very year the Grand
Examination of Officials is held simultaneously in The Hague and
Batavia, the results of this examination determining the eligibility of
candidates for admission to the colonial service and the fitness of
officials already in the service for promotion. With the exception of
the Governor-General and two or three other high officials, who are
appointed by the crown, no official can evade this examination, to pass
which requires not only an intimate knowledge of East Indian languages,
politics and customs, but real scholarship as well. The names of those
candidates who pass this examination are certified to the Minister of
the Colonies, who thereupon directs them to report to the
Governor-General at Batavia and provides them with funds for the
voyage. Upon their arrival in the Indies the Governor-General appoints
them to the grade of _controleur_ and tests their capacity by sending
them to difficult and trying posts in Sumatra, Borneo, the Celebes, or
New Guinea, where they must conclusively prove their ability before
they can hope for promotion to the grades of assistant resident and
resident, and the relative comfort of official life in Java. In the
Outposts they at once come face to face with innumerable difficulties
and responsibilities, for the _controleur_ is responsible, though
within narrower limits than the resident, for everything: justice,
police, agriculture, education, public works, the protection of the
natives, and the requirements of the settlers in such matters as labor
and irrigation. He is, in short, an administrator, a police official, a
judge, a diplomatist, and an adviser on almost every subject connected
with the government of tropical dependencies. The officials in the
Outposts are given more authority and greater latitude of action than
their colleagues in Java, for they have greater difficulties to cope
with, while the intractability, if not the open hostility of the
natives whom they are called upon to rule demands greater tact and
diplomacy than are required in Java, where the officials are inclined
to become spoiled by their easy-going life and the semi-royal state
which they maintain.

Though Holland demands much of those who uphold her authority in the
Indies, she is generous in her rewards. The Governor-General draws a
salary of seventy thousand dollars together with liberal allowances for
entertaining, and is provided with palaces at Batavia and Buitenzorg,
while at Tji