Forty Years Ago The Country Was A Wilderness, The People
Naked Savages, Garnishing Their Rude Houses With Human Heads.
Now
it is a garden, worthy of its sweet native name of "Minahasa."
Good roads and paths traverse it in every direction; some of the
finest coffee plantations in the world surround the villages,
interspersed with extensive rice-fields more than sufficient for
the support of the population.
The people are now the most industrious, peaceable, and civilized
in the whole Archipelago. They are the best clothed, the best
housed, the best fed, and the best educated; and they have made
some progress towards a higher social state. I believe there is
no example elsewhere of such striking results being produced in
so short a time - results which are entirely due to the system of
government now adopted by the Dutch in their Eastern possessions.
The system is one which may be called a "paternal despotism." Now
we Englishmen do not like despotism - we hate the name and the
thing, and we would rather see people ignorant, lazy, and
vicious, than use any but moral force to make them wise,
industrious, and good. And we are right when we are dealing with
men of our own race, and of similar ideas and equal capacities
with ourselves. Example and precept, the force of public opinion,
and the slow, but sure spread of education, will do every thing
in time, without engendering any of those bitter feelings, or
producing any of that servility, hypocrisy, and dependence, which
are the sure results of despotic government.
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