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

boats to modern passenger steamers
of 5000 tons. 1t transports all troops
and stores for the government,
the subsidies from which service must
make up most of the profit on good
many OF the runs. Commissioned Of
ficers are carried hrstclass, mon
CONS" second-class, and all others on
the deck.
1t seems indeed a pity that so COM
prehensive and up-to-date a service as
this should be wasted on an almost
stagnant trade. recall instances
where, time and time again, the large
modern steamer by which was voy-
aging would sacrifice a dry in visit
ing some tiny port where only a boat
load or two of damar or ratongs, or
single raft of hardwood, would be
waiting. This was especially the case
about the Moluccas and Celebes, where
the competition of an aggressive Ger
man line is being severely felt. The
steamer service through all of Insul-
indie is in every respect so far ahead
of that in the Philippines that COM
parison would be absurd Here is
something from which America might
well take example for that archipel-
ago, possibly even to the extent of
combining the merchant and transport
service in a single subsidized line.
Little Uplift Endeavor.
Little indeed has been done to
change old practices and customs, nor
has there been encouraged any extend
ed or systematic missionary endeavor.
Mohammedanism is probably more
strongly entrenched today than in the
time of the Portuguese. The only
thing approaching an attempt to
make the people work" has been the
building of certain pieces of road with
compulsory labor, a practice which is
no whit different in theory from the
American one of levying a poll tax
upon the man who does not care to
work upon the roads himself
The natives are subjected to a num-
Der of petty taxes from which the Fill
Pine is free, however, and he is by no
means as well paid, even considering
the lower cost of living in Java. The
standard Of living of the average Fill
Pine is easily a hundred per cent
higher than that of the average East
Indian.
Economy Cramps Education.
The absence of schools in the
Dutch East Indies is by no means as
pronounced as those who are opposed
to educating the Filipino have al
lowed themselves to believe. In even
the meanest of the little coastal vii
Iages of Celebes and the Moluccas I
saw schools in session, and they were
decidedly we'll attended, too. They
were poor affairs. the best of them;
rickety, dirt-foored shacks of sage
thatch which would cut a sorry figure
beside the least of the new country
schools in the Philippines Still they
were schools, and instructions in the
"'Three RS" was being as seriously,
and apparently as successfully, dis
pensed as in any "deestrict" school in
the States.
I'VE would have more schools, and
better ones" a resident in the Moluc-
cas- told me, but on the sale Of hun
dred or two piculs of damar a month
there is not enough money in any of
the villages to support them, while
with a deficit constantly facing the
government in Batavia, there is no
help to be expected from that quarter.
But do not believe that we do not de
sire to educate the people better, or
that we are afraid of the result Of so
doing"
Much that / heard in similar vein
has convinced me that the backward
ness of educational work in the Indies
is due, not to the desire of the Dutch