Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

IXDONESIA. 69fortune * some years ago, and the adjacent Sultanate of Brunei, togetlier with thePortuguese section of Timor, are the only regions in Indonesia which ai'e notregarded as officially dependent on the Netherlands. Nevertheless in the vastarchipelago there still remain some unreduced tribes, and even nations, such as thatof Atjeh, in the north of Sumatra.Since Germany has in her turn become a colonial power, she has acquired orclaimed territories ou the African continent even more extensive than Indonesia.But their economic value may be estimated at zero compared with the Dutch EastIndies, which many far-seeing politicians already regard as a not very remoteinheritance of the German Empire. Possibly in anticipation of this futureacquisition, the German Government has occupied a large part of New Guineaand neighbouring archipelagoes, with the view of extending eastwards this vastinsular domain.Progress of Exploration.The already extensive historical and geographical literature relating toIndonesia is being constantly increased by new works. Explorers, either actingindejjendently or grouped in learned societies, are ceaselessly at work, investigatingthe material and moral conditions in the Malay world. Amongst the documentsalready published some are of the highest scientific value, for the Eastern Archipelagois one of those regions which most abound in interesting facts bearing onphysical phenomena, the distribution of animal and vegetable species, humanmigrations, the evolution of mankind, and other problems connected with politicaland social economy.But what this encyclopaedic labour still lacks is the co-operation of the nativesthemselves.For the most part savage hunters, or toiling under hard taskmasters,they have but few representatives in the republic of letters, and those who do takepart in the current of contemporary studies are not sufficiently unbiassed tojudgeof things as they really are.Thanks to the facilities of locomotion and free intercourse, the time haspassed when privileged companies and Governments, jealous of their commercialmonopolies, prevented geographers from publishing the charts and other results oftheir surveys. In the sixteenth century the Dutch and Spaniards made it acapital offence for any writer to publish the logs of their navigators. Copies ofcharts and maps acquired at great expense were entrusted by the NetherlandsGovernment to their skippers, to be returned to the Admiralty archives after eachvoyage, the punishment of the lash, branding, or banishment being reserved forthe traitors who disclosed them to strangers. Even in dangerous waters, wherethe perils of the deep were exaggerated by legendary reports, pilotswere refusedto ships in distress.But all this has changed, and at present certain parts of Indonesia are better* Sir James Brooke, better known aa Rajah Brooke, who purchased this territory from the Sultan ofBrunei in 18-11.