whole machinery of internal administration, just as they found it under the Mussulmans, while they secured, through the supervision of European officers, such checks and amendments as were deemed sufficient. The title of resident, which is borne by the principal Dutch official in each province, remains unaltered from the time when it was used to denote a representative of the European paramount power at the court of a native prince. The ruling princes, with a few exceptions, have disappeared, but the whole hierarchy of their subordinates remains, and all administrative functions, so far as natives are concerned, are intrusted to them only. A province or residency, containing on an average nearly a million of inhabitants, is divided into several regencies, each of which is governed by a native regent, having under him a host of minor officials, known as dhemang, djaksa, wedana, mantrie, etc. The regent invariably is a man of high birth, and frequently is a member of the princely family who once ruled over his district, so that he enjoys a large amount of prestige and influence apart from his authority as a government officer. In each regency is stationed a European assistant resident, whose instructions are to treat the regent with the consideration due from an "elder brother" towards a "younger," and who has under him a certain number of European kontroleurs. The duties of the assistant resident and his young Dutch subordinates are simply those of control and supervision, except where Europeans or quasi-Europeans are concerned.
The advantages claimed for this system are that it supplies public servants thoroughly known by and knowing the people, they being controlled in their turn by men of high culture, with European ideas of justice and public duty. Economy in salaries is one result of a system which enlists in the government service the willing aid of all ranks, even the most exalted, among the Javanese. Although Dutch officials receive lower emoluments, besides enjoying far less leave of absence than members of our Indian Civil Service, still it is impossible in any tropical country to secure the services of highly educated Europeans, except at rates more than adequate to command the very best native talent in the market. The dignity and privileges attaching to the government service, and the hope of one day being promoted to its higher offices, render it a career eagerly sought after by native gentlemen of position, who are ready to fill the lower grades at merely nominal salaries. But fixed salaries form only a portion of the emoluments of a Javanese chief in the public service; he receives also a percentage on the amount of taxes collected and coffee delivered by him, besides the arbitrary power, which he still possesses in spite of recent enactments, over the labor of the cultivators. And herein seems to lie the practical weakness of this theoretically excellent system, viz., in the imperfect nature of the control which it enables the Dutch officials to exercise over the Javanese. How far it is possible to protect the poorer classes of Asiatics against their immediate superiors, even by the most efficient European supervision, may be open to question, but the Dutch system in this respect certainly seems to require amendment. The local European officials in Java possess no direct authority over the regents and other native functionaries; nor do they incur direct responsibility on their behalf, as they would if the natives were their own immediate subordinates. The assistant resident of a division is indeed the "elder brother" of the regent, takes precedence of him as president of the land-raad, or local council, gives him general directions as on collections of taxes, repairing of roads and bridges; but if complaints or accusations are made against the regent to the assistant resident he can only hold an inquiry and report upon the case, through the resident to the central government in Batavia, with whom all real power rests, and who can dismiss without explanation or appeal any official, however exalted. Should a kontroleur have reason to complain of the conduct of a native functionary in a subordinate rank, and should he fail to obtain satisfaction from the offender's native superiors, the case would have to be carried upwards until it reached the supreme government from lack of power in the assistant resident, or even the resident, to deal with it, except in the way of a report.
In British India, on the other hand, native officials are in every sense subordinate to the collector or assistant collector, who is responsible for their conduct and has power to dismiss them, subject to an appeal, which may be carried even up to the secretary of state. It is clear that such an arrangement affords a more efficient control than that of the Dutch, where native functionaries have been guilty of corruption or oppression, although the ultimate court of appeal may be the same in both cases. In Netherlands India
