or three inhalations, however, the opium is consumed, and the pipe falls from the hand of its victim. At first the smokers talk to each other in a whisper scarcely audible; but they soon become still as the dead. Their dull sunken eyes gradually become bright and sparkling -their hollow cheeks seem to assume a healthy roundness—a gleam of satisfaction, nay of ecstasy, lightens up their countenance as they revel in imagination in those sensual delights which are to constitute their Mahommedan paradise. Enervated, languid, emaciated, as they are in fact, they seem and feel for the time regenerated; and though they lie there the shameless and impassive slaves of sensuality and lust, their senses are evidently steeped in bliss. Aroused, however, from their dreams and delusions-the potency of the charm exhausted, driven from their 'hell' by its proprietor see them next morning walking with faltering step, eyes dull as lead, cheeks hollow as coffins, to their work.

Not the least interesting portion of the Government official Report on the state of Java is that which gives us the statistics of the means employed for extending the benefits of education throughout the island. Our space will not permit us to enter into the details of the system of education enforced by the Government; but it is one that would certainly fail to satisfy either of the parties who in this country are clamouring for the right of teaching the young idea how to shoot' in their own peculiar, and of course infallible, way. The results, however, on the whole are encouraging, much more so, we think, than are the salaries paid to the teachers entrusted with the education of the youth of Java, proverbially dull-minded, selfwilled, and indocile. But the Government, in its anxiety to have

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a good balance on the credit side of its ledger, does not hesitate even to grind the faces of its humblest subordinates, whilst it allows a favoured sugar contractor to filch from what honestly belongs to the public exchequer sums that would make a heaven of their poor pinched lives.*

Hitherto, owing to the want of a good collegiate and commercial institution in Java, the European settlers and half-caste residents who wished to give their sons an education qualifying them for the desk or for a Government appointment, have been obliged to send them at a very early age to Holland, to the severance of all parental and domestic ties. The Government, however, has recently purchased an extensive property in the neighbourhood of Batavia, and converted it into a royal gymnasium or collegiate school; a staff of masters has been sent over from Holland, though without the remotest prospect of their ever making a fortune; for the pet system of giving too little and asking too much has not been abandoned even in this matter. Household and other expenses are in Java more than double what they are in Europe, and we should regret very much if the salaries offered by the Government should prove sufficiently remunerative to induce men of university distinction and liberal education to spend thirty years under a tropical sun, coaching' unwilling and languid lads, in a climate and amidst associations acknowledged to be highly unfavourable to studious habits. We should regret it because it would be to us a painful indication that learning and science must be following the example of the Austrian metallics, and standing just now at a very low discount in the dominions of his Majesty William III. of the Netherlands.

This glorious island has been

frequently described in relation to its physical characteristics, so that we need not detain our readers with any lengthened disquisition on its singularly beautiful-monotonously beautiful-features. Surpassing Switzerland in grandeur and Italy in beauty, Java has been aptly denominated 'the Queen of the Eastern Archipelago;' for wherever the eye rests it is charmed with the most glorious spectacles in nature. Here it beholds fresh green rice fields, tastefully laid out, and gradually terminating at the mountain declivities; there picturesque groves of palm-trees and flowering shrubs, under the shadow of whose lavish foliage the natives build their villages, more primitive indeed than picturesque; yonder a volcano-crested mountain covered with eternal forests,and deep ravines on whose 'carpet of green velvet' Aurora, on her rising, embroiders golden flowers, and the setting sun limns the most brilliant phantasies; further on is a waterfall, dashing down a mountain declivity, winding, in its zigzag course, through woods and fields, and, like a lifegiving source, invigorating and reviving both the soil and its inhabitants. But all these beauties can scarcely compensate for the monotony which so soon exhausts the admiration with which a European beholds for the first time beautiful Queen of the East.' In vain, amid the impassive associations by which he is surrounded; the unvarying verdure of the mountains and valleys; the regular visitations of the periodical rains, falling like floods from the heavily charged clouds; amid the solemn, formal sameness, the absence of soul, life, and motion of the lark singing his morning anthem and the nightingale chanting her evening hymn; in vain, where the rustic, dull and heavy as his own buffalo, goes to his labour or returns to his cabin without a cheerful thought in his bosom or a joy lighting up his passionless countenance; where no church bell peals forth its welcome to the house of God; where even festivals are gloomy gatherings and bridal

the

ceremonies resemble funereal obsequies,-in vain amid all this monotony does he seek variety; and as a man doomed to live on pastry sighs for a crust of ryebread, so the Dutch official in Java soon closes his eyes to the magnificence that surrounds him, and would give half a year's salary could he have but a glimpse —ay, of the filthiest street of the Jews' quarter in his beloved Amsterdam.

Though we cannot hope fully to succeed, yet we are unwilling to conclude our remarks on this interesting portion of God's universe without describing to our readers the nature of the governmental machinery employed by the Dutch, numbering little more than three millions, in their management of their distant and valuable colonies populated by nearly thirty millions of human beings. We call them colonies, though in the strict sense of the word they are no such thing; they are possessions, originally won by the sword from the Spanish and Portuguese, and as such they are retained and governed. They form no reservoir for the surplus population' of Holland, for, as we have seen, only a mere handful of Europeans, including the Dutch army, reside in Java. The Javanese are said to entertain the very vague notion that Holland is all Europe, and that any attempt to revolt on their part could be put down by--if necessary-millions of European soldiers. Surely in this case 'tis distance lends enchantment to the view. Be this as it may, it is a singular fact which speaks favourably, we think, for the Dutch Government, notwithstanding certain discreditable proceedings which once disgraced its colonial policy, that a country like Holland, a second-class European power, has been able to maintain its authority almost uninterruptedly, for about two centuries and a half, in such a distant country and among such a numerous and mixed population. It is a phenomenon which puts us in mind of a huge elephant bowing the knee and ringing a bell at the command of his puny keeper. A correct and impartial history of

1861.]

Java has unfortunately never been written; for able as its author was, the History of Java, by Sir Stamford Raffles, is far from being an honest and impartial testimony. It was written with the evident view of justifying England in retaining possession of the island she had undertaken to protect for the Dutch against the usurpation of Napoleon, and had she listened to Sir Stamford's counsels, Java would now have been an appendage-a jewel among jewels-of the British Crown. We have endeavoured to give our readers an outline of the history of that island of

Vigorous soils and climes of fair extent, When, by the potent sun, elated high, The vineyard swells refulgent to the day, since its restoration to the Dutch, in 1816, with all fairness and impartiality; but a complete history of Dutch policy and government in Java will probably never be written. It is a principle with the Dutch Government to give as little publicity as possible to its colonial proceedings; to baffle curiosity in its researches respecting them, and to keep its colonial archives under locks that cannot be picked, and seals that cannot be broken. Ask for information, and you will be politely and diplomatically referred to what the Americans call the twelfth commandment, 'mind your own business.' 'Leave us alone,' they will tell you, ‘to go on in our own way; you may think about us as you will; you may write about us as you like; but ask no questions, and you will spare us the trouble of misleading you.' We know, however, sufficient of Java to be well aware that it is a possession such as any State might envy, and that it has risen to its present prosperity mainly through the wisdom with which it has been governed during the last half century. In former times, indeed, it was made the theatre of gross enormities and perfidies; but we trust that in this age of a more extended humanity, and of a more generous policy, those discreditable bye-gones will be forgotten, or remembered only as the incentives

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to wise and liberal improvements. What Java would become could her resources be fully developed, it is impossible to say; the gold veins run rich and glistening in the soil, but the arm and the pick-axe are wanting; the harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few.' With a climate so modified in the different localities as to suit almost every constitution; with a soil teeming with such fertility that if tickled with a hoe it will laugh with a harvest,' it is impossible to cultivate immense tracts from the scarcity of labour. Whether the abolition of compulsory labour-the basis of the cultuurstetsel-would increase the supply of labour by making the natives an industrious people, is, we think, as society in Java is now constituted, more than questionable. The Javanese, left to themselves, cannot be trusted; relieve them from the not very pressing restraints placed upon them, and they will degenerate into what they were before the introduction of the cultuur-stetsel. But that they may be educated to better things, and become reformed into respectability by gradually withdrawing them from the influences of the dirty and superstitious priests that infest the island like loathsome reptiles, we cannot for a moment doubt. Let the Government be more liberal than it has been in voting salaries for schoolmasters, and in raising the moral standing of the natives; in increasing the means of communication; in extending public works of utility and necessity; and less anxious to have a large balance on the right side of the Trading Company's ledger. It is not every State that has such an accommodating goose as to lay it golden eggs; and while it would be unwise to feast it to repletion, it would be the work of a fool to kill it for the sake of the eggs that are in it.

Triboulet, the court-fool of Francis I., once remarked that there was no calling so universally practised as that of a doctor; and in the difficulty which is now embarrassing the Government of the Netherlands, every one comes to

the Colonial Minister with his panacea for the ills of Java-a prescription from the political pharmacopoeia of his own pet party. But few, we fear, understand the nature of the malady for which they are so ready to offer their cures, which, like those of Miss Mitford's Talking Lady, are sure to kill. The members of the Second Chamber are for the greater part mere lawyers; and only three or four of the seventy-two members have any practical knowledge whatever of the state and requirements of Java. They form-ad captandum vulgus certain theories based on their peculiar notions of what things ought to be, and strive to apply them to the elucidation of a most complicated and sensitive system. Like Rousseau's philosopher, 'ils préfèrent l'erreur qu'ils ont trouvé à la vérité découverte par un autre.' But if a drop of fortune is worth a barrel of wisdom, 'an ounce of knowledge is worth a ton of theory.' Since the publication of our first article, another Colonial Minister -the third this year-has been appointed, and we trust he will not be beguiled from his duty by persuasive exhortations, be put down by a sophism or frightened by a sneer. This magnificent colony may now be said to be in a state of transition, and with the Government it rests to direct its tendencies and promote its moral and material prosperity. Should Java, by an unwise policy, or by the influence of political cabals, be lost to Holland, the Dutch might as well pierce their dykes and submerge their ruined land beneath the broad ocean which leans against it. Great as are the difficulties of the Colonial

Minister, we think they may be overcome if met in a fair, liberal, and conciliating spirit. In the East and West Indian possessions of the Netherlands, there are nearly thirty millions of human beings subject to the laws proposed by the Government and sanctioned by the Legislature of Holland; and we trust the Government will succeed in binding the native populations of these valuable possessions to their rulers by the bonds of a loyal and sincere allegiance. Political empiricism is always puffing its pills, draughts, and ointments, for all the external and internal ills of the body politic; and Holland, without doubt, has had more than enough of it. The wonder is that, after having been its victim so long, her constitution, so frequently experimented upon by political medicasters, remains as vigorous and healthy as it does. Let her, however, be wise in time, and throw henceforth such physic to the dogs. 'I was well, wished to be better, took physic, and here I lie,' is an epitaph for States as well as for men. It is high time she tore up the prescriptions of the numerous quacks who have drawn so freely on her credulity and her exchequer, and listened to the philosophical counsel of experienced and honest practitioners. Quod medicamenta morbis exhibent hoc jura negotiis,' is an ancient maxim; and we may add that, to an able physician, whether for the ills of the body physical or of the body politic, in addition to the knowledge he has acquired by study, experience, and reflection, these three characteristics are indispensable-an eagle's eye, a lady's hand, and a lion's heart.

THERE are few circumstances among those which make up the present condition of human knowledge, more unlike what might have been expected, or more significant of the backward state in which speculation on the most important subjects still lingers, than the little progress which has been made in the decision of the controversy respecting the criterion of right and wrong. From the dawn of philosophy, the question concerning the summum bonum, or, what is the same thing, concerning the foundation of morality, has been accounted the main problem in speculative thought, has occupied the most gifted intellects, and divided them into sects and schools, carrying on a vigorous warfare against one another. And after more than two thousand years the same discussions continue, philosophers are still ranged under the same contending banners, and neither thinkers nor mankind at large seem nearer to being unanimous on the subject, than when the youth Socrates listened to the old Protagoras, and asserted (if Plato's dialogue be grounded on a real conversation) the theory of utilitarianism against the popular morality of the so-called sophist.

It is true that similar confusion and uncertainty, and in some cases similar discordance, exist respecting the first principles of all the sciences, not excepting that which is deemed the most certain of VOL. LXIV. NO. CCCLXXXII.

them, mathematics; without much impairing, generally indeed without impairing at all, the trustworthiness of the conclusions of those sciences. An apparent anomaly, the explanation of which is, that the detailed doctrines of a science are not usually deduced from, nor depend for their evidence upon, what are called its first principles. Were it not so, there would be no science more precarious, or whose conclusions were more insufficiently made out, than algebra; which derives none of its certainty from what are commonly taught to learners as its elements, since these, as laid down by some of its most eminent teachers, are as full of fictions as English law, and of mysteries as theology. The truths which are ultimately accepted as the first principles of a science, are really the last results of metaphysical analysis, practised on the elementary notions with which the science is conversant; and their relation to the science is not that of foundations to an edifice, but of roots to a tree, which may perform their office equally well though they be never dug down to and exposed to light. But though in science the particular truths precede the general theory, the contrary might be expected to be the case with a practical art, such as morals or legislation. All action is for the sake of some end, and rules of action, it seems natural to suppose, must take their whole character

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