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Like British-owned India, The Netherlands Indies is divided into territory governed by native rulers in treaty relations with the Dutch, and territory governed directly. The Dutch authorities are not as lenient with the many sultans and princes whom they oversee, however, as the British. They strictly limit the native rulers' allowances and make sure that a part of every little State's income finds its way into education, hygiene, public works. Of the entire population, less than 10,000,000 are States' subjects; the remaining 50,000,000 are ruled direct from Batavia.
In Batavia sits the Volksraad, a legislative assembly composed half of natives and subjects of foreign origin and half of Hollanders. But the Volksraad has exceedingly limited powers. Only recently it acquired the right to initiate legislation. The real power rests in a tropical palace at Buitenzorg, outside Batavia, where lives His Excellency Jonkheer A.W.L. Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer, the Governor General. Aside from being able to tell such high-sounding potentates as the Sultan of Solo or the Sultan of Jokyakarta how to run their States, he can also veto any measure that a rebellious Volksraad might pass. Moreover, he himself can "pass" his own ordinances. Appointed to his present job in 1936, the Governor General formerly held the important post of Dutch Minister to Belgium. His wife is the U. S.-born Christina Marburg, daughter of Theodore Marburg, onetime U. S. Minister to Belgium.
The Dutch colonial atmosphere has long been widely hailed as far healthier than the British, but this reputation rests more on circumstance than on conscious planning. Unlike the British, early Dutch colonizers were not discouraged from marrying native women and no social ostracism came to them or their half-caste children. Moreover, the Dutch have scrupulously refused to allow the slightest tampering with the natives' moral code, even going so far as to bar missionaries in some islands. But the native living standard is little, if any, higher than in similar British colonies. If the Dutch have experienced fewer revolts in The Indies than the British have in India, it is largely because the natives of the Indies are by & large more indolent. Besides, the fact that they are split among more than 150 different races and languages tends to make widespread rebellion next to impossible.
Reilly. Meanwhile, the 220,000 Dutchmen in the East Indies live the life of Reilly. No white man is so poor he cannot afford at least two servants at salaries ranging around $8 a month, and the usual staff of a well-to-do household numbers six or seven. No white woman need lift her little finger around the house. U. S. films now arrive in Java, Sumatra and Borneo with little delay, and few are the Dutch Colonials who do not own a U. S.-made car. Tinned foods from home are always available, but the most famous East Indian dish is Ryst-Tafel, which is both a ceremony and a dinner. It has a base of rice, and consists of a hundred or more side dishes including fried chicken, fried pork, beef, the entire gamut of spices, fried bananas, fried shrimps, cucumbers, pickles, ginger, eggs in every conceivable form, all served by a waiters' corps of 20. Experienced East Indian Dutchmen go to bed for a couple of hours after eating Ryst-Tafel.