Book Review: Far East: The Dutch in Java
| DOI | 10.1177/002070206702200159 |
| Author | Justus M. van dee Kroef |
| Published date | 01 March 1967 |
| Date | 01 March 1967 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIEWS
151
The final
passage
of
the
book
is
a
brief, but
thoughtful
and
balanced,
assessment
of
the
weaknesses
and
strengths
of democracy
in
Japan
as
they
were
revealed
in
the
Security
Treaty
crisis.
He
writes
with
scholarly
caution,
but
if
I
interpret
Dr. Packard
correctly
he
believes
that
the
crisis,
despite
the
disorder
which
accompanied
it,
win
prove
on
balance to
have
contributed
to
the
growth
of
democratic
processes
in
Japan.
This
is
a
fair
judgment.
Dar-es-Salaam
A.
S.
MCGILL
THE
DUTCH
IN
JAVA.
By
Clive
Day.
1966.
(New
York:
Toronto:
Oxford
University
Press.
xxi,
434pp.
$6.75)
Colomal
Indonesia
has
never wanted
for
intelligent
and readable
foreign
observers,
e.g.
Raffles,
J.
B.
Money,
Chailley-Bert,
and
more
recently
Furnivall,
Bousquet
and
Vandenbosch. Clive
Day,
economic
historian
in
Yale
University
during
the
first
three
decades
of
the
present
century,
may
be
readily
classified
among
their
number.
The
present
volume,
first
published
in
1904,
has
now been
reissued
by
Oxford
as
part
of
a
series
of
rare
and
out
of
print
works
on
Southeast
Asia
(other
books
in
the
series
include,
among
others,
Cameron's
Our
Tropwal
Possessmns
sn
Malayan
India
and
Marsden's
History
of
Sumatra).
Day's
inclusion
in
this
series
is
clearly
justified,
for
his
book
comes
close
to
being
what
Bastin
in his
introduction
claims
it
to
be: "Unquestionably
the
most
stimulating
account ever
written
in
English
on
the
Dutch
colonial
system
in
Indonesia.
On
the
whole,
Day's approach
was
descriptive
rather
than
analytical,
he strove
for
comprehensiveness
rather
than
penetration.
He
also
had
a nineteenth
century Liberal's
economic
bias:
the
failings
of
the
"Culture System"
in
Indonesia,
for
example,
are
attributed
to
the
"universal
failings
of
human
nature
and
human
organization"
when
in
a
system
of
"forced
labour
under
government
management
for
govern-
ment
profit.
(p.
339)
The
"dualistic"
economic
theories
of
J.
H.
Boeke,
upon
which
later
Dutch
colorual
policy
oriented
itself
for
a
time,
seem
to
be
foreshadowed
in
Day's
sharply
drawn
contrast
between
the
high
level
of
wants
of
"civilized
peoples"
and
the
"smallness"
of
these
wants
of
"the
native
of
the
tropics"
who
can
be
stirred
gradually
from
in-
dolence
to
greater
productivity
provided
he
is
shielded
from
"the
mischief
that
doctrinaires
can
work
when
they
interfere
in
the
manage-
ment
of
affairs
which
they
do
not
understand.
(pp.
344-5,
359)
Typical
for
this
mentality
too,
is
the
defence
of
the
Chinese
in
Indonesia,
who,
as
controllers
of
the distributing
trade,
are
described
as
"giving
the
natives
some
primary
economic
education"
and,
therefore,
are
"hated
for
it"-
moreover,
the
modem
world
"looks
with
too
little
sympathy
on
the
distrust
and
dislike
of
the
middleman
that
are
characteristic
of
primitive
communities.
(p.
364).
The
best
part
of
the
book,
as
earlier
students
have already
noted,
remains
the
section devoted
to
the
era
of
the
Dutch
East
India
Com-
pany
(chapters
H-1Il),
perhaps
because
Day
could
benefit
here
from
more
complete
research and
crystallized
scholarly
opinion
than
were
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