The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-11-20


the one while increasing the produc-
tivity Of the others?"
Natural Loafers After All.
The answer, from Dutch officials
planters and Business men--and Chi
nese and Arab traders expressed them
selves in similar vein-was, in effect,
that in an amazingly short time-in
from two to FIVE years-the Javanese
set down amidst the plenty of the
jungles became as indolent as the ma
tive. AS / write this ! am reminded
that a Dutch planter in Surinam, South
America, told me several years ago
that the importation of Javanese cool
les had proved a failure through their
Incidence, and that they were being
replaced by West Indian blacks. And
il was but a few months back that the
head manager of a number of British
North Borneo rubber plantations told
me that his best labor was Chinese,
but that all Of the Joloanos he had
been able to get had given much bet
ter satisfaction than the Javanese.
This merely to show that those critics
of the Filipino who have held up the
Javanese as a paragon of industry
have not gone over-deeply into their
subject.
The railroad connecting one end Of
l t., pArnr,1ataA
| fifteen or twenty years ago, and there
are now a number of extensive branch
es running north and south from the
main trunk" The rolling stock will
rank up pretty well with that in the
Philippines, and the passenger fares
are nearly the same. The Java State
Lines are paying handsomely, but for
many years their earnings were re-
Questioned for railway construction in
the Netherlands.
Javan roads are much like many of
the articles of trade with which Ger
many has been flooding the Eastern
market-they look like the real thing
at first glance, but will not stand the
| test of comparison. Not even in the
mountains, where crushed rock is plen-
tiful as a result of the grading, are
| the roads constructed according to
anything approaching the best Philip
| pine practice.
Development Behind Philippine.
% h. I'll AF
and Sumatra, and little scattering
tobacco planting in the latter, all Of
the Dutch Indies with the exception of
Java-an area of close to $4,000
square miles, about a quarter of the
size Of the United States-show an
average of development below that Of
the most backward of the important
islands of the Philippines, Mindanao.
Week after week have been coasting
them from Sumatra to New Guinea
island by island and port by portland
always the same picture-a crescent
OF beach, line of thatch trading
stores and a few boat loads of jungle
products. Now and then there are
some nutmegs or copra, but for the
most part 1t is an endless succession
Of damar, safo flour, ebony and ra-
tongs, and cases of the skins of birds
of Paradise and cages of parrots and
strange animals. In Celebes there are
no extensive planting enterprises to
speak of, and in all the Moluccas only
three or four. Beyond a few strips of
cocoanuts, all of this huge area of the
Dutch Indies is as guiltless of cultiva-
ton as it was thousand years ago.
It is the rich and beautiful Moluc-
bcas-the Spice Islands" of history,
the finding of a western way to which
was the loadstone which drew Colum-
bus to America-that, of all the
| Dutch Indies, are most comparable to
the Philippines. Here are encoun-
tered the same mildness and salubrity
of climate, the same fertility of soil,
| the same wealth of natural resource
! that characterize the islands of the
! IlOIe uOl IutllS dlCulpGldSO. Anu II
is here that the short-sightedness, not
to say slothfulness, of the Dutch pol
| icy has left it's deepest marks. Many
of the great nutmeg and Glove planta-
tons of Ternate and Banda-the
prizes for which floods of Portuguese,
! Dutch, Spanish and English blood
were poured upon the Moluccan
coasts through two centuries-are
/ trackless jungles. In both Ternate
and Banda ruins of the old stone
homes of the Portuguese and early
Dutch may be traced beyond the
limits of the present towns. Trade
is entirely in the hands of Chinese
and Arabs, and west of Celebes, not
even in the prosperous little city of
Ambon, is there single Dutchman in
business. These islands have been
wastefully worked out and abandoned
like exhausted mines.
Good Steamer Service.
At two or three ports each in Java,
Sumatra, Borneo, Celebes and the Mo