New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1916-10-31
Unrest in Dutch India

Unrest in Dutch India
That something is going seriously
wrong in the Dutch East Indies is
clear from the concerted efforts of
the Dutch press to minimize the I'M
portance of the reports of native
r.sings in different parts of the
great colonial island empire. There
have been instructions on the ISL
ands of Timor and Celebes, but the
most serious rising of all has taken
place on Sumatra, at Djambi, where
the natives have succeed in holding
their own, owing to momentary
lack of sufficiently strong Dutch
Indian forces, and where they might
have won at least an initial victory
hut for the premature explosion of
the plot.
Many reasons are being advanced
to account for these simultaneous out
breaks, whose beginnings conceded
with the installation at Batavia of a
new Governor General, a man with
out previous experience in colonial
administration, against whose ap-
pointment to the post serious objec-
ton was made in Holland at the
time. A Liberal member of the
Dutch Parliament has asserted that
the root of the trouble lies in the
exploitation of the natives by plant
ers who take soil that should be
used for the production of the staple
food of the natives-rice-and use
it for the more profitable cultivation
of tobacco and coffee. The govern
mert monopoly of opium, established
to control the abuse of the drug and
gradually TO suppress its use alto
gether, is designated as another
cause of discomfort; and high taxes
and the usury of Chinese and Arabs
are named as contributory causes.
But there is more. The awaken
ing of Asia has reached the Dutch
East Indies, whose natives are clam
oring for a greater measure of self
government. Young Islam is carry
ing on an active propaganda through
the Sarekat Islam, a Mahometan
secret society, and, finally, there is
to be taken into consideration the
suspicion Of foreign intrigue.
That Japan considers herself
the future possessor of the Dutch
colonies in the East is no secret.
Her emissaries have now for many
years been busy preaching Asia for
the Asiatics there, the effect of their
message upon the native princes
and chiefs having been thus far
largely counteracted, however, by
the emissaries' arrogance, which too
clearly proclaims that asia for the
Asiatics" means asia for the Jap
anese."
That England sought a pretext
for interference in the Dutch East
Indies for her own profit in the
piracy of the Aechinese at the west
ern end of Sumatra forty-five years
ago. is still wildly remembered in
Holland. At least, the tradition has
survived there that this was Eng
lands purpose at the time. And so
a second suspicion disturbs the mind
of the Dutch man in the street and
frds a discreet echo in the Dutch
press, mostly in the form of elabo-
rate declarations of implicit faith in
British fair dealing. OF course, the
German press, which devotes con-
siderable space to these matters,
does it's best to foster the suspicion.
But. on the other hand, the Dutch
feel far from sure that German Sc
cret agents have had no hand in
stirring up the unrest and the armed
risings with which their government
is now dealing. Arrests of such
agents have been repeatedly made
in the Dutch colonies during the
last two years, not all Of them in
connection with designs upon Brit
ISL India. And is not Turkey Ger
many's ally. and therefore presu-
mably willing to second her designs,
whatever they are? Thus the Dutch
come back, in their discussions Of
what Is growing into a serious prob