It must be remembered, that the Government expended capital for years before any return was obtained; and if they now derive a large revenue, it is in a way which is far less burthensome, and far more beneficial to the people, than any tax that could be levied.
But although the system may be a good one, and as well adapted to the development of arts and industry in a half civilized people as it is to the material advantage of the governing country, it is not pretended that in practice it is perfectly carried out.

The oppressive and servile relations between chiefs and people, which have continued for perhaps a thousand years, cannot be at once abolished; and some evil must result from those relations, until the spread of education and the gradual infusion of European blood causes it naturally and insensibly to disappear.

It is said that the Residents, desirous of showing a large increase in the products of their districts, have sometimes pressed the people to such continued labour on the plantations that their rice crops have been materially diminished, and famine has been the result.

If this has happened, it is certainly not a common thing, and is to be set down to the abuse of the system, by the want of judgment, or want of humanity in the Resident.
A tale has lately been written in Holland, and translated into English, entitled "Max Havelaar;" or, the "Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company," and with our usual one-sidedness in all relating to the Dutch Colonial System, this work has been excessively praised, both for its own merits, and for its supposed crushing exposure of the iniquities of the Dutch government of Java.

Greatly to my surprise, I found it a very tedious and long-winded story, full of rambling digressions; and whose only point is to show that the Dutch Residents and Assistant Residents wink at the extortions of the native princes; and that in some districts the natives have to do work without payment, and have their goods taken away from them without compensation.