WCP5424

[1]

Leiden, Febr. 25, 1872

Dear Sir,

A much longer time has elapsed than I ether hoped or supposed, since I sent you the former volume of my translation of your "Malay Archipelago"¹. The second volume was finished in the month of December last, but I have found myself so much overloaded with business ever since, that I could not find a moment for a letter to go along with it. Not knowing whether Holly house, from which you dated your kind letter of Dec. 28, 1870, is still the place of your abode, I again confide both the letter and the volume to the care of your publisher, Mr. Macmillan² in London.

I feel myself honoured by the care you have taken to be made acquainted with the contents of my principal notes on the former volume. I do not wonder that, though acknowledging candidly some errors in matters of fact, I have pointed at, you are not yet inclined to any change of opinion as to the main question. My intention indeed went no farther, as to point out those suggestions or details, which I thought erroneous, In order to prevent that the conclusions, you have deduced from them, should be too hastily adopted. The question itself is too large and important, to be conveniently and exhaustingly disposed of in a few notes on a work, the chief purport whereof lies in another direction. Besides, as you acknowledged on the one hand that the Dutch colonail[sic] government though good in principle, has often failed in practice, and that even the good principle is only applicable for a time and ought to be gradually modified, I on the other hand am far from denying that the so-called culture-system has really wrought some good, and has promoted, though in a manner too artificial and too contrary to the laws by which human society is regulated, to be maintained, the interests both of Java and the metropolis. The great difficulty is that whenever such an artificial system has been introduced, it is difficult to point out the true moment, in which it ought to be relinquished, and that so many interests combine in supporting it, that it generally outlives the time in which it could be of any use.

It is naturally gratifying to our national pride that the system we have introduced in our colonies, and which has been often most severely commented on, not the least by your countrymen, is defended and approved by intelligent strangers, and I feel the compliment at the same time that I think it undeserved. In Holland indeed, which has been benefitted by it in a time of great financial difficulties, it has been extolled to the skies, but since the year 1828³ a revulsion of feeling on this topic has taken place and gradually spread itself among the nation. This result has been brought about by the disclosure of a number of facts, by which it has been shown that the system has been far more oppressive to the native population and far less conducive to the advancement and prosperity of Java, than had generally been believed on the faith of our rulers. Since the great political reform Holland has undergone in the year 1848, colonial affairs have become in a far larger scale than formerly [2] [p. —2—] matter of public discussion, and according to the feelings of the majority of the nation, the system has been unable to uphold itself under this severe test. But it ought to be acknowledged that the general condemnations of the system by French, German and above all by British authorities had caused beforehand a certain sense of uneasiness to the national conscience, a feeling that in maintaining the system we become the outcasts of Europe, which has predisposed many to adopt more easily the conclusions of those who were inimical to the system.

It is somewhat remarkable that from the moment we have begun to feel that there was something rotten in this system and that it ought to be gradually removed, it has become the theme of applause and commendation of several authors belonging to the same nations, by which it had been formerly upheld to the scorn of Europe, and that while we have been condemned as monsters of avarice and cruelty in introducing it, we are now about to be laughed at as fools and blockheads, in abandoning it. Mr. Money, upholding this system to the admiration of the civelised [sic] world, has been followed by yourself and recently by a German author, Mr. Friedrich von Hellwald⁴ in his essay: "Ueber Colonnen⁵ und über die Holländischen Niederlassungen in Ostindien insbesondere⁶" [German: About Colonies and the Dutch branches in the East Indies in particular], though on the other hand an article published in the Morning Post shows that the deep-rooted hatred of British free[-]traders against this system has not yet died out. It is my firm conviction that it deserves "ni cet excès d'honneur, ni cette indignité"⁷ [French: neither this excess of honour, nor this unworthiness.], that to Holland it has been in some degree beneficial, though at the same time frought [sic] with dangers, in so far as the advantages it procured, have lulled to sleep the spirit of commercial enterprising, that it has given and impulse to the development of Java, but has been at the same time a cause of much suffering, and has by no means attained the ends for which you seem to commend it, the use of opium for instance having all along with it extended itself in a most alarming degree; finally that it has been wise in our Government, impelled by public opinion, to relinquish it gradually, but that at the same time our rulers are little deserving of praise for the timid and vacillating measures of reform they have taken.

In the second volume of your "Malay Archipelago", I have found much more to admire and less to reprehend than in the former. The regions it treats of being very imperfectly known, the matter is for the most renew and interesting and political questions being rarely touched, I had few objections to make. The chief are to be found in the notes on the XIth⁸ chapter, among which I believe there are some not quite unworthy of your attention.

In anticipation of the pleasure of a few lines to acknowledge the receipt of this book, | I remain, Dear Sir, | faithfully yours | (sgd) P. Veth.