The Frankfurter Zeitung has always been noted for its disinterested love of Holland and the Dutch. Even in these expensive days of exorbitant paper prices, it devotes two long columns of its precious space to the disturbance in Djambi, a district on the east coast of Sumatra, where the native population has risen in arms against the colonial authorities. The article was form the hand of a certain Dr. Max Roloff, "a fully competent judge" of Dutch colonial administration, according to the Frankfurter Zeitung, "as for nearly thirteen years he had been adviser to the Netherlands Government on matters touching the Islam". This blunder of the Frankfurter has caused great amusement to the Dutch, for every Hollander who is interested in his colonies could have told the German editor that, during the period in which Dr Roloff was supposed to have held that important office, from 1895 to 1908, no less a person than the famous orientalist Dr C Snouck Hurgronje was the official adviser of the Government at Batavia. But the blunder grew to farcical proportions when the real history of this "fully competent authority" was brought to light. In the year which, according to the Frankfurter Zeitung, marked the beginning of his advisory task, Dr Roloff enlisted as a subaltern officer in the Dutch colonial army. His knowledge of Arabic, acquired during two years's service in the foreign legion in Algeria, might have helped him to a successful career, but in 1905 he had to appear before the court-martial on a charge of forgery and was sentenced to two years and ninety days' confinement. That is the man who gets the disposal of two columns of a leading paper to enlighten the German reader on Dutch colonial affairs. Ir seems as if the present search for substitutes, to which German inventiveness is driven by the British blockade, is not limited to foodstuffs, but has to supply a deficiency of "Deutsches wissen" as well.
If one were to believe Dr Roloff, the systematic mismanagement of the colonies is responsible for the revolt in Djambi. But the picture he draws of Dutch colonial administration is one of bygone days, a copy of Multatuli's brilliant but tendentious novel, "Max Havelaar" (1860). Colonial authorities in Holland do not deny that part of the responsibility for the Djambi riots rests on the Government, but that extortion and systematic starvation of the natives, as Dr Roloff asserts, has driven them to revolt is a downright lie. Dutch officials have sinned by leniency and an unwarranted trust in the loyalty of a newly pacified population. Only so short a time ago as 1907 was Djambi, after six years of fighting, reduced to a state of order and peace. The rule of the Sultan, who until then had been left in power under governmental control, had to make place for direct administration by Dutch officials; and four years later Resident Engelenburg could boast that Djambi had been reduced to order so far as to justify the abolition of various feudal rights and compulsory services which, before the war, had been claimed as their due by the native princes. That step appears to have been a mistake. By this premature emancipation the natives, accustomed to slave for despotic masters, became unsettled, and the Government, by giving up all traditional control of native labor, lost its contact with the people it had to rule. Among a populace thus unsettled, preachers of discontent and revolt had an easy game. Fantastic rumors about the war in Europe and of Turkish successes stirred up the native imagination of the people. They were told that two Turkish men-of-war had appeared within sight of the coast, ready to land Turkish troops at the first summons of the rebels. It is not clear yet from the telegrams whether the action of the "Sarekat Islam," a native organization oficially recognized by the Government, has had a hand in the matter. Dr Roloff, better informed than any one in Holland, refuses to believe in Mohammedan or Turkish instigation, and adds the transparent hint that "the members of the former Sultan's house are living, for the greater part, at Singapore, where they receive hospitality from the English." The purpose of this remark is easy to see: The Hollanders, whom the intrigues of Herr Keil in Java have made suspicious of German machinations, are to understand from Dr Roloff's insinuation that hypocritic John Bull is the real brewer of mischief in the Dutch press as to the antecedents of Herr Roloff are a sufficient antidote against the venom of his pen.
The Djambi affair must not be regarded as a symptom of general discontent in the Dutch East Indies. Just a month ago, on August 31, Queen Wilhelmina's birthday, meetings were held in the principle towns of Java to demonstrate in favor of compulsory military service for both Europeans and natives, and representatives of the "Sarekat Islam" took an active part in these assemblies and supported the resolutions that were proposed. Not in all parts, indeed, of the Archipelago does the action of the "Sarekat Islam" run parallel with the wishes of the Government; an all too zealous activity of the Christian mission under the auspices of the former Governor-General has challenged the native's devotion to Islam, and it will require no small amount of skill and persuasion to allay the suspicions that have been raised in certain districts. An honest recognition of the native's right to choose his own creed might easily dispel these suspicions, but the Protestant zealots at home, who would decry such an admission by the Government as a betrayal of Christianity, form a powerful party in the state which the Government cannot ignore. I do not, therefore, urge the importance of the resolutions carried on August 31; but the events of that day have, at any rate, not demonstrated strong objections, on the part of the native population, to their taking a share in the defence of the country. That the duty of military services cannot be imposed on the Javanese without a simultaneous grant of civil rights is naturally recognized by the advocates of this new course in colonial policy. What is to be the extent of these grants will be a difficult problem to solve, but the Netherlands Government is, evidentialy, not deterred by the difficulties confronting it from striking out into this new untrodden road. Major J van der Weyden, of the General Staff of the Netherlands Indian army, the chief advocate and writer of a book on "Compulsory service for natives and the constitution of our defensive power in the Dutch East Indies," has just sailed for Batavia, for the express purpose, it is supposed, of paving the way for a military organization as proposed by him in the above-mentioned book. Forecasts of the total failure of his plans have naturally accompanied his departure. Your correspondent, Mr J F Scheltema, who, in a letter to the Nation of July 20, expressed his disbelief in the realization of the noble intentions aired at The Hague, shares his skepticism with a great many of his countrymen. Greed and sloth are, indeed, the besetting sins of the European capitalist in the tropics, and his egoism and inertia are a drag on all progress. But does not the skeptic, while recognizing the need of reform, make himself the accomplice of the greedy and the slothful by submitting, with a shrug of the shoulders, to the ugly fact of their obstructing power? Drystubble, that odious incarnation, created by Multatuli, of Dutch mercantilism, is still alive, but why is a belief in the ultimate defeat of his selfish aims to be derided as grandiloquent enthusiam ?