Life seems singularly busy in Sourabaya. The Chinese gentleman is driving about all day in his pony chaise; the Chinese of the lower order is running about with his wicker-cases as a pedlar, or else selling fruit or cooked provisions, with a stove to keep them warm; or sitting, in the primitive style, under a tamarind tree, with silver and copper coinage before him to cash notes. And the river is as busy as the shore; there are always groups of people bathing; men and women are washing clothes; boats of all sizes, and for all purposes, laden with produce, or crowded with people, are constantly passing along. Then there are the troops, who, under the Dutch uniform, exhibit all _castes_ and colours, from the European to the Negro--a force amounting to about two thousand infantry, besides artillery and cavalry; and all this goes on amid a perpetual clamour of voices, cries of every trade, tongues of every barbarism, and that wild haste and restless eagerness in every movement which belongs to seaport life in every portion of the globe. The present discussions with the Dutch government on the subject of labour make it of importance to know something on the subject of their colonies in the East. It is a curious circumstance in the history of a people priding themselves on the liberty of commerce and their openness of dealing with mankind, that they seem to have always hidden their Indian policy under the most jealous reserve. They adopted this reserve from the first hour of their Indian navigation. But then Holland was a republic, and a republic is always tyrannical in proportion to its clamour for liberty, always oppressive in proportion to its promise of equal rights, and always rapacious in proportion to its professed respect for the principle of letting every man keep his own. But though the cap is now exchanged for a crown, and the stadtholder is a monarch, the policy seems to flourish on the old footing of their close-handed fathers. The Eastern dominions of Holland are under the authority of a governor-general and a council, composed of four members, and a vice-president; the governor-general being president. This sounds well at least for the liberty of discussion. But the sound is all. The power of the council consists simply in giving its opinion, to which the governor may refuse to listen. The governor receives his orders directly from the colonial minister at home, and the colonial minister, though apparently responsible to the sentiment of the Chambers, yet echoes those of the King.