DUTCH IN JAVA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 18996, 18 April 1925, Page 9

DUTCH IN JAVA.

,— : —— : ■ • .■ ■ . ■ ■ • ■ & . : * ■ RELATIONS WITH NATIVES. ■;• ■ v ,• ; -v 1 • . 1 ._• ... -■ ■; . ' . ■■■; • t >' _ • : POSITION OF HALF-CASTES. : • ■ _____ .. '■ ON EQUALITY WITH WHITES.' : (nx ovix gpEcuL coiijrissiokEn.] ' '.SINGAPORE, Feb. 2U. Having travelled .from Australia to Java in a Dutch ship v an'd' tho' length of Java by rail frqm Sourabaya to Batavia, it is difficult to S}ud asijihing in the Dutch management of tho millions of natives whiclv one iannot admire. From their r sturdy determination that nobody shaii-Mj'i'Vit'.ythiiig- for nothing in Java io \acif ia.no, practical, and unconventional- way of ha«dlin£ the problems v-hich, afisc wb ire a. dominant white minority' lives among' a- subject coloured majority, -ifes:m ia littlo room for criticism, i Living amriiig over --54.000,000 Javan- ( esc, the Dovshpeople 'inter/ere not at all i'm racial customs, and do: their utmost to preserve to them their ancient rights They will no 1 "pw white people, for >ih stance, to own land. Even the sugar companies only havo their areas or. yearly tenure, and after the crop the land goes back to' the native owners for the cultivation of rice, so. that the land shall be worked with the proper rotation of crops, and not worked out by careless and thriftless handling. The rule has exceptions; there aro a few companies which have concessions for rubber and tea, but the principle of nativo ownership, apart from these, is firmly established. The natives have their own Courts as well, and in so far as they do not conflict with order and good government, their own customs. The Dutch are wisely chary about educating them, having seen the effects of Western education on Oriental people in British India. As <®c Dutchman said: "Why mako a nati;3 problem for ourselves ? Education makes indifferent clerks out of what would have been contented and efficient farmers. We do not want self-determination'troubles here."' No doubt to' many this; will appear a policy of extreme selfishness, b»it it is at least perfectly logical, and tho natives do not appear unhappy under it. What they havo never known, they can hardly miss. Mixture of Races. In Singapore there are 350,000 Chinese, and not 1 per, cent, of these is able to read the classic authors of China -in his own language. Many of them cannot : even speak Chinese, but get /Jong oil 1 the' more primitive Malay. So thit^iKe 'light of learning, so essential a part, of, Western life, is not yet important in Asia. There Is plenty of sound,.practical wisdom., bub that is sharply different Solomon probably did not know Euclid's fifth proposition, and certainly was ignorant oJrTscwton's laws,j but he was. wise.. We may put it that the Dutch .aim at breeding Solomons in Java rather than Gandhis. The tragedy of mixed blood, so . poig« nant and so incapable of solution in British India, where the unfortunates are barred from both races, hiack by the pride which their , white streak gives them, from the white by the social > ostracism of the superior race, is vastly mitigated;,jn Java. might,- ,Jbe': expected from the propinquity of a white race, and a brown people .so interesting, so highly developed mentally, and so phy-. sically attractive, there is a considerabl# proportion of half-casto population; . Tho position of these people is vastly different to that of the Eurasians of "Eritish India. The Dutch accept them as white. If a Eurasian'is. a decent fellow he has tho entry to decent white society...He is governed by-the law .of the white man, and seekij justice in the Courts of tho white man, while the' fuU-blooded Javanese have their own Courts. The halfi caste girls are frequently very handsome, and have a touch of fire and languor in their faces not often apparent in their white sisters, who are inclined, like tho men, to run to flesh. " Naturally, as in all Asiatic countries, these girla seek marriage with a white man as their highest goaL . :-{■ i-■ A . Vv'-i ■■■ •: Current Superstition. In connection with this there is * superstition very current ih • Java, held l firmly by the half-castes , and regarded with at least somo seriousness by many of the Dutch. Some Dutch boys will not accept food or drink prepared by a half- . caste, for fear that in it is concealed tho mystic goena goena, a love philter so potent that it binds the . taker to tha ' giver, in faithful love for tho rest of his life. When a Dutchman marries a lialfcasto girl his friends joke about goena goena half seriously. In such a marriaga the girl takes her place in the circle of I her husband's friends, and the husband is not declasse as he would be in India or on the China coast, where such a marriage would bo fatal to ail his hopes of j advancement. In Java and on the Dutch steamers there were many friendly par- | ties in which folk of mixed blood and pure-blooded Europeans were on -excellent terms. Nor does all this appear to lessen the authority of the Dutch, as ona might suppose it would. No Rickshaws Allowed. There is another point in the Dutch behaviour toward the natives which calls for honourable mention. While they usa them freely as house servants and gardeners and waiters and'chauffeurs, they./; do not permit the' very t debasing use of them as beasts of burden which ono sees in Singapore, and other cities of the Malay States. There is not a horse to be seen in Singapore—at least, I didn't see one in my stay of three weeks; but there are thousands of rickshaw coolies, with an average life of two years as human horses, and it is surprising to an Australian or New Zealander with democratic views to see that.British sentiment v has tolerated the rickshaw so long. So far the Dutch have had no selfdetermination troubles, according to the .' majority of the people to whom I . spoke on this problem of tho races. One Dutchman. however, admitted that there were racial propaganda troubles at Bandoeng, and, as a matter of fact, I saw soldiers about five miles out of town, and wus. told that two men had been shot. This gentleman said that the trouble, 'which it was believed was fomented by Russian monev working through Mahometan channels, had not gone very far, and declared that ;f a few of the agitators vera promptly shot it would all stop. "The'only objection." the Dutchman wont on,' "is that people who do not understand the natives, atid have never been in Malaya, would raise a cry in .Holland about cruelty to the Javanese; As a matter of fact- all the agitators are Hindus." So apparently nobody dares to bo a Dyer. This gentleman's opinion must not bo regarded as conclusive, but at least it is notablo that some people who live among Asiatics still have firm faith in Napoleon's "whiff of grapeshot"