prises, however, were almost purely commercial. She established factories and trading posts but founded few states or permanent colonies,21 and in the course of time her conquests in the East fell to the Dutch and the English.

For many years the Dutch were satisfied to secure Eastern products at the port of Lisbon, where they were granted special commercial privileges, and distribute them throughout Europe. It was a profitable trade. The Portuguese handled the situation very skilfully. They not only withdrew entirely from the European coastwise trade, but even forbade the exportation of India goods from Portugal in Portuguese ships. By leaving this trade to the Dutch they hoped to satisfy them and prevent them from interfering with their monopolies in the Far East. A great mystery was made of the voyages. The difficulties and dangers of navigation were greatly exaggerated. The sailing routes were kept secret. All information with reference to the Indies which was disseminated was designed to play upon the credulity of the age.

Although the Dutch had been feeling their way into the Eastern trade, they would probably for many years have remained satisfied with the profitable rôle of intermediaries had not the acquisition of Portugal by Spain threatened the destruction of the Lisbon trade.22 In 1595 Philip II seized two-fifths of the entire Dutch merchant fleet in Spanish and Portuguese harbors.

Houtman's voyage by way of the Cape, to Java, led to the organization of various companies to trade with the East. In 1602 these companies were consolidated into the East India Company which for two centuries thereafter controlled Dutch commerce and colonization. The powers conferred on this famous company gave it not only a monopoly of trade but made it practically sovereign in the territory. It was authorized to

21 Brazil is all that is left. It has been said that during two centuries of colonization the Portuguese taught the natives nothing more important than how to distil a poor quality of rum by the use of an old gun barrel.

For an account of the pioneer work of the Portuguese, see Cheyney, European Background of American History, Chap. 4; Cambridge Modern History, I, Chap. 1.

22 Cunningham, Western Civilization, II, pp. 183 et seq.

make treaties with native rulers in the name of the States General, to build forts, appoint military governors and judges, and to take any and all measures necessary for the establishment and maintenance of government. The directors were given full authority to do anything they chose except establish a government independent of the Netherlands. Designed to act as a substitute for the state it soon, by the simple process of absorbing the statesmen, assumed the powers and functions of the state. Another company known as the West India Company, organized in 1621, operated in Brazil and elsewhere. For many generations these two companies controlled Dutch commercial and colonial enterprises.23

The Dutch East India Company was organized for trading purposes solely, but political control was soon found necessary for the protection of the trade. From the creation of this company until the middle of the nineteenth century Dutch colonization pursued one definite object. It had no theoretical or humanitarian aims. It was not in the least interested in the heathen or in posterity. It was after dividends and for general unscrupulousness and cupidity it stands unrivaled in the history of commerce and government. It finally came to an inglorious end and its rights, property and obligations were assumed by the government. The judgment of history upon this famous monopoly is stated by the Dutch publicist, DeLouter:24

"To the day of its downfall the Company remained faithful to its origin. It was a company of brisk and energetic tradesmen, who, with profit as their lode-star, and greed as their compass, obtained, through the chance of events, absolute control of one of the most beautiful and fertile regions of the earth and unhesitatingly sacrificed it to their low ideals."

With the exception of the invigorating five years of English

23 Many of these commercial companies were organized about the beginning of the seventeenth century. England, Holland, France, Sweden, Denmark and other countries had their East India companies. See Cheyney's European Background of American History, Chap. 7.

24 Quoted with approval in Ireland's The Far Eastern Tropics, p. 173.

control under Sir Stamford Raffles,25 Holland has ruled Java for more than three hundred years, but she can teach modern colonizing states only the things to be avoided. She made the beautiful island of Java a fruitful plantation and worked it by natives who were as truly slaves as were the negroes of Jamaica. An early effort to settle the country with white men failed miserably through the narrow and monopolistic policy of the company, and thereafter, until within very recent times, the country was exploited for the financial benefit of the Netherlands government and Dutch traders in utter disregard of the rights of the Javanese. The East India Company took vast sums of money out of the country, but almost from the beginning of its history the great trading concern was a fraud and a swindle. It paid huge dividends, which were often little more than bribes, out of its capital, or with borrowed money, and in the end it fell into discreditable bankruptcy. The Netherlands government for many years after it took charge made no real change of policy. The colony continued to exist for the benefit of the Netherlands. It must be made to pay, and to pay in money. The government was merely a trader dealing in the products of the island. It forced the natives to raise the quantity of coffee and sugar required and fixed the price at which such products must be sold to it. The natives were not permitted to share in the prosperity, such as it was.

The Dutch found an old and well developed civilization in Java. The native governments were harsh and tyrannical but well adapted for the trade purposes of the newcomers. Instead of attempting to organize a new system which would protect the natives from the rapacity of their rulers, the Dutch retained the ancient system and adapted it to their own purposes. They dealt only with the local rulers who in time were made Dutch officials and charged with the duty of collecting the designated products from the natives under their local jurisdiction. No attempt was made to train or educate the people, and no responsibility for

25 For an account of the remarkable work of this young Englishman, see Boulger, The Life of Sir Stamford Raffles (London, 1899).

their well being was assumed by the government. This system without substantial change was continued until the humanitarian spirit of the present age forced the abandonment of the old iniquitous methods.

The so-called "culture" system which for a time brought so much credit to the Dutch now appears to have been the greatest instrument of injustice ever devised by a civilized power. Until recently it was pointed to as the conclusive evidence of Dutch capacity for governing a tropical colony. When in 1830 Van den Bosch became governor-general, the finances of the colony were in a desperate condition. The India government owed more than thirty million gulden and was becoming more deeply involved with each passing year. Under the system which he devised the natives, instead of paying the government a certain proportion of their crops, were required to place at its disposal one-fifth of their land and of their labor time. The government was thus enabled to determine the products which should be grown under its direction. Theoretically the natives were required to contribute this one-fifth of their time in lieu of the twofifths of the crops demanded under the old system. The loss from failure of crops, when not due to the fault of the cultivators, was in theory to fall upon the government. The labor would be directed to the cultivation of the products which had the greatest value in the markets of the world.26 The system was heralded as the solution of all the difficulties of colonization. Van den Bosch, who had been a leader in charitable enterprises in Holland, introduced it to the world as a measure of philanthropy designed to elevate and educate the natives. He constantly urged the necessity for protecting the natives.

"So long," he wrote in 1834, "as we do not regard and treat the Javanese as our children, and do not honestly fulfil to them all the duties which rest upon us as their leaders and protectors, our arrangements will constantly be subject to shocks, and the aim

26 Day, The Dutch in Java, p. 249.

that we propose will not be attained but will lead constantly to disappointments.'

9127

The sincerity of such statements may be doubted.

"Only one strong motive," says Day, 28 "underlay the foundation and the maintenance of the culture system, the desire to obtain revenue for the Dutch treasury. Pious hopes of benefiting the natives which may have been at first sincere could be only hypocritical after a few years' experience with the workings of the system, and at any rate never interfered materially with its development.'

The author of a recent comprehensive work on Java says:29

"In 1833 the colony was in debt and the coffers of Holland were absolutely empty at the end of the war of secession with Belgium. General Count Van den Bosch presented himself with an offer to relieve the budget and fill the coffers. He was given a free hand, and installed in the East Indies the system of forced cultures, which at one moment was the glory of his name, and afterward became his disgrace. It has deprived Java of enormous sums of money and of precious lives. By condemning the population for more than fourteen years to hard labor, which was also for them unjust and fruitless labor, it led to their intellectual retrogression; it was therefore from the ethical standpoint absolutely unpardonable. Yet we can not forget that by this realistic sacrifice of a whole generation it transformed the island into one of the richest and most fruitful of agricultural countries. . . Once more the truth of the famous adage is exemplified, 'Woe to them that make revolutions; happy are they who inherit after them." "

The culture system was in full force from 1830 to 1850, and during that time Java was made to pay two hundred million dollars into the Netherlands treasury.

27 Ibid, p. 255.

28 Day, The Dutch in Java, p. 257.

29 A. Cabaton, Java and the Dutch East Indies (London, 1911), pp. 207, 210. The attempt of the Spaniards to apply the system of forced culture in the Philippines resulted unfortunately for the country. Day, The Dutch in Java, p. 637.