[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 every year the Grand Examination of Officials is held simultaneously in The Hague and Batavia, the results of this examination determining the eligibility of candidates for admission to the colonial service and the fitness of officials already in the service for promotion. With the exception of the Governor-General and two or three other high officials, who are appointed by the crown, no official can evade this examination, to pass which requires not only an intimate knowledge of East Indian languages, politics and customs, but real scholarship as well. The names of those candidates who pass this examination are certified to the Minister of the Colonies, who thereupon directs them to report to the Governor-General at Batavia and provides them with funds for the voyage. Upon their arrival in the Indies the Governor-General appoints them to the grade of _controleur_ and tests their capacity by sending them to difficult and trying posts in Sumatra, Borneo, the Celebes, or New Guinea, where they must conclusively prove their ability before they can hope for promotion to the grades of assistant resident and resident, and the relative comfort of official life in Java. In the Outposts they at once come face to face with innumerable difficulties and responsibilities, for the _controleur_ is responsible, though within narrower limits than the resident, for everything: justice, police, agriculture, education, public works, the protection of the natives, and the requirements of the settlers in such matters as labor and irrigation. He is, in short, an administrator, a police official, a judge, a diplomatist, and an adviser on almost every subject connected with the government of tropical dependencies. The officials in the Outposts are given more authority and greater latitude of action than their colleagues in Java, for they have greater difficulties to cope with, while the intractability, if not the open hostility of the natives whom they are called upon to rule demands greater tact and diplomacy than are required in Java, where the officials are inclined to become spoiled by their easy-going life and the semi-royal state which they maintain.