"I quite agree with you there," said Verstork.
"Do they not," continued Grenits, "exceed all limits in the pitiful and niggardly way in which they treat their soldiers out here?"
"Why, to give you but one instance, by loudly declaring that there is peace at Atjeh--a peace which has no real existence whatever--and thereby robbing the poor soldiers and doing them clean out of their already too meagre pay?"
"Oh, what need we bother ourselves about those soldier fellows!" cried van Rheijn.
"Do they not again," continued Grenits, "overpass all reasonable limits, by encouraging and fostering the abuse of opium?"
"Now, that is too bad," cried van Beneden, "now you are going too far; that accusation of yours is not a fair one."
"You think so, do you?" said Grenits. "Well then just take Band's book in hand. There you will find proof absolute of the fact that it is, and has always been, the policy at the Hague to encourage and to foster the opium-trade as much as possible. Figures are stubborn things--just listen to what they have to say. In 1832, the opium revenue amounted to three millions, in 1842 it rose to very nearly seven millions. In 1870 it was quite ten millions, in 1880 it amounted to thirteen millions. In 1885 that same revenue rose to nineteen millions; and new, in 1886, it is estimated at quite twenty one millions, and our House of Representatives has accepted that estimate without the slightest demur, and without one word of protest. Of course, every now and then, there is a great moan made in political and in other circles at home, and a great deal is said about the iniquities of the opium trade; but, for all that, the authorities have their hands perfectly free and are encouraged by all parties to squeeze out of that trade as much as it can be made to yield."
"But, excuse me," asked van Rheijn, "is it not one of the first duties of every government to make an impost as productive as possible?"
"Certainly it is,--and it is precisely therein that lies the immorality and the demoralizing tendency of the opium-monopoly. You see, in order to enable the farmers to increase their bids, the abuse of the drug must be encouraged. Thus the poor natives are driven, we may say, into the opium-den by any and by every means--the most illegal and the dirtiest means seem to have the preference. Just read our local papers, and then you will be edified, I think, at the infamous annoyance which the Chinese opium-factors are empowered to inflict upon the non-consumers, and at the unlimited control they are allowed to exercise, always in the most shameless and arbitrary fashion, over any poor wretch who, seeing, it may be, the error of his ways, tries to diminish his daily consumption."