ever, the conditions that create our admiration for Dutch colonial administration-and such admiration can not be refused by the visitor who really knows Java-are chiefly those that through their superficial or obvious character appeal directly to the European or American, not those that reside in the profounder depths of native society. They are manifested in substantial and well-maintained public works, in fields so carefully tilled that they almost tell the story of the intense struggle of the teeming population for food, and in the comforts and conveniences of occidental civilization everywhere within one's beck and call.

Holland is a small country with a surplus population, where opportunities for self-advancement do not abound. The number of welleducated young men of good antecedents who are willing to make a life career of public service in the colonies is very large. Holland can, therefore, command a better supply of men for her colonial administration than can the United States for similar positions in the Philippines, because in the latter country ability is better rewarded at home than it can be elsewhere. In traveling in Java and coming in contact with public officials in that country, one is impressed with the high standard of intelligence, ability, and gentlemanly conduct prevailing throughout the colonial service. Holland has one wise provision in her colonial laws. This is the prohibition which prevents European officials from becoming interested financially, in person or through their relatives, in agricultural or other business enterprises or speculative undertakings in the colony.

The colonial government of Java is interested in several industries from which it derives revenue. In 1902 the authorities of the Netherlands Indies sold 12,457,830 pounds of coffee, from which the net receipts were $1,214,585, and 830,359 pounds of chincona bark, from which the net receipts were $116,944. The latter was from plantati ns conducted directly by the government. The most profitable source of revenue, however, is the tin mines of Banca, an island north of Sumatra and not a part of Java. From these mines 33,769,960 pounds of tin were exported the year in question, affording the government a net revenue of $8,330,330.

The Javanese are charged by white employers with all the sins of industrial remissness that are anywhere imputed to a tropical race. They are said to be thriftless, lazy, and unambitious. One planter said: "The Javanese have no moral sense of laziness. For them there is no such vice. They consider it perfectly proper not to work so long as they have enough to eat and wear." At the Malay New Year all servants and employees usually receive an advance of a month's wages, which they spend in two or three days. It sometimes takes them the whole following year to work off this debt. When the peasant has gathered his rice harvest he sits idling until it is eaten, and

then seeks work as a common laborer at any wage that offers. The East Javanese or Madurese are said to be somewhat more thrifty and to work regularly for a money wage. Possibly this is a result of industrial discipline alone, as Surabaya and the sugar country adjacent have long been the seat of employing industries. If this is so, and if the superior thrift and persistency as workers reported of these laborers is not a product of race differences, the fact would seem to show that the industrial vices of the Javanese may be corrected to some extent by training and the habit of regular employment. Europeans familiar with Java say that it will be difficult to create new wants and through them new ambitions among the natives. One instance was cited of a Javanese who was worth $60,000, who rented to white tenants several fine residences, but himself was content to live in a hovel. The complaint often heard in the Philippines that the natives do not know the value of money, and therefore that it does not constitute for them an inducement to labor, is equally common in Java.

Nevertheless, the dense population of the colony prevents any serious dearth of labor, though planters sometimes complain of a shortage during the season of the rice harvest. A number of interviews with Javanese employers were quoted in a report upon labor conditions in the Philippines, all indicating the importance that is attached to tactful administration of labor by the Dutch. Sometimes, even in Java, new plantations are opened or railways and other public works are constructed in districts where the population is sparse and labor has to be imported. It is then that the Dutchman's mastery of native sociology reveals itself. He does not attempt to do violence to the communal instincts of the peasants and to treat them as he would a gang of Italians or Chinese. In the new locality he reconstructs so far as possible the physical surroundings of a Javanese village. He uses the same policy that the manager of a zoological garden might in accustoming new visitors from the wilds to their future home. If the population is to be permanent, as in case of a plantation opened in the wilderness, the dessa organization soon begins to take root, and a local labor supply is rapidly created. Homesick laborers are allowed to return to their villages, rather than compelled to remain to affect the whole body of workmen with their nostalgia. Usually these men eventually return, often bringing their families and settling in the vicinity of their work.

The Javanese have an art and a romantic or heroic literature, though neither appears to possess much culture value. In the courts of the sultans there is an exceedingly deliberate and elaborate ceremonial, part of the grotesquely artificial life of an earlier day. Upon the whole what little of these concrete evidences of higher activity is reported to the traveler, or can be observed by him during a visit to the island, bears out the statement of the Dutch rulers that the

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Javanese are a race with immature mental and moral endowments. couple of hours in the Batavia museum, where there is a large collection of wooden models, illustrating the use of a great number of machines of execution and torture, throws a sidelight upon the generations of cruelty and oppression that made the Javanese one of the most docile races in the world. This people might be described as a

nation of obedient children.

Java, then, is under one aspect a materially progressive country. The value of its public works and of its fields and plantations is increasing. Under another aspect it is a materially stationary country. The standard of living and physical well-being of the masses has not risen and wages appear to be falling. From a social and intellectual point of view it is a stagnant country, without a vigorous native culture and deprived of the possible inspiration of contact with occidental thought and science. As one drives through this land, populated with crouching peasants, transplanting rice by hand in the mud of overflowed paddy fields, or threads the narrow streets of palm-hut villages teeming with lively children and lethargic adults, or pushes his way through the crowded markets, where thousands haggle over a handful of rice or a bunch of field herbs, and round out a day with a few cents' worth of sales or purchases, he sometimes asks himself the question: For what end? Is the welfare of the race or any other sane end furthered by the mere process of multiplying human lives? Ought conditions in Java to be what they are? Most growing races sooner or later make some contribution to the civilization, or the art, or the thought of the world. It seems hardly normal that the 29,000,000 people of Java should have done nothing. If the Dutch have failed anywhere, it has been through introducing a regimen that stultifies the intellectuality of the people under them. But it would be a hasty conclusion to attribute this result to government and to the policy of rulers. It may be a quality of the people themselves. All that can be said positively is that the policy of consulting only the material interests of a dependent race fails. The Javanese worker profits little by the well-ordered government under which he lives, because his interests have not risen above food, shelter, and the satisfaction of physical wants. The door to higher things has not been opened for him. No ambition spurs him to additional effort. His standard of living remains stationary, or even retrogrades with the increasing pressure of a growing population. Whatever the real cause, the elements of economic and social progress are lacking in Java.

In this respect the condition of the Philippines appears at present to be more hopeful. The people have national aspirations and the desire for culture. They possess more or less initiative in seeking ideal ends. If wisely directed these impulses will react upon their economic condition and establish a progressive movement in wages and l iency.

THE NEW RUSSIAN WORKINGMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT.(")

BY I. M. RUBINOW.

The new Russian workingmen's compensation act, promulgated on June 2 (15), 1903, and effective since January 1 (14), 1904, is acknowledged by the Russian press to be the most important act of labor legislation since 1897, when a normal working day was established. Prior to this the workingman's right to compensation in case of accidents was based upon the civil law and necessitated litigation and proof of the employer's negligence. The laborer had neither the means nor the proper intelligence for such litigation, and a settlement for a ridiculously small sum was the usual way even in case of the severest injuries. There was special legislation to provide for compensation of miners.

The new law embraces in its provision the wageworkers of all the large manufacturing, metallurgical, and mining establishments; all employees, whether actual workers or supervisors and foremen, are included, provided their salary does not exceed 1,500 rubles ($772.50) a year. The proprietor of the establishment must compensate his employees for any disability resulting from accidents (occurring while. at work) which has lasted more than three days, unless purpose or gross negligence on the part of the person injured can be proved. Subletting the work to contractors does not relieve the proprietor of the establishment from the responsibility. Agreements between the employer and employee, waiving the right to a compensation under this act, are not legal and do not deprive the employee of his rights.

The act distinguishes between two kinds of relief-a compensation and a pension. The first is given for temporary and the latter for permanent disability. The temporary compensation is calculated on a basis of 50 per cent of the actual earnings for the time of disability; a pension equal to two-thirds of the average annual earnings is granted in case of total and permanent disability. Where the disability, though permanent, is not total-i. e., does not completely destroy, but only diminishes, the earning capacity of the workingman-only a proportionate share of the two-thirds of the average earnings must be

a The Government has recently had under consideration to replace this law a system of State insurance of workingmen against accidents, to form part of a general system of insurance against sickness, accidents, old age and invalidity, and death not caused by accidents.

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paid. The compensation is to be paid from the day of the injury till the day of either a complete cure or of cessation of medical treatment, when the injury may be declared a permanent one. From that day the pension dates. If the pension is larger than the compensation, the difference for the time elapsed is to be paid to the person injured in a lump sum.

If the person injured is a child (12 to 15 years of age) or a youth (15 to 17 years), the amount of payment is calculated on the basis of actual earnings; but with the growth of a child into a youth or the youth into an adult the rate of compensation or pension is increased correspondingly with the rise of wages of unskilled labor for the various age periods. In addition to all payments the employer must compensate the workingman for actual expenses of medical attendance till the cure or cessation of treatment, unless the workingman has been receiving this medical aid from the employer, i. e., in the factory hospital. In case of fatal accidents (whether death results immediately or within two years after the accident, as long as it is shown to have been caused by the accident) a special allowance of 30 rubles ($15.45) for an adult, or 15 rubles ($7.73) for a minor, is made by the employer for funeral expenses, and a pension is to be paid to the widow or heirs of the deceased wageworker according to the following scale: The widow, as long as she remains single, is entitled to one-third of the annual earnings of the deceased husband; children, whether legitimate, legitimatized, illegitimate, or adopted, shall receive one-sixth each of the earnings of the deceased parent, in case the other parent remains alive, or one-fourth each if they are left with neither father nor mother, up to 15 years of age; where parents or grandparents were dependent upon the earnings of the person fatally injured, they are each entitled to one-sixth of the annual earnings; the same provision is made for youthful brothers and sisters, who have neither father nor mother, until they reach the age of 15; provided, however, that the total amount of pension must not exceed two-thirds of the annual earnings. If the total of the pensions exceeds two-thirds of the annual salary of the deceased, the wife and children are entitled to receive the total indemnity provided for them in the law. If anything remains after the wife and children receive their proportions, it is divided equally among the other beneficiaries. If the maximum fixed is exceeded by the total of the pensions coming to the wife and children, these pensions are reduced proportionately. Where both parents lose their lives as a result of accidents, there is nothing to interfere with the children. receiving a double pension. If the widow marries again, she forfeits her rights to the pension, but is entitled to the payment of a sum three times as large as her annual pension as a final settlement.

As the amount of the compensation or pension depends upon the earnings of the injured workingman, the method of determination of