The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1911-11-20
SIDE
OF THE DUTCH
CONTINUED From Page Nine)

servant, the honest conviction Of a
naval officer who had been coasting
Celebes, or the frank enthusiasm Of q
BUSINESS man returning from fort
nights tour OF Java.
Keep The Begoars Down.
you can cross Celebes from one
side to the other, with a comfortable
rest house at every stop. The people
are polite, Industrious and contented.
Java is one great garden; the Java
nese are wonders of energy. Hardly a
school anywhere. Education doesn't
do for the Malaysian-makes him an
agitator Every Philippine official
ought to visit the Dutch Indies and
learn how to handle Malays. Keep
'em down--that's the secret of It,"
Thus, with variations, the burden of
the cry.
1t is unfortunate, In way, that the
only portions OF the Dutch Indies
which Americans from the Philippines
seem ever to visit are also almost the
! only ones especially worthy of note for
agricultural development or the eco
nomic well being of their people. The
Minahasa Peninsula Of Celebes, which
reaches out like a hand beckoning
visitors from the Philippines to It's hos.
pitable shores, is peopled with the only
extensive body of Christians in the
Dutch Indies. Careless, fun-lo wing, Uf
feir mental capacity, and with a GER
tain tendency toward intermittent
spells of labor, they are more like the
Ffliplnos than any other people of r.
sulinde; and not in the whole length
or breadth of the great archip slag0 is
! there to be found a people 20 compare
with them for attractiveness. All tho
rest Except the small Christian com.
munity at Ambon) of the inhabitants
Of the countless islands are sullon,
Sowing, betel-chewing Mohammedans
not much different in appearance, and
scarcely more in disposition, from the
Moros of Mindanao and Jolo.
A Sunny Tribe.
1t is the sunny Minahasans, with
their politeness to strangers, Gheir neat
matched houses, their clean and well
swept yards, that are principally respon-
sible for the good impression that pen.
insula makes on the visitor. The rest
houses are clean and most moderate
in their charges, but the best of the
roads are not nearly the equal in con-
struction to the average on a half
dozen islands of the Philippines, nor
Is there a greater evidence OF agricul-
tural industry. AS for the rest Of Ce-
lebes, except Macassar, which Is
large and growing port with more
shipping than Cebu or Ioilo, 1t Is just
about the same bowling wilderness,
and its people the same sullen savages,
as they were when the Portuguese ma
vigators first ventured into those un-
charted seas.
Java is one of the densest populated
regions in the world and to compare
that island with the Philippines on
other than a relative basis is manifest
ly unfair. Its 48,7OS square miles
about tenth larger than Cuba and a
fifth larger than Luzon-support a po-
pulation in excess of 3O,0OO,OO0. AS
great part Of the island is mountain
Gus, the people have crowded the
arabic sections until they are more
densely populated than any of Japan,
China or India, and arc exceeded in
this respect, l think, only by Barba-
does, the diminutive island of the West
Indies. The island was one great gar
den, however, and the people indus
trious workers, long before the arrival
of the Dutch on the scene Under
their powerful Independent sultans the
people were made to toll as did the
| Egyptians under the Pharoahs, and
evidences of their labors still remain
in the extensive ruins of Buddhistic
and Hindoo temples.
Work a Necessity.
The industry of the present day
Javanese is fortuitous; he works, not
because-as is often enormously stat
ed--the Dutch compel him to, but un-
der the goad of far sterner master,
necessity. The Javanese, like the
Chinaman, Japanese or British Indian
must work or starve.
Climate is a less important factor in
the industry of an agricultural people
than density of population. In the
very heart of the tropics, where the
density of settlement is sufficient to
force them to it, as in Java and South
ern India, the peasants work as do no
farmers in the temperate ATTITUDES
who must labor only against droughts
and the long, unproductive winter The
Javanese is probably not much more
of worker today than he was before
the coming of the Dutch, but the end
which the latter put to the constant
internecine wars has made his labor
more productive.