Hatsil

The Hatsil — also hasil, het aandeel in den hatsil (the share in the hatsil) — was the traditional revenue share formerly accruing to the Sultan of Atjeh from the customs, import duties, and other fiscal rights exercised over the coastal statelets of the rijk (realm). The term appears in Van Heutsz’s 1893 tract De onderwerping van Atjeh (The Subjugation of Atjeh) as the fiscal foundation of the scheepvaartregeling (shipping regulation) — the customary revenue share the Dutch should assume, on the model of art. 6 (Article 6) of the 18 artikelen (eighteen articles) sworn by each submitting statelet, in place of the cajoleering-policy (cajoling-policy) of paying hostile chiefs traktement (stipend). Van Heutsz’s prescription is that the hatsil could be slightly increased and assumed by the Dutch once they took over the import duties from the coastal chiefs — a measure that would, together with the opium-pacht (opium-farm) and the invoerrechten (import duties) on luxury goods, place the Dutch “in den volsten zin des woords op de geldkist van Atjeh” (in the fullest sense of the word on the cash-box of Atjeh).

The customary revenue of the sultan

The hatsil was, in the constitutional structure of the Acehnese sultanate, the revenue share the sultan drew from the trade of the Onderhoorigheden (Dependencies). The share included the customs and import duties (invoerrechten) levied on the in- and out-flow of goods at the harbours of the coastal statelets, and the bedingen (stipulations) — the additional fiscal rights — that the sultan had reserved to himself in the surrender declarations sworn by the chiefs. The sultan’s revenue had thus rested, in the pre-colonial constitutional order, on the same fiscal foundation that Scherer’s scheepvaartregeling proposed to transfer to the Dutch. Van Heutsz records the institutional fact in the 1893 tract through the additioneele artikelen (additional articles) some of the coastal chiefs had already signed:

“enkele zelfs reeds zonder bezwaar additioneele artikelen geteekend hadden, waarbij voor ons bedongen was het aandeel in den hatsil, dat van rechtswege vroeger den sultan toekwam”.

The additioneele artikelen — the additional articles some chiefs had already signed without objection — provided for the Dutch to assume the aandeel in den hatsil (the share in the hatsil) — that of right had formerly accrued to the sultan. The phrase dat van rechtswege vroeger den sultan toekwam — that of right formerly accrued to the sultan — fixes the constitutional character of the hatsil: it was not a Dutch invention but a pre-colonial fiscal right the Dutch were assuming on the precedent of the sultan’s own customary claim.

The 18 artikelen and art. 6

The legal basis Van Heutsz invoked for the Dutch assumption of the hatsil was the 18 artikelen — the beëdigde 18 artikelen (sworn eighteen articles) — sworn by each submitting statelet. The 18 artikelen were the surrender declarations the coastal chiefs had signed and sworn on their submission to Dutch authority: “de 18 artikelen door de hoofden van de verschillende staten bij hunne onderwerping aan ons gezag beredigd en bezworen” (the 18 articles composed and sworn by the chiefs of the various states on their submission to our authority). The articles bound the chiefs to recognise Dutch sovereignty, to abstain from hostilities, and to submit to such fiscal and administrative arrangements as the Dutch should prescribe. The text of the 18 artikelen is reproduced in Van Heutsz’s 1893 tract as Bijlage II (Appendix II) — “Die verklaring in 18 artikelen en acte van bevestiging, zooals ze tegenwoordig door de hoofden van de Onderhoorigheden geteekend worden, vindt men hierachter als Bijl. II” (That declaration in 18 articles and act of confirmation, as they are nowadays signed by the chiefs of the Dependencies, one finds behind this as App. II).

The specific article Van Heutsz invoked for the assumption of the import duties was art. 6 of the 18 artikelen. The article authorised the Dutch to take over, against fair compensation, the import duties formerly levied by the coastal chiefs:

“2. invoerrechten van heffing tegen eene billijke schadeloosstelling van de hoofden zal zijn overgenomen conform art. 6”.

The phrase tegen eene billijke schadeloosstelling van de hoofden — against a fair compensation to the chiefs — is the constitutional hinge of Van Heutsz’s prescription: the Dutch would assume the hatsil and the invoerrechten not by confiscation but by transfer, with the chiefs receiving a billijke schadeloosstelling (fair compensation) in exchange for the rights they ceded. The chiefs were, in turn, to receive a tiënste (tithe) — a tithe — of the revenues the Dutch collected, in the form of a 10% share allotted to cooperative chiefs: “kan men hun een tastième toekennen van de inkomsten door ons van pacht, regie of invoerrechten getrokken” (one can allot them a tenth of the revenues drawn by us from farm, regie [government-monopoly], or import duties).

Van Heutsz’s proposal

Van Heutsz’s prescription, set out in the policy-prescription half of the 1893 tract, was that the hatsil should be assumed by the Dutch and, optionally, slightly increased. The proposal is recorded in a single sentence:

“1.- de hatsil, die vroeger den sultan toekwam, kan desverkiezende nog wat verhoogd worden”.

The proposal has three components. The first is the assumption: the hatsil should be assumed by the Dutch, on the precedent of the additioneele artikelen some chiefs had already signed and the model of art. 6 of the 18 artikelen. The second is the optional increase: the hatsil could, if desired, nog wat verhoogd worden — be somewhat increased — beyond the level the sultan had customarily levied. The third is the substitution: the assumption of the hatsil would replace the cajoleering-policy of paying hostile chiefs traktement — about f 8000 a month, of which part flowed onward to Kemala and to the priest Tengkoe di Tirou — with a fiscal arrangement in which the chiefs received a billijke schadeloosstelling and a tiënste of the revenues collected, in exchange for the rights they ceded.

The substitution was, in Van Heutsz’s diagnosis, the constitutional complement to the scheepvaartregeling. The scheepvaartregeling would supply the operational instrument — the routing of all trade through Dutch-administered ports, the inspection of cargoes, the levying of duties; the assumption of the hatsil would supply the constitutional foundation — the legal right, derived from the sultan’s own customary claim and confirmed by the 18 artikelen, to exercise the fiscal powers the sultan had formerly exercised. The combination would, Van Heutsz argued, place the Dutch “in den volsten zin des woords op de geldkist van Atjeh” — in the fullest sense of the word on the cash-box of Atjeh — financing the war’s continuation from its own proceeds.

The continued evasion of the hatsil

The hatsil remained, throughout the Atjeh-oorlog (Atjeh-war), the object of systematic evasion by the coastal statelets. Van Heutsz records, in the 1893 tract, the case of Simpang Anas — a onderhoorigheid (dependency) of Perlak — which had evaded the hatsil and the Dutch war-levy by exporting its pepper through Tamiang and Langkat rather than through the Dutch-administered ports:

“de uitvoer van peper van Simpang Anas, onderhoorig- heid van Perlak, via Tamiang en Langkat, tot ontduiking van den hatsil en de opgelegde oorlogeschatting”.

The case of Simpang Anas is, in Van Heutsz’s argument, the empirical proof that the hatsil could not be collected without the scheepvaartregeling — that the coastal statelets would, so long as the coast remained open and the Dutch had no controle op handel en scheepvaart (supervision over trade and shipping), continue to evade the hatsil by routing their trade through non-Dutch ports. The closure of the coast and the routing of all trade through the retained Dutch-held ports — Edi, Segli and Olehleh for the Noord- en Oostkust (North- and East Coast), Telok-Kroet, Melaboeh and Tampat Toean for the Westkust (West Coast) — were, in this reading, the operational prerequisites for the collection of the hatsil. Without them, the hatsil remained, as it had been under the sultans, a fiscal right more asserted than exercised.

Significance

The hatsil’s significance in the Aceh Wiki History record rests on three things: it was the customary revenue share the Sultan of Atjeh had drawn from the trade of the coastal statelets — the customs and import duties the sultan had levied on the in- and out-flow of goods at the harbours of the rijk; it was the fiscal foundation of the scheepvaartregeling Van Heutsz prescribed in the 1893 tract — the customary revenue share the Dutch should assume, on the model of art. 6 of the 18 artikelen sworn by each submitting statelet, in place of the cajoleering-policy of paying hostile chiefs traktement; and it was the constitutional complement to the scheepvaartregeling’s operational instrument — the legal right, derived from the sultan’s own customary claim and confirmed by the 18 artikelen, to exercise the fiscal powers the sultan had formerly exercised. Van Heutsz’s prescription that the hatsil “kan desverkiezende nog wat verhoogd worden” — could, if desired, be somewhat increased — is the single sentence in which the 1893 tract converts the sultan’s customary revenue into the Dutch colonial state’s principal fiscal instrument, and so converts the scheepvaartregeling from Scherer’s “Doen wat ik wil of ik sluit u” (Do what I want or I shut you [in]) into Van Heutsz’s “Doen wat ik wil of ge betaalt extras” (Do what I want or you pay extras).

See Also

• Aceh Sultanate
• Opium pacht
• Scheepvaartregeling
• Onderhoorigheden
• Van Heutsz
• Scherer
• Toeankoe Mohamad Daoed
• Sultan Machmoed Sjah
• Kemala
• Tengkoe di Tirou
• Simpang Anas
• Tamiang
• Langkat
• De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893)
• 1883
• 1893

Source

De onderwerping van Atjeh, door J. B. van Heutsz, Majoor der Infanterie, gewezen Chef van den Staf in Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden. ‘s-Gravenhage: De Gebroeders van Cleef; Batavia: G. Kolff en Co., 1893, esp. pp. 12, 70, 71. OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-107-De_onderwerping_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt.