JAXARTES. In 1851 the value of all the imports into the Dutch East India possessions, exclusive of government stores, was £2,512,593, but that of the exports £6,149,688. Of the exports, no less than £3,598,750 consisted of government produce, chiefly sent to Europe through the Handel Maatschappij, or Commercial Association, leaving for the exports of private merchants no more than £2,152,900, a large portion of it the property of the privileged society itself. From this statement it will appear that the exports, instead of being nearly the same as the imports, as they ought in all fair trade, exceed them by the enormous sum of £3,636,195, or by 144 per cent. It is evident that the difference, whether it ever reaches the treasury of Holland or not, is mere tribute paid by Java, and this, too, in a form the most injurious. These figures will further show that of the export trade of the Dutch possessions in India, nearly two thirds are carried on by the government with the colonial revenue, while little more than one third of it is conducted by private capital and enterprise. This is assuredly the greatest violation of the sound principles of commercial policy, which has been perpetrated since the overthrow of Indian monopolies, and one which ought not to have been witnessed in our times.
In 1844 the total value of the imports of Java was £2,339,971, which shows that in the seven years ending with 1851 they had fallen off by no less than £1,722,922. In 1842 the value of the exports was £5,034,529. In the nine years, therefore, between 1842 and 1851, these had increased by the sum of £1,114,560.
European government. The government of Java and the other Netherland possessions of India is vested in a governor-general, named by the king, and answerable for his acts only to him. He is commander-in-chief of the military and naval forces, and possesses absolute legislative and administrative power. The liberty of the press does not exist; indeed, there is no press at all except that of the government, the
political literature of Java consisting of two newspapers, the government gazette, and another equally under a rigorous censorship. In the three small British settlements, in the same quarter of India, there are six, as free as the journals of England or America. For the administration of justice there is a supreme court sitting at Batavia, which has a primary jurisdiction in a few cases, but is generally a court of appeal and cassation for the whole Netherland possessions in India. There are three provincial courts at the three principal European towns—Batavia, Samarang, and Surabaya—for the administration of civil and criminal justice, one of the judges of which goes on circuits. Justice to natives and Chinese is administered by the country courts in which the president or chief civil administrator presides, having native chiefs for assessors. In criminal cases, the jurisdiction of these courts is confined to offences not capital, and, in certain civil cases, appeals from them lie to the provincial courts.
The finances are under the management of a director-general, a director of receipts and domains, a director of produce and warehouses, and a director of cultivation—these officers constituting the finance board. For keeping and auditing the public accounts, there is a distinct department—the chamber of accounts. From the mixing up of cultivation and trade with governmental affairs, the duties of these two departments become sufficiently onerous, complex, and always greatly in arrears.
The tributary princes, of which the number of principal ones is no fewer than one-and-twenty, administer the civil governments of their own countries. Of these there are five in Java, two of them only considerable; three in Madura, two in the group of islands at the eastern end of the Straits of Malacca, three in Borneo, two in the Moluccas, four in Celebes, one in Sumbawa, and one in Sumatra.
(2—8, c.)