uring operations in the field
the women and children, instead of remaining behind in barracks,
accompany the troops almost to the firing-line, a custom which,
apparently, does not interfere with efficiency or discipline. Indeed,
there are few forces of equal size in the world which have seen as much
active service as the army of Netherlands India, for in the extension
of Dutch dominion throughout the archipelago the native rulers rarely
have surrendered their authority without fighting. Though the
newspapers seldom mention it, Holland is almost constantly engaged in
some little war in some remote corner of her Indian empire, in certain
districts of Sumatra, for example, fighting having been almost
continuous these many years.

Though the flag of Holland was first hoisted over the Celebes more than
three centuries ago, Dutch commercial interests are still virtually
confined to the four chief towns--Makassar, Menado, Gorontalo, and
Tondano--and this in spite of the fact that the interior of the island
is known to be immensely rich in natural resources. In the native
states Dutch authority is little more than nominal, the repeated
attempts which have been made to subjugate them invariably having met
with discouragement and not infrequently with disaster. Hence the
island is still without railways, though it is being slowly opened up
by means of roads, some of which are practicable for motor-cars. Most
of the roads in the Celebes were originally built by means of the
Corvee, or forced labor, the natives being compelled to spend one month
out of the twelve in road construction. But, though they were taken for
this work at a season when they could best be spared from their fields,
it was an enormous tax to impose upon an agricultural population,
resulting in grave discontent and in seriously retarding the
development of the island. For, ever since Marshal Daendels, "the Iron
Marshal," who ruled the Indies under Napoleon, utilized forced labor to
build the splendid eight-hundred-mile-long highway which runs from one
end of Java to the other, the corvee has been a synonym for
unspeakable cruelty and oppression throughout the Insulinde. Each
_dessa_, or district, through which the great trans-Java highway runs
was forced to construct, within an allotted period, a certain section
of the road, the natives working without pay while their crops rotted
in the fields and their families starved. As a final touch of tyranny,
the grim o