The Atjehsche producten (“Atjehnese products”) were the export products of the Atjeh and Dependencies residency — principally pepper and rubber — whose steadily increasing production, especially with the reclamation of the Tamiangsche moerassen (Tamiang swamps), was the economic rationale of the Aroe-baai-plannen of 1913 to develop Arube Bay as a deep-water harbour. In the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account, the Atjehsche producten were the trade that the Aroe-baai-plannen were designed to divert from Belawan and Sabang to Arube Bay — and, in the most ambitious version of the plans, to develop into a deep-water export trade that would compete with Singapore.
Account from De Buitenbezittingen (1917) — Atjehsche producten
The Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account of the Aroe-baai-plannen of 1913 explicitly identifies the Atjehsche producten as the trade that the plans were designed to divert. The Bureau writes: “the defenders of the Aroe-baai-plannen, who see in this natural harbour [of Arube Bay] a competitor of Belawan and even of Singapore and Sabang, hope, by the laying of this connecting link, to see the first step taken toward the realisation of those future plans, by the export of the Atjehsche producten (pepper, rubber, etc.) — which increases steadily with the reclamation of the Tamiangsche moerassen — to be led via Arube Bay.”
The Bureau’s account of the landschapskassen likewise identifies pepper as one of the principal miscellaneous revenues of the Atjeh landschapskas: “Very important are, among others, the peper- en pinanghasil in Atjeh (in 1913: f 125,000 and f 55,000).” The pepper that yielded f 125,000 to the landschapskas in 1913 was thus the same pepper that the Aroe-baai-plannen were designed to divert through Arube Bay. The Bureau’s account of the rubber cultivation in the Buitenbezittingen — which expanded rapidly in the 1910s in response to the “rubberboom” of 1909 — likewise identifies Atjeh as one of the principal sites of rubber cultivation, especially with the reclamation of the Tamiang swamps.
The Atjehsche producten thus occupy a double place in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account: as the principal miscellaneous revenue of the Atjeh landschapskas (pepper, pinang), and as the export trade that the Aroe-baai-plannen of 1913 were designed to divert from Belawan and Sabang to Arube Bay. The two roles are connected: the same pepper and rubber that yielded f 125,000 and f 55,000 to the landschapskas were the pepper and rubber whose steadily increasing production — especially with the reclamation of the Tamiang swamps — was the economic rationale of the Aroe-baai-plannen.
Significance
The Atjehsche producten are, in the Encyclopaedisch Bureau’s account, the principal export trade of the Atjeh and Dependencies residency — the trade whose steadily increasing production was the economic rationale of the Aroe-baai-plannen of 1913. The double role of the Atjehsche producten — as the principal miscellaneous revenue of the Atjeh landschapskas, and as the export trade that the Aroe-baai-plannen were designed to divert through Arube Bay — places them at the intersection of the financial and the infrastructural projects of the 1904–1914 decade in Atjeh.
See Also
- Aroe-baai-plannen
- Aroebai
- Tamiang
- Belawan
- Sabang
- Singapore
- Atjehsche peper- en pinanghasil
- Landschapskassen
- Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden
- Pacificatie van Atjeh
- 1913
Sources
De Buitenbezittingen 1904 tot 1914, Deel I, bewerkt door het Encyclopaedisch Bureau, Mededeelingen van het Bureau voor de Bestuurszaken der Buitenbezittingen, Aflevering X (Weltevreden: Landsdrukkerij, 1917), p. 12 (Landschapskassen), pp. 69–70 (section “De Atjeh-tram”).