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THE DUTCH IN JAVA.

pean authorities. The Arabs also have their captains and lieutenants, and there are official chiefs of the Malays, the Buginese, the Bengalis, and the Moormen, these last being Mussulmans from continental India.

Vaccination appears to work successfully in Java, as persons marked with small-pox are rarely seen, and nearly a million are annually vaccinated or re-vaccinated in the island. Now it is precisely in carrying out schemes conducive to the health and comfort of the people, but contrary to their prejudices, such as vaccination, that valuable assistance may be expected from men who understand the people, and combine social influence with official prestige, as do these native chiefs.

Besides all those named, a new race is gradually arising — the offspring of Chinese fathers and Javanese mothers; these half-castes are superior in appearance to either parent, and bear a certain resemblance to the people of Japan.

In the minds of the Hollanders the name of "India" does not denote Hindostan especially, but includes also the whole of the great Malay archipelago; and they are always careful to use the terms "British" or "Continental" India when they wish to distinguish our dominions from their own insular empire, to which has been given the appropriate name of "Insulinde" (Island India). When comparisons are drawn between the modes of administration in British and Netherlands India, there is displayed on either side a certain disposition to believe that things are better managed beyond seas; but the knowledge possessed by individuals of the administrative systems in both countries is seldom sufficient for the formation of a correct judgment upon their relative merits and defects. If the government of British India were to follow the example of the Dutch, and to send a few selected civilians to study minutely on the spot the working of the rival systems, as regards the collection of the revenues, the employment of natives in the public service, the construction of public works, etc., it would be found that we have quite as much to learn as to teach in the management of a great Asiatic dependency.

There are in the world only two States which are constitutional at home and imperial abroad; and those two are Great Britain and the Netherlands. The spectacle of a free European nation ruling with beneficent despotism over a subject Asiatic population, nearly seven times as numerous, is exhibited in the first place by England, and is repeated exactly by Holland upon a smaller scale. It is a remarkable fact that the most important British statistics have only to be divided by ten, in order to be made applicable to the Dutch with approximate accuracy in every detail. Thus, at the last census the population of the United Kingdom was returned at 31,513,442, that of the United Provinces at 3,579,529. The average annual revenue received at the British Exchequer during the last sixteen years has slightly exceeded £70,000,000; that of the Netherlands (exclusive of the Indian contribution) appears to have been as nearly as possible £7,000,000. In 1874 the national debt of Great Britain was £727,993,605; at the same date that of the Netherlands was £77,276,673. When we turn from Europe to Asia the proportions remain substantially unaltered, except in one important particular. The total population of British India, including the feudatory states, was, according to the census of 1872, close upon two hundred and forty millions; while that of the Dutch East Indies was at the same date a little over twenty-four millions. As regards the so-called European troops of the Netherlands colonial army their numbers may seem disproportionately strong, being returned at twelve thousand three hundred and ten, when we had less than seventy thousand European soldiers, all told, throughout our Indian empire. But the disproportion is apparent rather than real, for while our Europeans are all British soldiers, the Dutch "European" companies ought rather to be styled "Christian" companies, including, as they do, men of every race and color who profess Christianity. In fact, less than two-thirds of the rank and file are genuine Netherlanders, so that the usual proportion is here approximately maintained, and there are about ten British soldiers in Hindostan for each Dutch soldier in Netherlands India.

But now we come to a matter in which a great divergence appears from the proportion hitherto maintained between the two empires. During the seven years ending in 1874 the average annual revenue of British India amounted almost exactly to £50,000,000, while the revenue of Java and Madura, which may be called the "regulation provinces" of Netherlands India, has for a similar period averaged 120,000,000 guilders, or £10,000,000 annually. The revenue of Java is thus equal to one-fifth of that of all British India, although its population is barely one-tenth,