[COMPOSED BY STERN.]
Havelaar’s predecessor had good intentions, but seemed to have been in
some measure afraid of the displeasure of his superiors——had many
children and no fortune——had thus preferred speaking to the Resident,
about what he called excessive abuses, than describing them plainly in
an official report. He knew that a Resident does not like to receive a
written report, which remains in his archives, and which may be
afterwards a proof that he had been made acquainted in time with this
or that wrong, whilst a verbal communication leaves him, without
danger, the choice of paying attention to a complaint or not. Such
verbal communications generally brought about a conversation with the
Regent, who, of course, denied all, and asked for proof. Then the men
were summoned who had the boldness to complain, and creeping before the
feet of the Regent, they begged pardon. “No, that buffalo had not been
taken away from them without payment; they certainly believed that
double its value would be paid for it. No, they had not been summoned
from their fields to labour without payment in the Regent’s ‘sawahs;’
they knew very well that the Regent would pay them afterwards
handsomely for their labour. They had complained in a moment of
groundless malice—they had been mad, and begged that they should be
punished for such excessive disrespect.”...
Then the Resident knew very well that he had to think about this
revocation of the complaint, but it gave him nevertheless a nice
opportunity to maintain the Regent in office and honour, and spared
himself the disagreeable task of troubling the Government with an
unfavourable report. The rash accusers were punished by caning, the
Regent triumphed, and the Resident returned to the capital with the
agreeable consciousness of having again managed so nicely.
But what was the Assistant Resident now to do, when the next day other
complainers announced themselves? Or—and this often happened—when the
same plaintiffs returned and revoked their revocation? Must he again
insert this affair in his memoranda, to speak to the Resident about it
a second time, to see the same comedy played again, to run the same
risk as before, to pass at last for a person who, stupid and malicious,
was continually producing complaints that were to be rejected every
time as unfounded. And what would become of the relation so necessary
between the first Native chief and the first European functionary, when
the latter seemed to give ear continually to false complaints against
his younger brother? And, above all, what became of those poor
plaintiffs, after they had returned to their village, under the power
of the district or village chief, whom they had accused as the
instrument of the Regent’s arbitrariness,—what became of these poor
men? He who could fly, fled.
Therefore were there many Bantam people in the neighbouring provinces.
Therefore were there so many inhabitants of Lebak among the rebels in
the Lampong district. Therefore had Havelaar asked in his speech to the
chiefs:—“Why is it that so many houses are empty in the villages; and
why do many prefer the shadow of the wood elsewhere to the coolness of
the forests of Lebak?”
But not every one could fly. The man whose corpse floats down the river
in the morning, after having asked the foregoing evening—secretly,
hesitatingly, and anxiously—for an audience of the Assistant Resident,
he needs flight no more. Perhaps it may be deemed philanthropy to spare
him a further life, by consigning him to an immediate death. The
torture was spared him that awaited him on his return to the village,
and the stripes which are the punishment of every one who could for a
moment think himself above the brute, and no inanimate piece of wood or
stone,—the punishment for him who in a moment of folly had thought that
there was justice in the country, and that the Assistant Resident had
the will and the power to maintain that justice.
Was it not indeed better to prevent that man from returning the next
day to that Assistant Resident, as he had given notice in the evening;
and to smother his complaint in the yellow water of the Tji-berang,
that would carry him away softly to its mouth, accustomed as that river
was to be bearer of the brotherly presents of salutation from the
sharks in the interior to the sharks in the sea?
And Havelaar was acquainted with all this! Does the reader understand
what went on in his mind, when he considered that his vocation was to
do justice, that he was responsible for that to a HIGHER POWER than the
power of a Government, that to be sure stipulated for this justice in
its laws, but did not always like to see the application of it? Do you
understand how he was perplexed with doubt, not of what he had to do;
but of how he ought to act? He had commenced with moderation, he had
spoken to the Regent as to an elder brother, and he who thinks that I,
captivated with the hero of my history, try to extol too much the
manner of his speaking, may hear how once after such an interview the
Regent sent his Patteh [108] to him, to thank him for the benevolence
of his words, and how again long afterwards this Patteh, speaking to
the Controller Verbrugge, after Havelaar had ceased to be Assistant
Resident of Lebak, when nobody had anything more to hope of or fear
from him, how the Patteh at the remembrance of these words had been
touched, and cried, “Never as yet any gentleman spoke like him.”
Yet he would save, restore—not destroy. He had sympathy with the
Regent; he who knew how want of money oppresses, above all where it
leads to humiliation and scorn, sought for reasons to avoid the
unpleasant duty. The Regent was old, and the head of a family that
lived magnificently in neighbouring provinces, where much coffee was
reaped, [109] and where many emoluments were enjoyed. Was it not
grievous for him to be so far behind his younger relatives in style of
living?
Moreover he was fanatical, and thought whilst his years advanced to be
able to purchase the welfare of his soul by paying for pilgrimages to
Mecca, and by giving alms to prayer-singing idlers.
The functionaries who had preceded Havelaar in Lebak had not always
shown a good example, and finally, the extensiveness of the Lebak
family of the Regent, that lived entirely at his expense, made it very
difficult for him to return to the right path.
Therefore Havelaar sought for reasons to delay all severity, and to try
once more, and still once more, what could be done by gentle means.
And he went further still than kindness. With a generosity which
reminded him of the faults that had made him so poor, he continually
advanced money to the Regent, and that on his own responsibility, in
order that necessity should not urge too strongly to rapine, and, as
was ordinarily the case, he forgot himself so far as to offer to
retrench in his own family to what was strictly necessary, that he
might assist the Regent with the little that he could still spare of
his income.
Were it still necessary to prove the gentleness with which Havelaar
fulfilled his difficult duty, that proof could be found in the verbal
message which he intrusted to the Controller, when Verbrugge was going
for a few days to Serang. “Tell the Resident that he, on hearing of the
abuses that take place here, must not believe that I am indifferent on
the subject, of which I do not immediately make an official report,
because I would spare the Regent, for whom I feel pity, from too great
severity, so I will try first to bring him to a sense of duty by
gentleness.”
Havelaar was often out for many days together. When he was at home, he
was for the most part to be found in the room which we represented in
our plan as No. 7. There he was generally occupied in writing, and
received the persons who asked an audience. He had chosen this spot,
because there he was near his Tine, who was generally in the next
room;—for so cordially were they bound together, that Max, even when he
was occupied with work that needed attention and exertion, continually
wanted to see and hear her. It was often comical how he suddenly spoke
to her about what came up in his thoughts about the subjects that
occupied him, and how quickly she, without understanding of what he
treated, knew how to seize the sense of his meaning, which he did not
generally explain, as if it was a matter of course, that she knew what
he meant. Often when he was discontented with his own labour, or bad
news just received, he would jump up and say something unkind to her,
who was not to blame for his discontent. But she liked to hear this,
because it was another proof how Max confounded her with himself. And,
therefore, there was never a question of repentance of such apparent
unkindness, or of pardon on the other side. This would have appeared to
them as if somebody had asked his own pardon, because he in ill humour
had beaten his own forehead.
She knew him so well, that she could tell exactly when she had to be
there to procure him a moment’s relaxation—exactly when he needed her
advice, and not less exactly she knew when she had to leave him alone.
In this room Havelaar was seated on a certain morning, when the
Controller entered with a letter in his hand just received.
“This is a difficult matter,” he said, entering; “very difficult.”
When I state that this letter imposed on him the duty of stating to
Havelaar why there was a change in the prices of joiners’ work and
labourers’ wages, the reader will think that the Controller Verbrugge
saw difficulties rather too readily. I make haste, therefore, to add,
that many others would have thought the answer of this simple question
very difficult.
A few years ago a prison had been built at Rankas-Betong. Now it is
generally known that the functionaries in the interior of Java
understand the art of erecting buildings that are worth thousands,
without spending more than so many hundreds for them. This gains them
the reputation for capacity, and zeal for the service of the country.
The difference between the money expended and the value of what they
get for it IS SUPPLIED BY UNPAID LABOUR. For a few years regulations
have existed which forbid this. It is not the question here whether
these regulations are observed, nor if the Government itself wishes
them to be fulfilled with an exactness that would be burdensome on the
budget of the building-department. It is with this as with other
regulations that look so philanthropic on paper.
Now many buildings had to be erected at Rankas-Betong, and the
engineers who were instructed to prepare plans of these had of course
asked for information regarding the local rates of wages and the price
of materials. Havelaar had charged the Controller to prepare an exact
estimate of these matters, and had recommended him to give the true
prices, without looking back to what had happened before, and Verbrugge
had fulfilled this duty. But these prices did not agree with the
statements made a few years back. The reason of this difference was
asked, and that was what Verbrugge deemed so very difficult. Havelaar,
who knew very well what was concealed behind this apparently simple
business, replied that he would communicate his ideas about this
difficulty in writing; and I find amongst the documents before me a
copy of the letter, which seems to be the consequence of this promise.
If the reader should perhaps complain of this detention with a
correspondence on the price of joiners’ work, with which he has
apparently nothing to do, I must beg him to observe that the question
here is properly about quite another matter, viz., the condition of the
official Indian economy, and that the letter which I communicate does
not only throw another ray of light on the artificial optimism of which
I have spoken, but paints at the same time the difficulty with which a
man like Havelaar had to struggle, who would go on straightforward.
“No. 114.
“Rankas-Betong, March 15, 1856.
“To the Controller of Lebak.
“When I sent you the letter of the Director of Public Works, dated
the 16th ultimo, No. 271/354, I begged you to answer the questions
which that letter contained, after having consulted the Regent and
duly considered what I wrote in my missive of the 5th inst., No.
97.
“This missive contained some hints about what may be considered
right and just with regard to the fixing of the prices of materials
to be supplied by the people, to and at the charge of the
Government.
“This you have done in your letter of the 8th inst., No. 6, and as
I believe to the best of your knowledge, so that I, confiding in
your local information and that of the Regent, have submitted these
accounts, as prepared by you, to the Resident.
“This was followed by a missive from that chief functionary, dated
the 11th inst., No. 326, whereby information was required about the
cause of the difference between the prices given by me and those
that had been sent in in 1854 and 1855 (the two preceding years)
for the building of a prison.
“I, of course, put this letter into your hands, and verbally
required you now to justify your statements, which ought to be less
difficult for you, as it enabled you to appeal to the instructions
given you in my letter of the 5th inst., and of which we spoke at
length more than once. Up to this point all is very plain and
simple. But yesterday, you entered my office with the Resident’s
letter in your hands, and began to speak of the difficulty of
clearing up the questions put therein. I perceived again some
reluctance to give certain things their true names, which I have
told you of before, and lately in the presence of the Resident,
something which I call for shortness’ sake halfness, and against
which I often warned you in a friendly way. Halfness leads to
nothing. Half is no good. Half true is untrue. For full payment,
for a full rank, after a distinct complete oath, full duty must be
done. If courage is sometimes necessary to fulfil that duty, one
must possess that courage. For myself, I should not have the
courage to lack that courage. For apart from the discontentedness
with one’s-self, which is a consequence of neglect of duty or
lukewarmness, the seeking for easier byeways, the desire always and
everywhere to escape collisions, to settle, produces indeed more
care, more danger than is to be met with in a straight policy.
“During the course of a very important affair, which is now under
the consideration of the Government, and in which you ought to be
concerned in an official way, I left you tacitly, as it were,
neutral, and alluded laughingly from time to time to the
circumstance. When, for instance, I lately received your report
about the causes of poverty and starvation among the population,
and replied thereto:—‘All this may be the truth; it is not the
whole truth, nor the cardinal truth; the principal or main cause
lies deeper’—you freely assented to this, and I made no use of my
right to exact that you should make known that cardinal truth. For
this indulgence I had many reasons, and, amongst others, this, that
I thought it unjust to exact suddenly from you what many others in
your place would have readily afforded; to force you to say
farewell in such a hurry to a course of reserve and timorousness
that is not your fault, but that of the training which you have
received. Finally, I wished to give you first an example how much
simpler and easier it is to do one’s duty fully than only by
halves. But now that I have had the honour of seeing you so long
under my orders, and after having continually given you occasion to
make yourself acquainted with principles, which, unless I err, will
triumph at last, I should wish that you accepted them, that you
would make your own the power which is not wanting, but merely in
disuse, to tell me to the best of your knowledge what you have to
say, and that you would bid adieu at once and for ever to that
unmanly fear of telling the plain truth.
“I expect, therefore, a simple but complete report of what seems to
you to be the cause of the difference in price between 1854 and
1856. I sincerely hope that you will not consider any phrase of
this letter meant to hurt you. I trust that you understand me well
enough, to know that I say neither more nor less than I mean, and,
moreover, I give you the assurance that my observations refer less
to you than to the school in which you were trained for an Indian
functionary. Yet this ‘circonstance atténuante’ would disappear if
you, continuing longer with me, and serving the Government under my
orders, should go on to follow the course against which I set
myself.
“You may have observed that I have omitted the title ‘Right
Honourable,’ [110]—it annoyed me. Do the same to me, and let our
honourableness, where it is necessary, come forward in another
manner than by this annoying style, spoiling the use of titles.—The
Assistant Resident of Lebak,
(Signed) “Max Havelaar.”
The reply to this letter was an accusation against some of Havelaar’s
predecessors, and proved that he was not very wrong in quoting the bad
examples of former times amongst the reasons that pleaded as an excuse
for the Regent.
In communicating this letter I have departed from the order of time, to
make it at once obvious how little help Havelaar could expect from the
Controller, as soon as quite different and more important transactions
were to be called by their right names, when the latter, who was
without doubt a good man, had to be addressed in this way about telling
the truth, when the question was only to give information about the
prices of wood, stone, lime, and wages, and how Havelaar had not only
to struggle with the power of those who reaped advantage from crime,
but likewise with the timorousness of those who, though condemning that
crime as much as he, did not mean courageously to combat it. Perhaps
the reader, after having perused this letter, will think no more with
such disdain of the servile submission of the Javanese, who in presence
of his chief revokes like a coward an accusation however well founded
it may be. For if you consider that there was so much cause for fear,
even for the European functionary, who certainly may be deemed to be
somewhat less exposed to vengeance, what then awaited the poor
husbandman who, in a village far from the capital, fell entirely into
the power of his accused oppressors? Is it surprising that these poor
men, afraid of the consequences of their boldness, endeavoured to
escape or to soften those consequences by humble submission? And it was
not only the Controller Verbrugge who did his duty with a shyness
characteristic of neglect of duty. The Djaksa likewise, the native
chief, who fills in the council of the country the office of public
prosecutor, preferred entering in the evening, unseen and without
attendants, the house of Havelaar. He whose duty it was to prevent
theft, he whose vocation it was to catch the sneaking thief, sneaked
softly in at the back door, as if he were himself a thief, fearing to
be seized, after having firstly convinced himself that there was no
company which could have afterwards betrayed him as guilty of
performing his duty. Was it to be wondered at that the soul of Havelaar
was very sad, and that Tine had to go more than ever to his room to
console him, when she saw him sitting there with his head resting on
his hand?
And yet his greatest difficulty was not in the shyness of those who
were near him, nor in the accessory cowardice of those who had invoked
his help. No! quite alone, if necessary, he would do justice, without
or with the help of others; yes, against all, even were it against the
will of those who were in want of that justice. For he knew the
influence he had over the people, and how, if once the poor oppressed
were summoned to repeat loudly, and before the tribunal, what they had
whispered to him during the evening and the night in solitude,—he knew
how he had the power to work upon their minds, and how the force of his
words would be stronger than the fear of the revenge of district chief
or Regent. The fear that his protégés would forsake their own cause did
not restrain him.
It cost him so much to accuse this old Regent—that was the reason of
his internal struggle; but, on the other hand, he ought not to yield to
this reluctance, because the whole population, besides their good
right, had as much claim to pity. Fear for himself had no part in his
doubts. For though he knew the unwillingness with which the Government
generally entertains the accusation of a Regent, and how much easier it
is to take away the bread of the European functionary than to punish a
Native chief, he had a special reason to believe that exactly at this
moment other than the ordinary principles would predominate in the
decision of such an affair.
It is true that he would have done his duty as faithfully even without
this opinion; with more pleasure if he had deemed the danger for
himself and his household greater than ever. We have already said how
difficulty enticed him, how he thirsted for sacrifice; but he thought
that the charm of a self-sacrifice did not exist here, and he feared
that when at last he should have to commence a more serious struggle
against injustice, he should come short of the chivalrous pleasure of
having commenced this struggle as the weakest party.
Yes, that was what he feared. He thought that at the head of the
Government was a Governor-General who would be his ally, and it was
another peculiarity of his character, that this opinion restrained him
from severe measures, and would do so longer than anything else,
because it prevented his attacking injustice at a moment that he
thought justice stronger than ever.
I have already said, in my attempt to describe his character, that with
all his sharpness he was ingenuous (naïf).
I will endeavour to explain how Havelaar arrived at this opinion.
Few European readers can form an exact idea of the height on which a
Governor-General must stand as an individual, not to be beneath the
dignity of his office; and it is therefore not too severe a judgment,
if I maintain that very few, perhaps none, have been able to respond to
so heavy a claim. Not to speak of the qualities of head and heart that
are required, only cast an eye on the giddy height on which so suddenly
the man is placed, who——yesterday only a citizen——to-day has power over
millions of subjects. He who a short time ago was still hidden among
his acquaintances without being more than they in rank or power, feels
himself suddenly, for the most part unexpectedly, elevated above a
multitude infinitely greater than the small circle in which he had been
before but imperfectly known, and I believe that I was not wrong in
calling this height giddy; which, indeed, puts us in mind of the
giddiness of one who sees suddenly a precipice before him, or which
makes you think of the blindness that strikes us, if we come suddenly
from a deep darkness into bright light. Against such transitions, the
nerves of vision and the brain are no match, even where they are of
extraordinary strength.
When also the nomination to the rank of Governor-General bears in
itself causes of corruption, which will affect even one remarkable for
excellent understanding and thorough conscientiousness, what may be
expected of persons who already before their nomination had many
faults?
And if we suppose that the King is always well informed before he signs
his august name at the foot of the document, in which he says he is
convinced of “the good faith, the zeal, and the capacity” of the newly
appointed Governor, even if we suppose that the new Viceroy is zealous,
faithful, and able, then the question still remains, whether this zeal,
and above all, this capacity, exist with him in a measure high enough
elevated above mediocrity to satisfy the claims of his vocation.
For the question cannot be whether the man, who for the first time
leaves the King’s cabinet at the Hague as Governor-General, possesses
at that moment the capacity necessary for his new office,—that is
impossible. By the declaration of confidence in his capacity can only
be meant the belief, that he, in a quite different situation, on a
given moment, shall know, as it were by intuition, what he could not
have learnt at the Hague,—in other words, that he is a genius, a genius
which suddenly must know and understand what before it neither knew nor
understood. Such geniuses are rare, even among persons who are in
favour with kings.
As I speak of geniuses, the reader will understand that I wish to omit
what could be said of many a Governor. It would likewise disgust me to
insert in my book pages that should expose the serious design of this
work to the suspicion of hunting after scandal. I omit, therefore, the
peculiarities that can only reach certain persons, but as a general
history of the malady of the situation of the Governors-General, I
believe that I can give:—First period—Dizziness, Incense-drunkenness,
Self-conceit, Immoderate self-confidence, Disdain of others, above all
of persons who have been long in India. Second period—Fatigue, Fear,
Dejection, Inclination to Sleep and Rest, Immoderate confidence in the
Council of India, Home-sickness and desire for a Dutch country-seat.
Between these two periods, and as a sort of transition, perhaps as
cause of this transition, there is Dysentery.
I trust that many persons in India will thank me for this diagnosis.
The application is very useful, for it may be accepted as very certain,
that the patient, who through over-exertion in the first period, would
choke at a gnat, would later, after the dysentery, swallow without
difficulty a camel;—or, to speak more plainly, that a functionary who
“accepts presents, not with the intention of enriching himself,”—for
instance a bundle of pisang worth a few pence,—would, in the first
period of the malady, be driven away with scorn and disgrace; but if
that official has patience enough to wait for the second period, he may
seize very calmly, and without any fear of punishment, the garden where
the pisang grew, with the adjoining gardens, and the houses round, and
what there may be in those houses, and other things ... ad libitum.
Every one may take advantage of this pathological philosophical
observation, and keep secret my advice to prevent too much
competition....
A curse on it, that indignation and grief are so often clothed in the
rags of satire! A curse on it, that a tear, to be understood, must be
accompanied with a sneer!
Or is it the fault of my inexperience, that I seek in vain for words to
name the depth of the wound that cankers in our Indian Government,
without borrowing the style of Figaro or Punch? Style, ... Yes! There
are documents before me, in which there is style; style that showed
that there was a man in the neighbourhood; a man, to whom it would have
been worth the trouble to give a helping hand! And of what use was this
style to poor Havelaar? He did not translate his tears into grins, he
did not scoff, he did not endeavour to touch by a medley of colours or
insipid farces; ... of what use was it to him?
If I could write like him, I should write otherwise than he.
Style?... Did you hear how he spoke to the chiefs? And of what use was
it to him?
If I could speak like him, I should speak otherwise than he.
Away with conscientious language, away with considerateness,
straightforwardness, plainness, simplicity, feeling; away with all that
puts you in remembrance of Horace’s “Justum et tenacem;” trumpets here,
and the sharp rattle of kettledrums, whizzing of rockets, screeching of
tuneless strings, here and there a true word sneaking in as contraband,
under cover of so much drumming and so much trumpeting! Style?... He
had style! He had too much soul to drown his thoughts in, “I have the
honour to be,” and the “Right Honourable,” and the “respectfully giving
in considerations,” that was the luxury of the small world in which he
moved. When he wrote, something impressed you in the reading of it,
which made you understand that there were clouds accompanying this
thunderstorm, and that you did not hear the rattling of tin
thunderstorm as in a theatre. When he struck fire from ideas, the heat
of his fire was felt by all but born clerks, or Governors-General, or
the writer of that most disgusting report about “tranquil
tranquillity.”
And what was the use of it to him?... If I want to be heard, and, above
all, understood—must I then write otherwise than he? But how, then?
Do you see, reader! I look for an answer to this “how,” and therefore
my book is such a medley: it is a pattern-card, make your choice;
afterwards I will give you yellow or blue or red, as you please.
Havelaar had already so often observed the Governor’s malady in so many
sufferers, and often in anima vili, for there are analogical
Residents’, Controllers’, Clerks’ maladies, that are in proportion to
the first as the measles to the small-pox, and finally, he himself had
suffered from this malady; he had already so often observed this, that
he knew the symptoms very well. He had remarked that the present
Governor-General [111] had been less dizzy at the commencement of the
malady than most others, and he concluded from this that the rest of
the malady would likewise take another course. Therefore he feared to
be the strongest, if at last he should have to come forward as the
champion of the rights of the inhabitants of Lebak. [112]