ABSTRACT
The argument that forced labour was unavoidable to keep the cost price at the lowest possible level had to be played down in the public presentation of the government’s policy to generate a surplus in the colony. The minister in charge of colonial affairs stated with regret that the Javanese people did not possess the work ethic required to extract all the potential benefits offered by the fertility of their island. This observation led him to declare in 1830 that the starting point for government on Java was ‘to guide the people to devote their labour to that purpose that was most in accordance with the interests of the mother country’ (Van Deventer II, 1866: 497). The reverse argument, that the price to be paid for prioritizing these interests was clearly to the disadvantage of the colonized population, was however much more difficult to justify. The imminent abolition of slavery – although introduced with much delay by the Dutch government 25 – suggested that the plea to maintain the regime of unfree labour on Java would not necessarily be greeted abroad with unanimous approval. This explains the government’s concise summary of its intentions in the colony, ‘to obtain the best possible product of the best quality and at the lowest price, without putting the population under pressure’ (quoted in Van Gorkom 1880b: 177-8). To ensure that the suffix to this sentence did not remain in the realm of fiction, the government decided to present its policy of demanding that the people of Java engage in productive work as encouraging them to an effort that would benefit both them and their country. Since these people were not willing to grow crops for export of their own accord, because of their childlike, non-economic mentality, there was nothing else for it than to impose the necessary discipline upon them. As long as they showed no signs of having internalized the need to work, coercion would remain necessary to lead them towards progress.
