LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
THE FATE OF THE PHILIPPINES.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—In your article on "The Fate of the Philippines" in the Spectator of May 7th, you state as reasons why Holland never will undertake the task of governing the Philippines, that, though she succeeds in Java after a fashion, the attempt to form a colonial army seems beyond her strength, because, though she has been trying through a whole generation to conquer Acheen, the fierce little Malay State holds her successfully at bay.
Allow me to draw your attention to some inaccuracies in these few sentences. I suppose "after a fashion" stands for "very badly." The fact is that every one of the forty-two millions of Javanese is more free, and as lightly taxed,„ as well protected against oppression of every kind, as any native of an English colony; that no revolts or riots occur in Java as in some other countries ; and that a child can travel without danger of being robbed through every village of the island. Holland has never had any difficulty in forming a colonial army. The army of sixteen thousand men (Europeans, not counting the very efficient native regiments) is comparatively larger than the English colonial army (Holland has five million inhabitants The "fierce little Malay State" is larger than Holland. That—though the end of the war is near, and the country is being opened up to planters and oil distillers—there has been a guerilla warfare of twenty-five years' duration is not due to the supposed inefficiency of the army—which never suffered a reverse—but to the philanthropic Government in the Hague, who refused to sanction the strong measures the military commanders wished to take, and till not very long- ago entrusted the command to civil authorities. It is exactly twenty-five years ago that the first Dutchmen put foot on the shore of Acheen to make an end to the .A.chenese piracy. That Holland would not much like to make a bid for a "second tropical estate" is beyond doubt. To every square mile of Dutch soil, and to every thousand Dutchmen, belongs, as it is, a larger area of "tropical estate" than to any other country, not excluding the English, and that notwithstanding England has taken advantage of the fact that she is ten times as large, and was, therefore, about twice as strong as Holland, to grasp a good deal of the land Holland colonised and made valuable,—Ceylon and Negapa- team, the Cape Colony and Sierra Leone, Demerara, half of Gibraltar, and some more. Of course Englishmen do not care much how many hearty dislikers of the islanders a small State like Holland contains, but still, as it seems such a slight trouble to diminish to a minimum the too startling in- accuracies in foreigners' so aggravating newspaper para- graphs, one fails to understand why that trouble is not sometimes taken.—I am, Sir, Itc.,
A DIITCH ANGLOPHOBE.
We said "alter a fashion" because we disapprove the Dutch method of government in Java, which is directed too. much to profit. The fact that Acheen is larger than Holland does not make it a great State. Hyderabad is larger than Britain.—ED. Spectator.]
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