encourages, and rewards the sending in of favourable reports, and above all this is the case where the question is that of the oppression of the population by native chiefs.
Many persons ascribe this protection of the chiefs to the ignoble calculation, that as they have to exhibit pomp and magnificence to preserve that influence on the population which the Government requires, they ought to enjoy a much higher salary than they do now, if they were not to be at liberty to supply what was still wanting by unlawfully disposing of the possessions and the labour of the people. However this may be, the Government consents but very unwillingly to the application of the regulations ostensibly for the protection of the Javanese against extortion and plunder. For the most part it is easy to find, in political reasons not to be called in question, but often fictitious, a cause why this Regent or that chief should be spared, and the idea is therefore generally spread throughout the Indies that the Government would rather dismiss ten Residents than one Regent. These pretended political reasons—if they are founded on anything—are generally supported by false reports, because it is the interest of every Resident to extol the influence of his Regents on the population, so that, if afterwards there arose a question of excessive indulgence towards the chiefs, he might shelter himself behind them.
I will not speak now of the horrible hypocrisy of the humane-sounding stipulations, and of the oaths that pro-
