENTS xiil PAOB Raffles's commercial policy 190 Failure of Kaffles's government on the fiscal side .... 191 Reform attempted in the administration 192 The residents 194 Reform in the judicial organization 195 Contrast of the attempts at reform in the European and in the native organization 196 Failure of attempt to restrict the power of native rulers , . .196 Persistence of old abuses 199 CHAPTER VI The Period of the Dutch Restoration Inclination of the Dutch to liberal principles on the reestablishment of their government 203 Difficulties of the Dutch commissioners 205 Question of retaining the land-tax. Faults in its operation . . 206 Investigation of its workings and decision to maintain it . . . 207 Changes in the land-tax. («) Village settlement . . . .209 (6) Amount set by bargaining with the village governments . 211 ^Forced cultures retained in part 212 iQuestion of the regulations to be adopted for the cultures formerly 1 forced 214 The European administration strengthened in numbers . . . 216 Attempt to raise the quality of officials 216 The native administration 218 Attempts to reform abuses in the native organization ; cash salaries, I native officials forbidden to trade, regulation of contracts with I natives 220 tntimate failure of these attempts 221 Transfer of the government from the commissioners to Baron van der Capellen 223 .Continued irregularities in the workings of the land-tax . . . 224 Reform of the land-tax prevented by the introduction of the culture system 226 Failure to secure freedom in the coffee culture .... 227 Necessity of active internal trade for the success of the free coffee 1 culture ; need of European settlers to this end .... 230 lliberal policy of the Commissioners to European settlers . . 232 Reactionary policy of Van der Capellen 233 Law of 1821 against foreign traders 234 Law of 1823 against land leases to foreigners 235 CONTENTS Responsibility of Van der Capellen for the introduction of the cul- ture system 237 Foreign trade and commercial policy. Conditions in 1816 . . 237 Attempt to protect Dutch commerce by differential duties ^ . 238 Establishment of the Dutch Trading Company .... 240 CHAPTER VII The Culture System : Policy Unsettled state of Dutch policy in Java about 1830 .... 243 Reversion to the policy of the Company ; fiscal reasons . . . 244 Fiscal demands of the Netherlands 245 Van den Bosch the chief agent in the change of policy . . . 246 His criticism of the existing system 247 Plan proposed by Van den Bosch ; the culture system . . . 249 Undeserved reputation of the culture system in later literature . 250 Money's book on Java ; character and criticism .... 251 Influence of Money 263 The culture system purely a revenue measure 256 Changes in the original plan due to the desire for revenue . . 257 Extent to which the culture system was applied .... 258 Economic criticism of the plan of the culture system ; inability of a government to organize production 259 Failures in the attempts to introduce new cultures .... 262 Failures in established cultures 263 Inequality in the burden of the cultures 265 Impropriety of judging the system by averages .... 267 Difficulty of securing averages 268 Hardships imposed on the natives in the transportation of products 271 Effect of forced labor and monopoly on the quantity and quality of product 273 Influence of the culture system on the exclusion of European planters 274 Reestablishment of commercial monopoly 277 CHAPTER VIII The Culture System: Government The land-tax during the period of the culture system . . .280 In the case of natives subject to the culture system the tax main- tained as a standard 280 CONTENTS In the case of natives free from the culture system olcf abuses of the tax continued 281 Growth in forced services besides those demanded for cultures . 283 Hardships and waste of the system of forced services . . . 285 Effect of the culture system on the character of the government ; difficulty of the question 286 Did the culture system cause an actual decline in government ? . 287 Was the culture system itself responsible for the evils of the period ? 287 Influence of the home government in preventing any but the most necessary expenditures ........ 288 Slight attention paid to the welfare of the natives .... 289 Restriction of expenditures on the political administration . . 290 Effect on the spirit of the European officials 292 Percentages to officials on the returns of cultures .... 293 Ignorance of the European officials 294 Partiality in appointments and promotions 295 Abuse of the natives by officials 296 Increase in power of native officials ....... 296 Grants to regents of public revenues from land ; bad results . . 297 Small salaries of native officials and resulting abuses . . . 299 Tolerance of abuses by the government 301 The village government ; its importance 302 Growth of communal land tenure in the villages .... 303 Growth in power and decline in character of village heads . . 304 Abuses of the village governments 307 CHAPTER IX The Culture System: Reform Government revenues from the culture system .... 309 Criticism of the attempt to defend the culture system by the asser- tion that Java became more prosperous under its operation . 310 Significance of the continued growth of population .... 312 Migrations and famines due to the culture system .... 314 Supreme power of the king in determining colonial policy . . 316 The Dutch ignorant of the state of affairs in Java . . . .317 Strictness of press regulations 319 Small power of the Dutch Chambers in colonial affairs before 1848 320 Slight practical results in the colonial field of the constitutional revision of 1848 323 Beginnings of the reform movement after 1848. Van Hogvell 326 xvi CONTENTS ^ PAGE Establishment of the colonial constitution, 1854 .... 327 Ambiguity of the colonial constitution regarding the culture system 328 Influence of Dekker's "Max Havelaar" in stimulating reform . 330 History of the reform movement in the Chambers .... 333 Victory of liberal principles under the colonial minister, Van der Putte 334 ; Final victory of the reformers about 1870 335 / Practical reforms in Java during this period 335 / Parallels to the culture system in the Philippines and in British j India 336 \ Criticism of attempt to defend the culture system .... 338 CHAPTER X Recent Economic Policy Economic difficulty in tropical colonization the smallness of the wants of the natives 346 Underestimate of the future by the natives 348 Credit bondage : exchange of future labor for present goods . . 348 Credit bondage a native institution in Java, and used by the Dutch to solve the labor problem 350 Effect of the culture system on native labor 352 Continuance of the practice of securing laborers by political pressure 354 DiflBculties encountered with free labor 355 Difficulty in engaging laborers ; necessity of advances . . . 356 Regulation of labor contracts by the government .... 357 Difficulty in holding laborers to their engagements .... 358 Punishment of breach of contract 358 Small amount of exports produced entirely by natives . . . 360 Importance of the Chinese in the industrial organization . . . 360 Their functions as middlemen 362 Necessary unpopularity of the Chinese 364 The land problem 366 Danger of allowing the right of sale without restriction ; example, the " particular " lands 367 Principle that the state is sole proprietor of the land . . . 369 Prohibition of sales to foreigners 372 Lease of cultivated lands permitted under restriction . . . 374 Exceptional arrangements in the Principalities .... 376 More liberal regulations on the lease of uncultivated land . . 378 Economic progress of Java under the modern system . . . 379 CONTENTS xvu CHAPTER XI Recent Fiscal Policy Relation of the finances of Java and of the Netherlands . Continuance of the " net-profit " system Decline of the question in practical importance Development of Dutch policy as shown in expenditures in Java Comparison of the budgets of 1870 and 1900 .... Expenditures on education Abolition of the government sugar culture .... Restriction of the government coffee culture .... Place of labor services, in lieu of taxes, in the native organization Attempts to reform the abuses of these services Progress in reform since 1890 . Development of taxes in the recent period The land-tax System of higgling, or " admodatie stelsel " Failure of the reform measure of 1872 Practical reform in the administration of the tax Beginning of systematic regulation . PAGE 382 383 384 386 386 389 392 394 397 400 401 402 404 405 406 408 408 CHAPTER XII The Modern Government and Provincial Administration The government at The Hague The minister of the colonies Proposal of a colonial council Powers of the Dutch legislature in colonial affairs . Criticism of the part played by the legislature . The government in India ; its centralization Dependence of the Governor General on authorities at home Power of the Governor General in India ; the Council of India departments of administration, the General Secretariat The provincial administration ; peculiarity of its position Scheme of the provincial administration . The resident and his assistants ..... The controleur ........ Native officials ; the regents and district heads Centralization and its bad effects .... the 409 410 411 411 412 414 414 416 417 418 418 419 420 421 CONTENTS Proposals for the reorganization of the central government Proposals for the establishment of representative provincial govern- ments Faults of European officials in the provincial administration Character of the native officials Relations between European and native officials Salaries of European officials in the provincial administration Slowness of promotion in the provincial administration . PAOK 422 423 424 425 426 428 430 Index 433 FULL TITLES OF WORKS CITED MOST FREQUENTLY BY ABBREVIATIONS FEBIODICALS Bijdragen tot de Taal- Land- ea Volkenkunde van Neerlandsch Indie. Tijdschrift van het Koninklijk Instituut. 's Gravenhage, 1853 ff. Cited as Bijd. TLV., by year, series (volgreeks), and volume. Economist, De. Amsterdam, 1852 ff. Cited by year and part ; there have been generally two parts a year since 1868, but the paging is continuous. Gids, De. Amsterdam, 1837 ft'. Cited by year and part; there have been four parts a year since 1868, separately paged. Indische Gids, De. Amsterdam, 1879 ff. Cited by year and part ; there are two parts a year, but since 1885 the paging has been continuoiis. Mededeelingen van vfege het Nederlandsche Zendelinggenootschap. Rot- terdam, 1867 ff. Cited by year and volume. Tijdschrift voor Indische Taal- Land- en Volkenkunde. Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en "Wetenschappen. Batavia, 1853 ff. Cited as Tijd. TLV., by year and volume. Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indie. Zalt-Bommel, 1838 ff. Cited as TNI., by year, volume and part. There has been a bewildering suc- cession of series, and I have disregarded them. Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap van Kunsten en "Weten- schappen. Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Batavia, 1779 ff. Cited by year, volume, also by part when the volume was divided ; I have covered the series from 1842 to 1897. BOOKS Boys, Henry Scott. Some Notes on Java and its Administration by the Dutch. Allahabad, 1892. Bruce, John. Annals of the Honorable East India Company. London, 1810, 3 vols. Chailley-Bert, Joseph. Java et ses Habitants. Paris, 1900. Chijs, J, A. van der. Nederlandsch-Indisch Plakaatboek. Batavia and 's Hage, 1885 ff., 16 vols. xix XX WORKS CITED Coen, see Koen. Crawfurd, John. History of the Indian Archipelago. Edinburgh, 1820, 3 vols. Daendels, Herman Willem. Staat der Nederlandsche Oostindische Bezit- tingen, 1808-1811. 's Gravenhage, 1814, 4 vols. [Dekker, Edouard Douwes.] Max Havelaar, of de KoflBjveilingen der Nederlandsche Handelmaatschappy, door Multatuli. 9. druk, Am- sterdam, 1900. Deventer, M. L. van. Geschiedenis der Nederlanders op Java. Haarlem, n. d. [1887-1895], 2 vols. Deventer, M. L. van, editor. Het Nederlandsch Gezag over Java en Onderhoorigheden sedert 1811. 's Gravenhage, 1891. Deventer, S. van, editor. Bijdragen tot de Kennis van het Landelijk Stelsel of Java. Zalt-Bommel, 1865-1866, 3 vols. Eindresum6 van het bij Gouvernements-besluit . . . bevolen Onderzoek naar de Eechten van den Inlander op den Grond op Java en Madoera. Batavia, 1870-1896, 3 vols. Elout [Cornells Theodoras]. Bijdragen. . . 's Gravenhage, 1851, 1861, 1874, 3 vols. Encyclopaedie van Nederlandsch-Indie, edited by P. A. van der Litli and others, 's Gravenhage, n. d. The fourth and last volume is in course of publication. Hogendoi-p, Dirk van. Nadere Uitlegging en Ontwikkeling van het Stel- sel. 's Hage, 1802. Jaarcijfers voor het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden, Kolonign, 1897. 's Gravenhage, 1899. Jenks, Jeremiah W. Report on Certain Economic Questions in the English and Dutch Colonies in the Orient. Washington, 1902. Jonge, J. K. J. de, editor. De Opkomst van het Nederlandsch Gezag in Oost-Indie. [In vol. 4 ff. the title is changed to read Gezag over Java. Vols. 11-13 were edited by M. L. van Deventer.] 's Graven- hage and Amsterdam, 1862-1888, 13 vols. Kleyn, R. H. Het Gewestelijk Bestuur op Java. Leiden, 1889. Koen, J. P. Stukken betrekkelijk den Handel enz. in Indig, 1622-1623. In Kronijk van het Historisch Genootschap te Utrecht, 1853, 2. ser. , 9. jaargang, 58-150. Louter, J. de. Handleiding tot de Kennis van het Staats- en Adminis- tratief Recht van Nederlandsch-Indig. 4. uitgave, 's Gravenhage, 1895. Meinsma, J. J. Geschiedenis van de Nederlandsche Oost-Indische Bezit- tingen. Delft and 's Hage, 1872-1875, 3 vols. Mijer, P. Verzameling van Instructien, Ordonnancien en Reglementen. Batavia, 1848. WORKS CITED xxi Mill, James. The History of British India. 4th ed., London, 1840, 6 vols. Money, J. W. B. Java ; or How to manage a Colony. London, 1861, 2 vols. Multatuli, see Dekker. Norman, H. D. Levyssohn. De Britische Heerschappij over Java en Onderhoorigheden (1811-1816). 's Gravenhage, 1857. [Piccardt, R. A. S.] De Geschiedenis van het Cultuurstelsel in Neder- landsch-Iudie. Uitgegeven door de Maatschappij Tot Nut van 't Algemeen. Amsterdam, 1873. Pierson, N. G. Koloniale Politiek. Amsterdam, 1877. [Raffles, Sophia.] Memoir of the Life and Public Services of Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles ; by his Widow. London, 1830. Raffles, Sir Thomas Stamford. The Histoiy of Java. 2d ed., London, 1830, 2 vols. Raffles, Thomas Stamford. Substance of a Minute recorded . . . 1814. London, 1814. Rees, O. van. Geschiedenis der Staathuishoudkunde in Nederland. 2. deel, Geschiedenis der koloniale Politiek. Utrecht, 1868. Regeeringsalmanak voor Nederlandsch-Indie, 1899. Batavia, n. d. All references are to the first volume. Reus, G. C. Klerk de. Geschichtlicher Ueberblick der administrativen, rechtlichen und finanziellen Entwicklung der Niederlandisch-Ostin- dischen Compagnie. Verhandelingen v. h. Batav. Genootschap, 1894, 47 : 3 : 1-323. Bitter, P. H., editor. Eene Halve Eeuw. Amsterdam, 1898, 2 vols. Sillem, J. A. Dirk van Hogendorp (1761-1822). Amsterdam, 1890. Soest, G. H. van. Geschiedenis van het Kultuurstelsel. Rotterdam, 1869- 1871, 3 vols. Veth, P. J. Java, geographisch, ethnologisch, historisch. 2. druk, be- werkt door J. F. Snellman en J. F. Niermeyer. Haarlem, 1896 ff. The third volume is in course of publication. Waal, E. de. Nederlandsch Indie in de Staten-Generaal sedert de Grondwet van 1814. 's Gravenhage, 1860-1861, 3 vols. Wallace, Alfred Russel. The Malay Archipelago. New York, 1869. Woordenboek van Nederlandsch Indie, aardrijkskundig en statistisch. Amsterdam, 1869, 3 vols. POLICY AND ADMINISTRATION OF THE DUTCH IN JAVA CHAPTER I THE NATIVE OEGANIZATION [Note. — I have embodied in the text of this chapter the necessary couiment on the sources of information, and refer to the footnotes for detailed indication of the available material. The standard history of native Java is by Veth, forming the first two volumes of his work on Java now appearing in a revised form. Earlier histories lack critical discrimination ; the works of Raffles and Crawfurd, however, are still of value for the description of institutions at their time. Scheuer, " Het Grondbezit in de Germaansche Mark en de Javaansche Dessa, Rotterdam, 1885," is largely historical, but suffers from its bias toward the old theory of the Aryan village community ; it is based on material which I have /\' used independently.] f TAVA is the second in the chain of large islands that / ^ stretch out from the Malay peninsula toward Aus- tralia. In its greatest extent its length is ever one thou- sand kilometres, a distance nearly equal to that from New York to Louisville or Charleston, or, in the Old World, 1 from Paris to Vienna. The breadth of the island, how- ever, is in no place over one-fifth of the length, so that the total area (including some small neighboring islands) is : only about fifty thousand square miles, almost exactly the same as that of England, or a little more than that of the State of New York. Java is much smaller than some others of the Dutch East India islands, and makes but one- B 1 2 THE DUTCH IN JAVA chap. fourteenth of their total area, but it is now, and has been throughout most of the period of European colonial enter- prise, the first of them in economic and political impor- tance. / At the present time it has a population about threefold that of all the other islands, and provides about five-sixths of the total revenues received by the colonial government. The superiority in wealth and population that Java pos- sesses over the other territories of the Dutch in the East Indies can be ascribed in large part to the remarkable fer- tility of the island, due to its geological constitution. It is said to contain more volcanoes, active and extinct, than any other known district of equal extent ; the substances thrown out from these volcanoes are spread over the whole island, obscuring in most places the original rocks, and forming a soil of exceptional productiveness. The climate is favorable. There is scarcely any variation in the mean temperature from month to month, and the rainfall is heavy and sure. Records of recent years show occasional droughts in different parts of the island, and more fre- quent inundations, but Java fares better in this respect than most other parts of the tropical world, certainly far better than British India. The combination of soil and climate has gained for the island the title of " thegarden of the East," and has made its vegetation the type of tropical luxuriance. Much of the surface is covered by mountains, and even now only about four-tenths of it is under cultivation, but that area maintains on a low grade of the agricultural stage a population little less than the population of modern industrial England. In this introductory sketch of the scene of Dutch colo- nial enterprise, more importance attaches to the people 1 THE NATIVE ORGANIZATION S •whom the Dutch found there than to the place itself. ' The natives belong to the Malay stock, which has spread from southeastern Asia over a great part of the islands in the Pacific Ocean. Physically they are of low stature and of delicate build, no match for the average European. Their intellectual and moral characteristics will appear in the following description of their organization, as it existed at the time when the Dutch came in contact with them. The writer is convinced that the native organization is the most important topic to be treated in describing the course of the Dutch in Java. It is the key of their his- tory. The Dutch have been at all times few in proportion to the mass of natives. Java ha_s^ been.jto them_ not a "colony," but a "possession "or "dependency J' They have kept their place in the island not by driving the natives out, but by learning to work with them and to rule over them. Up to the most recent times they have not entered into relations with the mass of the common people. One man cannot know or govern tens or hun- dreds of thousands. They have had to work and rule through native chiefs, and through the customs of gov- ernment which those chiefs represent. The Dutch have succeeded in their colonial policy only by learning to understand and to use the native institutions ; ignorance or misuse of tlie opportunities for control which the native organization affords has been one of the chief causes of their failures. The course of Dutch policy is a history of the gradual recognition of this fact. In the earliest period the East India Company attached itself as a parasite to Javanese society, with little knowledge of its organization and little 4 * THE DUTCH IN JAVA chap. regard to the effects. The failure of the company brought the Indian possessions under the direct control of the state. A beginning was made in the study of the native institu- tions, but the knowledge of them was still only super- ficial, and in the period of the culture system they were so misused as to threaten the prosperity of the people and the integrity of the government. Finally, in the modern period of reform, beginning about fifty years ago, the s_elfish pressure on native institutions was relaxed. The ; Dutch perceived at last that native customs are a more ' important factor in the economic and political organization than any of their own laws and regulations^ Their his- tory in recent years has been marked by careful study of native institutions, and by the constant effort to shape their policy to them. In view of the importance of this topic of the native institutions in Java, it is proper here to make the admis- sion that the subject offers unusual difiiculties to the stu- dent, and that any treatment of it must be general in terms and hazy in details. We should like to know what the organization was before the Dutch appeared, and what the successive changes have been since then under Dutch influence. Unfortunately it was not till about the be- ginning of the nineteenth century that the subject at- tracted the serious attention of European administrators, and in some important points the subject was not thor- oughly studied by them until after the middle of the cen- tury. Thus, in regard to land tenure, one of the most important topics of all, the student is obliged to rely in large part on the results of a government investigation which was not begun till 1867. The testimony embodied in the report of the investigation shows that at that time I THE NATIVE ORGANIZATION 5 the Dutch had not only completely changed the superstruc- tion of native government, but had, profoundly modified its substructure as well, and that the village organization of to-day cannot be taken as evidence of what existed one hundred or even fifty years ago. Even at the end of the eighteenth century some of the native institutions had become seriously distorted by the pressure which they suffered under the East India Company. The evidence from a late period must evidently be used with caution. On the other hand we get from native traditions a great amount of material, but literary rather than critical in character, and more dangerous than useful in the hands of any one not specially trained to its interpretation. It would be ungrateful not to recognize the service that Dutch scholars have done in the last hundred years in their work on this material, and yet one cannot repress the regret that no scholar (so far as I know the literature) has approached it from the special standpoint of compara- tive politics, and has reconstructed from it and from the evidence of early Dutch observers, a complete picture of the primitive political constitution. One finds plenty of dynastic narratives of the native states, with an account of their various wars and intrigues, but generalizations on the real significance of it all occur only as obiter dicta. The importance of native institutions in shaping the colo- nial policy of the Dutch has been fully recognized by one of the foremost Dutch authorities,^ but, in spite of the work that he and others have accomplished on the line that he suggested, an immense amount is still left to be done. The narrative history of the native states has been 1 P. J. Veth, " Gedachten over de behandeling der geschiedenis van Ned. Ind.," TNI, 1867, 1 : 2: 323. 6 THE DUTCH IN JAVA chap. put in shape for use, but scholars have scarcely more than begun to study the native constitutional history or to explain the native institutions in the modern terms of social and political science. ^ In view of the difficulties of the subject, it is fortunate that the purpose of this book requires no more than a sketch of the main features of the organization with which the Dutch had to do. Such a sketch, tentative in many points, disregarding many differences in time and place, is presented in the following pages, with the conviction that the general impression will strike not far from the truth, whatever liberties may seem to have been taken in the treatment of material. One further bit of preface may be proper, to disarm the suspicions of readers who may find the picture of Malay politics unexpectedly black. This study is meant to be critical, but the writer is con- scious of no animus to influence his judgment in this or other parts of the work, and seeks only to convey to the reader as accurately and soberly as may be the results of his studies. If the native political organization is de- scribed as being so very bad, it is because it cannot be made to appear better without departing from the truth as shown in historical documents. The faults of govern- ment, it is true, are more likely to go on record than its merits ; the reader may make what allowance he chooses for this fact, and may assume that a fuller record would lead to a more favorable judgment. The writer thinks this might be the case as regards the sparsely populated 1 The change of tendencies in the Netherlands is shown by the publica- tion in Bijd. TLV., 1901, of a valuable study on the native village organi- zation by Professor L. W. C. van den Berg. I shall have occasion to refer to this later. I THE NATIVE OKGANIZATION 7 parts of Java ; as regards the government of the mass of the people he doubts it. As an introduction to this sketch of the native political institutions in the period of the Dutch East India Com-M pany a very brief summary of the early history will suffice. Linguistic evidence shows that before the begin- ning of the Christian era the Malay inhabitants of Java cultivated rice on terraced and irrigated fields, worked iron and other metals, and had a considerable knowledge of navigation. In the first century A.D. occurred the invasion from continental India that forms the commence- ment of the Hindu period in Javanese history. This period lasts until about the beginning of the fifteenth century. Authorities differ in their estimates of the influence that the invading Hindus exercised over the Malays, and it may be, as some suggest, that the Hindus continued and developed the Malay organization rather than that they changed it in its essentials. i Whatever the judgment on this point may be, and however few original contributions may be ascribed to the Hindus, it is certain that the east- ern and central parts of Java, in which the Hindu monu- ments are mainly found, have nowadays a population differing radically in character, customs, and language from the inhabitants of the western end of the island. ^ iBrandes, "Een jayapattra," Tijd. TLV., 1889, 32 : 122. He thinks that the Malays pursued their development independent of Hindu influ- ence till the eighth century, and that they had then achieved important advances along a number of different lines, including a system of coinage and a well-established government. Van Eck asserts that Hinduism was only a cloak over the Malay, obscuring but not eradicating his original traits; the Javanese was only "a disguised Polynesian" in respect to Hindu influence. " Schetsen," XII, Ind. Gids, 1882, 1:624. Professor L. W. C. van den Berg is a believer in Aryan influence. 2 The character and causes of the difference are discussed by Van 8 THE DUTCH IN JAVA chap. The main point of contrast that interests us here is that of political character and institutions. The Soendanese of western Java show far more personal independence than the Javanese proper to tlie east of them, whose meekness under political control amounts to servility, and whose rights in such an important matter as land tenure are so small as to put their possessions entirely, at the mercy of their rulers. The character and institutions of the Javanese proper can be explained only by the assump- tion that the people had been subjected for many centuries to a government developed far beyond the stage of the old tribal system. The indication here given that a settled and advanced form of government existed in the Hindu period is con- firmed by all the contemporary historical evidence. Marco Polo and Friar Odoric speak of the government of Java as a monarchy, and reaching far back beyond their time Chinese accounts give the same impression. One of these of the period of the T'ang dynasty (618-906) speaks of a king of Java, whose supremacy was recognized by twenty-eight small countries lying about his capital ; an account from the period of the Sung dynasty (960- 1279) describes a state which maintained an army of thirty thousand men and had a highly organized adminis- tration, with more than a thousand officials employed in the different departments. Testimony from native sources Hoevell, " Onderzoek naar de oorzaken van het onderscheid . . . tuss- chen de Soendaneezen en eigenlijke Javanen," TNI., 1841, 4:2: 132 ff. He thinks that the difference originated in Hindu times and has developed since. The boundary line betvpeen the Javanese proper and the Soen- danese is found in the residencies of Tagal and Banjoemas. Dekker, "Max Havelaar," 190, said that the two peoples are no more alike than modern Englishmen and Dutchmen ; the comparison may serve as some measure of the difference, though it obscures the peculiar quality of it. 1 THE NATIVE ORGANIZATION 9 is all to the same effect. If all other evidence were lack- ing, it would be possible to conclude from the great temples of the Hindu period, like Boro-Boedoer, that the mass of the people had already learned to submit to the control coming from some single source of authority. Native inscriptions do exist, however, generally in the form of a grant by the prince to some individual of land, office, or special privileges ; these documents show that in the Hindu period in Java the central government had at least as much power as it had in mediaeval Europe. ^ In the latter part of the fourteenth century the Hindu empire of Madjapahit extended not only over Java proper but over Soenda as well, and exercised some kind of over- lordship over parts of Malakka, Sumatra, Borneo, and other islands in the archipelago. ^ Under internal dissen- sion and with the extension of Mohammedanism in the fifteenth century this empire crumbled. Islam vanquished the Indian religions and became in time practically the exclusive faith of the inhabitants of the island. In its progress through Java it broke up the old states into new ones, but there is no evidence that it changed the charac- ter of the political organization, or added anything essential 1 Of especial interest to any student of institutions is a Javanese grant of immunity of 860 a.d., mucla lilve contemporary grants in Europe. This is translated and discussed by Kern, "Over eene oudjavaansche oorkonde," Verslagen en Mededeelingen der Koninkl. Akad. v. "Wetenschappen. Afd. Letterkunde, Amsterdam, 1881, 2. Reeks, 10 : 77 ft. For a discus- sion of this and other inscriptions see Veth, Java, 1 : 40, 43, 54, 68. For the special points cited in the text see Yule's " Marco Polo," Lond., 1875, 2 : 254, and his " Cathay," Lond., 1866, 1 : 87 ; Groeneveldt, "Notes on the Malay Archipelago . . . from Chinese Sources," Verhandelingen Bat. Gen., 1877, 39 : 1 : 13, 16. 2 Rouffaer, " Het tijdperk van godsdienstovergang in den Maleischen Archipel," Bijd. TLV., 1899, 6 : : 113. This study is based on sources but recently rendered available. 10 THE DUTCH IN JAVA chap. to it. At the time when the Dutch East India Company began its operations in Java, it found the whole island subject to monarchical and absolute governments. These governments were undoubtedly of later origin in the west than in the east of the island ; they had not been in op- eration long enough in the west to destroy all the rights of the people, and had not extended into thinly populated districts where small tribal groups like the Badoeis could still maintain themselves. It may be that remnants of tribal institutions are still to be found in the native organ- ization,! but the people had for the most part passed far beyond the tribal stage when the Dutch appeared in the East. The territorial state under an absolute monarch was the typical form of political organization, and over a great part of Java such states had been in existence prob- ably over a thousand years. The people had been disci- plined as few of the other Malays have been. They had been governed till they had lost all power to govern themselves, and they had been repressed so that they had no longer the ability to throw off a bad government. It is a fact of prime importance in the history of the Dutch in Java that they found the native institutions in this con- dition, not fresh and in a course of vigorous development, but old and worn, going through their cycles of change only to return to the starting-point. Nothing else would explain the ease with which the Dutch conquered and ruled the island. An idea of the native political organization can be 1 This is asserted by Van Baak, "Nota over bet eigendomsrecbt op den woesten grond op Java," Eindresum^, 3, Bijlage N. ; C. F. van Delden Laerne, "Jets over den oorsprong van bet communaal landbezit op Java," Tijd. TLV., 1875, 22:260, 268. I THE In^ATIVE organization 11 given by selecting for description Mataram, the most powerful of the states with which the East lAdia Com- pany had to do.i In the first half of the seventeenth cen- tury this state ruled over the greater part of the island. Like all of the large native states it had been built up in a comparatively short time by conquest, and there was no organic union between its different parts. That it was no natural growth but the artificial construction of a suc- cessful warrior is clearly shown by the organization of the efovernment. The monarch had under his direct control only a small part of the state ; the rest was held in his name by subordinate princes who maintained just as much independence as they dared. A distant province, left under the rule of a representative of the conquered dynasty, would be only nominally subject to the monarch, while provinces near the capital and ruled by members of the monarch's family would be really dependent on him. In a large part of the state, the northeastern provinces, the scheme of administration was as follows : Each prov- ince had its subordinate king, pangeran^ and beside him a governor representing the central authority ; throughout the districts and towns of the province each of these offi- cials was represented by distinct subordinates. Besides these two groups of officials there was a third, devoted to the provincial administration ; each place had two tax- gatherers, who reported directly to superiors in their own department, and were independent of other offi- cers. Then over the whole group of provinces were two 1 The following description is based on Ryckloff van Goens, " Reijsbe- schrijving van den weg uit Samarangli nae de konincklijke hoofdplaets Mataram, . . . 1656," Bijd. TLV., 1856, 1:4:307-350. Van Goens was sent as an envoy to the native court and remained there for some time. 12 THE DUTCH IN JAVA chap. special commissioners, who had their, special agents every- where to Tv^atch the conduct of affairs and report daily at the capital. Finally there was a body of several thousand inquisitors, who ranged the country in bands " like hunt- ing dogs " to see and hear whatever was going on. They had the right of entry everywhere, even in the assemblies of the greatest nobles ; they were " the king's execution- ers," set to catch his enemies, and they were much feared and hated. The whole system was evidently framed with but one object, not of doing something, but of preventing anything from being done ; it was based on suspicion and fear. The army was divided up among the various higher officials ; a certain number of soldiers was ascribed to each, to be raised from the territory subject to him, and that number could not be exceeded. The king alone was free to keep as many soldiers as he pleased ; practically, of course, the size of his guard was limited by the amount of money and men that he could secure from his own and his vassal territories. One side of the workings of this system has been de- scribed for us by the Dutch envoy who was present at court. The monarch appeared in public ordinarily three times a week to attend a tournament to administer jus- tice or to hold a council. On nearly every day, however, the nobles of the state, from pangerans down to minor officials, were required to attend court and to wait through the morning on the chance that the monarch might appear. They imperilled their fortunes and even their lives if they stayed away ; the monarch could assure himself of their fidelity only by requiring their constant presence. Ordi- narily several thousand, great and small, attended an I THE NATIVE ORGANIZATION 13 audience. Everything at court depended on the monarch's personal favor. The nobles were fearfully anxious lest they should offend a man who could ruin them by a word, and studied day and night the art of pleasing him. One day the monarch ordered that Van Goens's bodyguard should be called in, but gave the command to no one by name ; instantly two or three hundred nobles started off, treading each otlier under foot in their wild desire to call six common soldiers. On another occasion the monarch summoned one of Van Goens's followers and the whole court, great and small, with the exception of the pangerans, rushed after him and introduced him, breathless with the confusion. The monarch laughed, and indeed the situa- tion has its amusing side ; it seems like a scene from a comic opera. A comic opera becomes a serious thing, however, when it assumes the place of a real government, and not all the incidents of Javanese court life were as innocent as those just described. At the time when this description was written the em- pire of Mataram was still young, and the central govern- ment exercised more efficient control over the under-kings or regents than was often the case. The hold of the sov- ereign on his subordinates seems generally to have con- sisted only in the above-mentioned obligation on their part to appear at court at certain periods.^ The regents were often nearly sovereign in their authority and can be regarded in the discussion of their administration as independent kings, ruling over districts roughly compar- ^ Jonge, Opk., 5 : 36, Joumael of Haan, 1623; ih., 6: 110, Governor General Maetsuyker to Directors, 1668 (Palembang), In Banjoemas the nobles were required to spend six months of the year at court. S. van Deventer, LS., 2:648. 14 THE DUTCH IN JAVA chap. able in size to counties in the Eastern States of America.^ The form of government presents about the same char- acteristics in all the different regencies. Every regent had one or more viziers or ministers (pateh^, who at- tended to the actual business of administration, and a dozen or so high court officials, generally appointed from liis relatives. The surrounding country was subject to a descending series of subordinates, some assigned to the government of definite areas, and some given special func- tions. Raffles says 2 that the executive, judicial, and fiscal authority, united in the person of the sovereign, descended undivided to each subordinate, but the separation of the fiscal functions observed in Mataram is found later in the political organization, and may well have been common, arising from the jealousy of the central govern- ment at the concentration of power in the hands of sub- ordinates.^ In general the statement of Raffles is correct : " Every officer has unlimited power over those below him, and is himself subject to the capricious will of the sover- eign or his minister." ^ Subordination rather than asso- ciation marked the system. In practice, of course, the authority of any official was limited by his ability to make it effective at a distance. Each official, beginning at the 1 In de Jonge, Opk., 10 : 237, 260 (Aanmerkingen, Mossels, 1751, 1754), there is a list of the seventeen regencies in Jacatra, with the area and population. The mean area would seem to be about twenty-five square miles, English, but some are so small that they cannot have been inde- pendent in government. Some exceeded 100,000 morgen Dutch, or were over 300 square miles. The figures of population are of little value, as some districts had been depopulated (ib. p. 248). A regency in modern Java averages between 500 and 600 square miles. ^ Hist., 1 : 299. 3 KoUman, "Bagelen onder het bestuur van Soerakarta en Djokjok- arta," Tijd. TLV., 1864, 14:355. Differentiation in the functions of subordinate officials appears also in the reports of Rothenbuhler and C. de Groot. * Hist. 1 : 160. I THE NATIVE ORGANIZATION 15 bottom, kept all that he could of the powers and profits of government, and so the process went on through the various stages to the sovereign at the head of the series. The public revenue consisted mainly of payments in kind and of labor services by the cultivators of the soil. The money receipts were so small that they can be neg- lected. Consequently officials could not be paid money salaries, and they were supported by the assignment to them of certain fractions of the sovereign's rights to prod- uce and labor. This system is normal on a certain stage of economic organization, and has sometimes created in its development a special public class among the people, with hereditary rights to land and to office as well. Ten- dencies in this direction are observable in the history of native Java, which had to be considered by European administrators later in their bearings on the tenure of land. In general it may be said here that officials failed to obtain public recognition of such a privileged position. The son of an official never had the right to succeed to his father's position, though he was very commonly ap- pointed to it, and appointments from outside the families of the higher classes were rare. The office-holding nobles formed a class distinct from the rest of the population, with a character and traditions of their own, but accord- ing to the native theory nobility was official, not heredi- tary. Descendants of officials clung to the titles which had marked their ancestors' position, and in some dis- tricts it was hard to find a man, even among the common people, who did not claim a title ; none had a privileged position, however, unless he himself held office. ^ iC. de Groot, Report, 1823, TNI., 1853, 15:1:86. Crawfurd said that the fluctuations in fortune of members of the office-holding class were very great. Raffles, Sub., 92. 16 THE DUTCH IN JAVA chap. Enough has been said about the higher political organ- ization in Java to form a basis for the criticism of its workings as they appear in the period of the East India Company, and to enable the reader to appreciate the extent to which the natives might gain in passing under Euro- pean rule. The most evident fault of the system was the tendency to unrestrained absolutism that appears in all parts of it, but especially in the persons of the under and upper kings. "The princes ruled over the people with absolutely unlimited authority, without other laws than those that they themselves imposed. The idea of prop- erty, even that in wife and children, was entirely unknown to the native, whenever the will of his rulers came into play." ^ Everything depended on the accidents of char- acter of a single individual. At best the people were subject to caprices such as those of the monarch Ageng, referred to in Van Goens's description, who allowed no man to spend the night in court, but slept himself, the only man, in the midst of ten thousand women. In many cases the Javanese rulers were real monsters, crazed to an " im- perial frenzy " by the power of their position. Ageng's successor, Amangkoe Rat, signalized his succession to the throne by the murder of twenty thousand individuals, and throughout his reign put out of the way, sometimes with his own hand, any one against whom he had the slightest ground of suspicion. When one of his wives died, he J " Regten en verpligtingen, ... in Cheribon," TNI., 1863, 1:1: 146, from a census report of the residency describing conditions in the time of native rule. The same account appears in different times and places. Coen wrote of Java in general, 1619, "The law of these countries is the will of the king," de Jonge, Opk., 4:183. Mossel wrote of Bantam, 1747, "The king rules this kingdom sovereign in the highest degree," ib. 10 : 119. I THE NATIVE ORGANIZATION 17 starved a hundred women to give expression to his grief, then searched among the wives and daughters of his sub- jects for a beauty to become her successor.^ We are told by a modern writer that Amangkoe Rat is not a fair type of the native ruler, and that the Dutch were really respon- sible for his excesses, as the people would have turned him out if they had not been menaced by a foreign power. ^ This writer, depressed with the faults that he finds in the modern Dutch government, is inclined sometimes to doubt whether the natives have benefited by their change of rul- ers. It is true, as he says, that a bad foreign government is not better than a good native one. That may be granted, and it may be granted too that Amangkoe Rat was the extreme specimen of his kind. Still, the impression re- mains after reading the annals of the native states that good rulers were few, that the temptations to abuse were strong for any man, far too strong generally for princes brought up in the harem. There were some good rulers, but they were ineffective through faults in the system of administration ; there was really no good native govern- ment. ^ Over against the opinion of Van Kesteren, the author cited above, may be put that of St. John, who 1 Another ruler had a house at court in which he enjoyed the spectacle of naked women fighting with tigers. These examples, which might be much extended, are taken from Veth and from volumes 6 and 7 of de Jonge, Opk. 2 Van Kesteren, " Een ideaal voor den Indischen staatsdienaar, " Ind. Gids, 1885, 2 : 1534. 3 This assertion, it should be understood, is meant to be confined to Java. The tribal governments of Sumatra and Bali may be better than poor European government, as is asserted in TNI., 1873, 2 : 1 : 141. In- stances of rulers with good intentions who could not secure good govern- ment, through the weakness of the administration or the vices of royal relations, can be found in de Jonge, Opk., 11:375 (Bantam); 12:110 (Soerabaya). c 18 THE DUTCH IN JAVA chap. thought that the Mahay governments were fit only for evil, coukl not do good, that any foreign government was bet- ter. " Their imbecility is as incurable as their despotism is ferocious. They deserve only ruin. They are at once proud and corrupt, despotic and feeble. "^ Between these extremes I should incline to St. John's view. Far more serious, though less striking, than the tyranny over individuals, were the effects of personal rule on the course of public policy. Veth says that the native policy was marked by a course so tortuous as to put to shame the most extravagant Machiavellian. It expressed not the unconscious tendencies of growth of a society, but the ambitions or whims of an individual. It dissipated the force of the people in lines that led nowhere or in lines that had to be retraced. The ruler of Mataram conquered one of the eastern points of Java, only to find that it was impossible to establish his sway there permanently; he depopulated the district and left it. The state of Mat- aram began to crumble immediately after the death of its founder ; to the wars in which it originated succeeded wars in which it dissolved, and the only result to the people was misery and want. The state was often prevented from exercising its de- structive powers against its neighbors only by internal dis- sensions that exhausted its resources in wars of no public interest. The record of family quarrels within the differ- ent dynasties seems interminable; these family quarrels are called the chronic evil of the state of ;Mataram. Many originated in greed for power, many in purely personal in- cidents, such as love-affairs in which some member of the royal harem or candidate for it was implicated. 1 Horace St. John, "The Indian Archipelago," Lond., 1858, 1 : viii. I THE NATIVE ORGANIZATION 19 The institution of hereditary monarchy is ordinarily justified on the ground that the state gains so much from having the succession to the government simply regulated and generally recognized that it can afford to bear with rulers who are often weak and sometimes wicked. Bad government is better than the anarchy of a war of succes- sion. In Java the one great apology for hereditary mon- archy seems lacking. By native custom the rule descended to a son of the monarch born of one of his regular wives ; the heir, not necessarily the eldest son, was designated as crown-prince during the life of his father, who acted some- times with a council of nobles in making the nomination. The system led to countless intrigues among the wives and even the concubines of the monarch, and gave no assurance that the person who managed to win the royal nomination could make good his claims after his father's death. It seems no exaggeration to say that half or more of the serious wars in which the native states engag-ed rose out of the futile question as to which of two men equally bad should govern a certain territory. I have seen no evidence that princes or dynasties won the affec- tion or loyalty of their people in the period of native rule. The Dutch Governor General wrote in 1677, at the time of a revolt in Mataram by a pretender to the crown, that it was surprising that a people used for centuries to obey this ruler's ancestors should, as they did, give their alle- giance to the rebel with entire indifference.^ The most important figure in the central government beside the sovereign was the pateh, or chief minister, who appears even in the smaller kingdoms as the chief execu- tive of the king's commands. He was supposed to do the 1 Maetsuyker to Directors, 1677, do Jonge, Opk., 6 : 169. 20 THE DUTCH IN JAVA chap. work of ruling while the sovereign enjoyed the pleasures. This influential official appears sometimes as a man of vulgar origin, made great by the royal favor ; sometimes as a relative of the king, retaining his position when he had become old and useless.^ When an able man filled the place he was prevented often from accomplishing any good by the sovereign, who preferred to listen to the advice of his favorites, and thwarted his pateh in every possible way, through jealousy of his influence. ^ The administration was fitted neither by its organization nor by its personnel to remedy the faults of the central government. In describing above the administrative or- ganization in Mataram in the seventeenth century, atten- tion was directed to the way in which the various officials were set to watch and check each other ; the spirit of this arrangement seems characteristic of the whole native political system, though it appears nowhere else so clearl}'^ expressed in the frame of organization. We find nowhere among officials a feeling of mutual trust such as must underlie all effective cooperation. Every official was jealous and suspicious of those above him, beside him, and beneath him. Each one made all the profit he could and did as little as he dared in return for it. Offices were gained from a superior by favoritism, and by promises of greater returns from the people than had been squeezed from them before. The Soenan (emperor of Mataram) put over Japara two of the worst tyrants in Mataram, of 1 Mem. of Siberg, 1787, de Jonge, Opk., 12 : 89. 2 Reis of Engelhardt, 1803, de Jonge, Opk., 13 : 156. The power be- hind the throne was sometimes exercised by a European renegade, or by a woman of the lowest character. Cf. M. L. van Deventer, Gesch., 1 : 129, 294 ; 2 : 155 ; de Jonge, Opk., 7 : 215. I THE NATIVE ORGANIZATION 21 whom one, the father of one of his favorite concubines, had already been deposed for misgovernment, because they promised to secure for him a present from the East India Company. ^ The ruler of one of the districts of Kra- wang, to maintain his personal power, appointed as sub- ordinate officials inexperienced men and boys of twelve or thirteen years, over whom he could be completely master. I quote from the report of a Dutch official. " These boys have no idea of orders ; much less do they know how to carry them out. They are proud of their relationship to the head-regent, and shrink from nothing to satisfy their desires. The common people must contribute to every- thing, to their hunting and fishing parties, etc., so that it is no wonder that they are listless, depressed, and not up to their duties. The wretched inhabitants pay little or no attention to their plantations, which they let run waste, and seek for nothing more than bare subsistence, which they find in the cultivation of their rice-fields." ^ The higher officials spent their time at court, drawing revenue from their lands through agents, but visiting them rarely, and sometimes, it is said, ignorant even of their geographical location. ^ The nobles of Bantam, toward the end of the eighteenth century, are described as spending their time in eating and drinking, chewing betel, and horse racing ; they lived off the revenues of their lands and left business to lesser persons.* Such a government as this described was incompetent to 1 de Jonge, Opk., 6 : 181 (1669). 2 Verslag of Guitard, 1790, de Jonge, Opk., 12 : 197. Conditions were about as bad in another regency ; ib. p. 206. 2 Raffles, Sub., 80, 91, 12-5. * Breugel, " Beschrijviug van het koningrijk Bantam" (1787), Bijd. TLV., 1856, 2:1:332. 22 THE DUTCH IN JAVA chap. fulfil properly any of the duties that belonged to it. It could not perform the first function of government to defend the people against foreign enemies and maintain peace and security at home. The shores of Java are lined with old watch-towers, designed to guard against the inroads of pirates, but the pirates nevertheless pene- trated to the very centre of the island, plundering villages and carrying the inhabitants off into slavery .^ The central government was unable even to maintain peace between subordinate rulers. The Governor General wrote in 1620 that every governor in Mataram Avas ruling as he pleased ; one governor was robbing the subjects of another to win the favor of the emperor by the presents which successful pillage afforded. ^ An account of the same time gives an idea of the anarchy that prevailed in Mataram at this period of its greatest power. A noble, " king of a city " wanted the daughter of another to wife, and sent an embassy with presents to ask for her hand. He was told with expressions of polite regret that she was promised to another. He sent a body of two or three thousand men, who took the daughter by force, razing the palace of her father ; then two other nobles, friends of 1 Horsfield, "Essay on the Geography ... of Java," n. d., 24-25; Eindresum^, 2 : 95. It should be stated that both these references are from the nineteenth century, embodying only memories of an earlier time. Piracy increased considerably after the middle of the eighteenth century, in connection with a Mohammedan religious revival. M. L. van Deventer, Gesch., 2 : 289. The Company showed little more ability than the native states in repressing piracy, but I see no reason to suppose that the Company was responsible for the evil. Under the conditions of Malay government piracy was a regular institution ; Raffles says that it was "regarded as an lionorable occupation, worthy of being followed by young princes and nobles." liaflfles's Memoir, 1 : 93. 2 Coen to Directors, de Jonge, Opk., 4 : 202. I THE NATIVE ORGANIZATION 23 the outraged father, raised armies in his behalf, and at the time of writing a war was impending. ^ Within the petty districts in which the regents governed there was no security. The country was overrun with robber bands. " Whoever went outside his village with- out protection ran the chance of being murdered," was the native testimony as to conditions in Bantam under native rule. The Company did not dare to send its offi- cial messengers without an escort in the North East provinces.^ The many penalties against different sorts of robbery and theft that are found in the Javanese laws are proof of the evils against which they were directed, but there is no proof that these laws were effectively enforced. One is reminded of conditions that existed in England before the Norman conquest in reading of the prevalence of cattle stealing, and the difficulty that the Dutch expe- rienced in stopping it in the districts under their pro- tectorate. All judicial remedies were found ineffective, and it was necessary to revert to the old native custom that no buffalo could be bought or sold except in open market.^ A single illustration will show how sadly jus- tice was administered. Van Hoevell, on a journey in central Java, came to a deep rocky cleft in the ground. 1 Jonrnael of Haan, 1623, de Jonge, Opk., 5 : 39. From a later period may be cited a case in which the Dutch were compelled to interfere in Cheribon, to stop the "despotic reprisals" of a regent, who was kidnap- ping the subjects of another because they had stolen from his people. Zwaardekroon to Directors, 1719, de Jonge, Opk., 9: 32. 2 Eindres., 3:3; ib.,S: 42. In central Java there was no security in the period of native rule, and criminals escaped with impunity. [Valk] "De toestand van Bagelon in 1830," TNI., 1858, 20:2:76; KoUman, " Bagelen," Tijd. TLV., 18G4, 14 : 354. For a description of the lack of security in Bantam see M. L. van Deventer, Gesch., 1 : 28. 8 Aanmerkingen, Mossels, Preangers, 1754, Jonge, Opk., 10:270, 24 THE DUTCH IN JAVA chap. He was informed on good authority that under native rule the regents and lesser officials took criminals or any men who were in their way, bound and left them there to die without a trial ; they thereby saved the expense of sending them to court for trial ! ^ In the way of positive contributions to the welfare of the people the government did practically nothing. In some parts of Java there is said to have been a comparatively active internal trade, but this was carried on not only in the face of political insecurity and such taxes as the inge- nuity of rulers could suggest, but also in spite of an almost total absence of roads. The Dutch government conducted an investigation of the labor demanded from the people under native rule in the maintenance of roads and bridges. They found it amounted to little or nothing, and the reason appears in one of the answers, " because there were no roads or bridges." 2 Even in the nineteenth century Raffles found that goods conveyed by water were generally transported on pack-animals or on the shoulders of men and women. ^ The result was to keep the people down on a low stage of agricultural organization, and to deny them all the comforts that could have been obtained from a sys- tem of exchange and of organized labor. Native annals 1 " Wreede strafofeningen . . . ," TNI., 1840, 3:1: 169. The article describes many of the cruel punishments current in the native period, mutilations, setting men to fight tigers, and the like. It appears, in a re- port from Japara, 1674, that a man who wished to appeal a case to the soenan in person could do so only on paying five hundred dollars (an immense sum for a native), and by giving over all his wives to the keep- ing of the soenan. Jonge, Opk., 6 : 191. ^Eindres., 3:13. There was one short road in Bantam, and there are scattered examples of roads in the other parts of Java, but the real beginning in road-building dates from the efforts of the Company and of Daendels. « Hist., 1 : 219. I THE NATIVE ORGANIZATION 25 are full of the records of famine and pestilence ; they arose from a local failure of the crops or from one of the many- wars, and they were so serious because it was impossible to supply a deficit in one part of the country by drawing on the surplus which might exist in another. Alternate waste and want characterized the organization of Java, as they did that of medijeval Europe.^ Every movement of wares incident to exchange was seized upon by the rulers as an opportunity to levy toll. Duties were levied at all the ports, and in the interior the circula- tion of goods was hemmed by frequent toll-gates. Mar- kets existed not only as a convenience for consumers and a protection to the validity of sales, — they were as much or more a device of the governing class to raise taxes. No trade could be carried on outside the market, the monopoly of which extended sometimes for a distance of twenty miles or more. Government claims to monopoly were exercised sometimes in the particularly hateful form of an engrossing of the food supply. 2 To this description of the upper political organization in Java I have to add only one more point in this place. The machinery of government was not only cumbrous and ineffective ; it was immensely heavy. A Dutch official 1 Figures of rice prices iu different parts of the archipelago, given by de Jonge, Opk., 4 : 15, show clearly the influence of the lack of transpor- tation. Dutch governors in the seventeenth century were directed to keep in stock a supply of rice for two years, to avoid the famine that might appear at any time. Instructions of 1650, Mijer, Verz., 114. ^ This last feature of native government was not unknown in the nine- teenth century. Raffles (Memoir, 81) thought that the idea of trade monopoly was copied from the Dutch, but van Goens found it already existing and applied to the trade in rice, when he visited Mataram. Reisbeschr., 350. For the abuses of the market see especially Wiese, in Jonge, Opk., 13:60; other descriptions, ib., 13:36, and Raffles, Hist. 1 : 220. 26 THE DUTCH IN JAVA chap. estimated in 1802 that the members of the privileged class amounted to one-eighth of the whole population.^ The proportion can scarcely have been as large as this in all parts of the island ; strike off a large part of it, and there still remains a great burden, which must have been felt the more as it must have seemed such utterly dead weight. Passing from the upper to the lower classes of native so- ciety, the investigator finds a description of their economic organization comparatively easy. It was the simple and uniform organization of a people living from the soil, with but unimportant trade relations. The typical Javanese cultivator was the owner or tenant of an acre or so of irri- gated rice land, from which, with a few crude agricultural implements and the services of a buffalo, he secured the greater part of the food supply of his family. ^ His dwell- ing was a hut or cottage, which he could construct in a few days, and there was little in or about it which was not the handiwork of himself or of some member of his family. " The family of a Javan peasant is almost independent of any labor but that of its own members," wrote Raffles. 1 Wiese, on Hogendorp's Bericht, Jonge, Opk., 13:47. M. L. van Deventer, Gesch., 2 : 297, accepts this as trustworthy. D. van Hogendorp, Nad. Uitl., 10, said that of 3693 jonks rice land in Pekalongan 3134 were occupied by natives doing services for the official class, but I do not feel sure of the interpretation of this passage. 2 I purposely avoid most of the difficulties and details of the lower organization, as their discussion in this place vi^ould be of little profit. I must notice, however, the assertion of Gelpke, " De rijstkultuur op Java," Bijd. TLV., 3 : 9 : 180, that rice was to the natives an article of luxury be- fore the nineteenth century, and that they lived on herbs, etc. This is not borne out by the report of 1804, which he cites, and cannot be recon- ciled with the constant reference to rice cultivation in the descriptions of early native Java. Wiese said in 1802 that rice was "het voornaamste, ja bijna eenige voedsel der Javanen," Jonge, Opk., 13 : 65 ; Jaussaud in his Memoire, 1810, called it the "principale nourriture du peuple," ib., 13: 514. I THE NATIVE OKGANIZATION 27 In every cottage there were a spinniug-wlieel and loom, and in the yard about it were raised the fruit and vegeta- bles that the famil}^ consumed. Any small surplus that could be spared was taken to market to be exchanged for salt fish, dried meat, or what petty luxuries the family could afford.^ The class of professional traders and artisans seems to have been very small in the interior, and of no great im- portance even at the seaports. We are told of large cities in different parts of the island, but the figures of their population were grossly exaggerated, and in many cases these so-called cities were nothing but groups of vil- lages. ^ It is proper to recognize the existence in Java of a class of people earning its livelihood by other means than agriculture, but it would be wrong to linger over the de- scription of this class, for its importance in the economic organization was small, and in the political organization, so far as my studies have extended, absolutely inconsider- able. I pass then to the topic that will end this survey of the native organization, and take up the political organization of the agricultural class, the bulk of the common people. My object must be to describe the local political institu- tions peculiar to this class, and the bonds uniting it with the higher government. There is not, I believe, a task in 1 Raffles, Hist., 1 : 95, 121, 182. 2 A comparison of the figures given for the population of any place at different times shows that they are entirely untrustworthy. Without going into details I may say that the largest places could have had at most a population of a few tens of thousands. Cf. M. L. van Deventer, Gesch., 1 : 4(1 ; 2 : 39. Raffles's estimate, Hist., 1 : 118, that a tenth to a quarter of the people were engaged in manufactures or trade is mislead- ing, I am sure. 28 THE DUTCH IN JAVA chap. Javanese history more difficult to accomplish with perfect thoroughness, so great is the variety with which the student has to deal, and so obscure are the causes for many of the differences. Luckily it is not necessary for present purposes to attack the most difficult part of the problem — that dealing with the origins ; and in this sketch it is permissible to single out the main features and treat them broadly, to the exclusion of conflicting details.^ In some parts of the island, especially the eastern and western extremities, the natives were grouped in villages closely similar to the severalty village of British India. The similarity is most probably due to the idea, wide- spread in the tropics,^ that a man who undertakes the arduous task of reclaiming land from the jungle is en- titled to enjoy and to hand down to posterity the results of his labor. One or more men would clear a piece of the waste and construct little by little the irrigation canals necessary for efficient rice culture ; other men 1 The following sketch of village organization is based mainly on the material in the Eindresume, " Het onderzoek naar de rechten van den inlander op den grond in de residentie Bantam," TNI., 1872, 1 : 1 and 2, and Raffles, Substance. The article by L. W. C. van den Berg on the organization of the native village, " Het inlandsche gemeentewezen op Java en Madoera," Bijd. TLV., 1901, 6:8:1-140, is a very valuable contribution to the subject, but I cannot feel that it has settled the doubt- ful questions of the origins. It is written almost entirely from the legal standpoint, and disregards tribal and economic influences. Van den Berg is still a firm believer in the "primitive Aryan " ; he quotes Baden Powell, but he holds fast to Maine. A number of questions coniiected with the origin of the different forms of land tenure and village organization, and the question of the development of communal land tenure I have omitted, as being of special interest only to the student of early institu- tions, and likely to be valuable to him only when they can be treated in greater detail than the plan of this book would allow. 2 B. H. Baden Powell, "The Indian Village Community," Lond., 1896, 151, 207. I THE NATIVE ORGANIZATION 20 would join, and in the course of time a new village would have arisen. 1 Land tenure was individual and hereditary. The leader in the settlement would be the first head-man in the village ; his name was long remembered in village tradition, and commonly, though not always, his descend- ants enjoyed the dignity of his office. Even when the office of head-man was held for life, and regularly by a member of the founder's family, the form of election seems to have been kept up ; and in some districts the elections were held at frequent intervals and led to constant rota- tion in office. Rothenbuhler describes conditions as they were in Soerabaya, where the head-man was caXled petinggi. " This Patingie is always chosen by the inhabitants them- selves, without the intervention of any one else and from their own number ; but his rule lasts no longer than two or three years, when there is a new election and the old Patingie returns to the class of the common people, with- out any advantage over the others. This custom has existed in Soerabaya from time immemorial, and no regent or chief would venture to break it, for fear that this might cause an emigration of people. For the inhabitants are extremely attached to this custom, and not unreason- ably so, because by it each one of them in turn becomes Patingie^ and no one needs to fear that an unfair distribu- tion of burdens and privileges will take place." ^ It was the duty of the petinggi to represent his village in dealings with the upper government, especially in the matter of taxation ; he was supposed to prevent the levying of unduly large taxes, and secure for the village the benefits 1 Cf. Eindres., 2 : 69, 81, describing this process in Tegal and Peka- longan ; Raffles, Sub., 100, etc. 2 Rothenbuhler, "Rapport van den staat en gesteldheid van het Landschap Soerabaija" [1812], Verhaud. Bat. Gen., 1881, 41 : 3 : 16. 30 THE DUTCH IN JAVA chap. of a fair apportionment among individuals. In return for the duties he rendered, he received a number of per- sonal privileges, and enjoyed gratuitously land and labor, the equivalent of a salary. Besides the head-man, who had many different titles in different parts of the island, the village had sometimes a council of elders, and com- monly an assistant or deputy head, a priest, and sometimes a writer or secretary. It is unnecessary for the present purpose to describe in greater detail this form of village government. The im- portant feature of it is its local independence. As long as the villagers paid their taxes, they were free to conduct their own affairs as they chose ; officers elected by them attended to all the business of local government, including taxation, the judicial settlement of minor disputes, and the maintenance of local police. There was no equality of possessions among the members of tlie village. Some were well-to-do, with more land and stock than they needed for their own subsistence, and some were landless and had to work for others to gain their living. There were, however, no important social or political class di- visions corresponding to these differences in economic position ; the form of village which I have just described can be called democratic. ^ 1 The classes described by the resident of Japara, 1830, S. van Deventer, LS., 2 : 289, as existing in the native villages at the beginning of the century, are clearly economic. The same can be said of the classes described in Cheribon, 1830, ih., 2 : 270, the description followed by Van Hoe veil and Plerson, and of those in Bantam, Onderzoek, TNI., 1872, 1:1: 243. Figures of the distribution of the land in the severalty vil- lages in the nineteenth century show that the "peasant-holding" was the rule. Cf. S. van Deventer, LS., 3 : 144, 147 ; A. W. Kinder de Camarecq, "Bijdrage tot de kennis der volksinstellingen in de oostelijke Soenda- landen," Tijd. TLV., 1861, 10 : 273. I THE NATIVE ORGANIZATION 31 I do not wish to be understood to mean that this vil- lage government, which seems so intelligible in its form to western minds, was a good government according to western standards. It was no better than the shiftless and ignorant men that composed it. So far from answering to our ideals of the perfect " village community," it was both weak and cruel, as will appear in its later history. It was, however, the best of the forms of local govern- ment that native Java could offer, and it has furnished the type on which the Dutch in the nineteenth century have modelled the other forms. It was far better than the only other form that I shall describe, which might be called the dependent or tenant village. In the territories of central Java included in the old state of Mataram the people lived in village groups as elsewhere, but with scarcely any of the property rights and political privileges that are found in the other parts of the island. Imagine a free village ground down by taxation until the inhabitants are in constant danger of eviction for failure to meet the demands, and have become practically tenants at will ; imagine an agent appointed by the landlord to be put in place of the head-man elected by the villagers ; those are the changes that must be supposed to account for the conditions that appear in central Java.^ In the free village, at least until the latest period of the East India Company, there was some limit to the taxes which the people bore, even though it was as high as that reported by an English official, — three-fifths of 1 L. W. C. van den Berg, Inl. Gem., Bijd. TLV., 1901, p. 17, quotes evidence to show that the dependent village was a degeneration from the free form, and Raffles assumed that to be the case, Sub., 184. Many natives have testified that tenure once hereditary had been made precari- ous by the government. Cf. Eindres., 2 : 97, 123, etc. 32 THE DUTCH IN JAVA chap. the crop. In the dependent villages the only check on the demands from above was the fear of driving the people off the land. A native official has testified that in the time of native rule the payments of the people were fixed, not in proportion to the extent of land held or to the production, but in accordance with the need for money of the higher officials.! Officials in Java were paid, as has been said above, by grants from the sovereign of that part of his revenues that came from a certain district ; but in central Java the officials received, not the right to a certain reve- nue, but the right to the land itself, with power to get from it all that they could. Each official was served by a series of agents, who bid among themselves for the right to collect dues, and made their profits by the excess of what they could squeeze from their subordinates over the amount that they had to pay to their superiors. Last in the series came the hekel^ himself a man from the class of cultivators, who sometimes worked a little land, but whose main support was the amount he could make from the rents paid by the tenants under him. Each hekel had the administration of a very small area, cultivated by not more than half a dozen families, to judge from conditions in the nineteenth century. " The status of the slave is always deplorable ; the status of the predial slave is often worse than that of the personal or household slave ; but the lowest depth of miserable subjection is reached when the person enthralled to the land is at the mercy of peas- ' ants, whether they exercise their power singly or in com- munities. "^ The natives of Java were not bound to the soil ; but the right of emigration was about the only 1 Eindres., 2 : 99, note (c), Banjoemas. * Maine, "Village Communities," Lond., 1871, 166. I THE NATIVE ORGANIZATION 33 right left to them. The demands of the upper classes were great enough, but these were raised indefinitely as they passed through the hands of middlemen, and reached their height when they were imposed by the hekel. He was one of the common people ; he knew all their weak- nesses and the possibilities of gain from them, and he used his power mercilessly. Some hekeh raised twenty- fold what they paid to their superiors.^ Their devices for extortion were innumerable. It was notorious that the office of hehel was for sale to the highest bidder, and the competition brought the worst characters into the position of immediate superiors of the people.^ The real evil of the organization is apparent only when it is realized that the successful bidder, who took practi- cally the position of lessee of the land, was also its ruler. With the right to raise taxes he bought at the same time the sovereign's rights of police and jurisdiction, and became lord and master of his small domain. ^ This con- dition was further complicated by the fact that a village was very often divided among a number of different offi- cials, so that each would be represented in it by an agent independent of the others. A village had sometimes as many as five different lords, and each one ruled as he 1 Eindres., 2 : 122, note 2, Bagelen ; ih., 3, Bijl. A., 3. A native pa