Already at Serang, when Havelaar stayed there at the house of the Resident, he had spoken to the latter about the abuses at Lebak, and received the reply that this was more or less the case everywhere. This, of course, Havelaar could not deny. For who would pretend that he had ever seen a country where nothing wrong happened? But he held that this was no reason to allow abuses to continue where one found them, especially not when one was emphatically called upon to resist them; also that, after all he knew of Lebak, there was here no question of more or less, but of an excessive degree; to which the Resident replied amongst other things that in the Division Tjiringheen, also belonging to Bantam, it was still worse.
Now if one accepts, as one may accept, that a Resident derives no direct advantage from extortion and from arbitrary disposal of the population, the question arises: what then induces so many, contrary to honour and duty, to allow such abuses to exist, without acquainting the Government with the fact? And he that reflects on this question must find it particularly strange that one so calmly recognizes the existence of these abuses, as though it were a matter outside reach or competency. I will endeavour to unfold the causes of this.
In general the very task of carrying evil tidings is an unpleasant one, and it really seems as though something of the unfavourable impression they make sticks to him to whose share falls the vexatious duty of communicating such tidings. Now if this fact alone has been proved a sufficient reason for some people to deny, against their better knowledge, the existence of anything unfavourable, how much more must this be the case when one runs the risk, not only of incurring the disfavour which unfortunately appears to be the reward of the carrier of bad news, but of being actually looked upon as the cause of the unfavourable condition which one’s duty compels one to reveal!
The Government of Netherlands India writes for preference to its masters in the motherland that everything goes well. The Resi-
