for the naturalist, the
botanist, and the ethnologist, the Dutch, as in New Guinea, have merely
scratched its surface, almost no attempt having thus far been made to
exploit its enormous natural resources. Thus I have arrayed for your
cursory inspection the congeries of curious and colorful islands which
constitute Netherlands India in order that you may comprehend the
problems of civilization and administration which Holland has had to
solve in those distant seas, and that you may be better qualified to
judge the results she has achieved.

[Footnote 1: Pronounced as though it were spelled Cel-lay-bees,
with the accent on the second syllable.]

* * * * *

The Insulinde has eight times the population and sixty times the area
of the mother country, from which it is separated by ten thousand miles
of sea, yet the sovereignty of Queen Wilhelmina is upheld among the
cannibals of New Guinea, the head-hunters of Borneo, and the savages of
Achin, no less than among the docile millions of Java, by less than ten
thousand European soldiers. That a territory so vast and with so
enormous a population, should be so admirably administered, everything
considered, by so small a number of white men, is in itself proof of
the Dutch genius for ruling subject races.

From the day when Holland determined to organize her colonial empire
for the benefit of the natives themselves, instead of exploiting it for
the benefit of a handful of Dutch traders and settlers, as she had
previously done, she has employed in her colonial service only
thoroughly trained officials of proved ability and irreproachable
character. The Dutch officials whom I met in Java and the Outposts
impressed me, indeed, as being men of altogether exceptional capacity
and attainments, better educated and qualified, as a whole, than those
whom I have encountered in the British and French colonial possessions.
Since the war, owing to the difficulty of obtaining men of sufficient
caliber and experience to fill the minor posts, which are not
particularly well paid, Holland has given employment in her colonial
service to a considerable number of Germans, most of whom had been
trained in colonial administration in Germany's African and Pacific
possessions, but they are appointed, of course, only to posts of
relative unimportance.

Every year the Minister of the Colonies ascertains the number of
vacancies in the East Indian service, and e