The liggelden (demurrage; also liggeld) were the fees payable by the Dutch colonial government to the Indische Stoomboot-maatschappij — at the rate of ƒ 1,200 for every day a ship was held at the Atjeh roadstead beyond the first 24 hours after arrival. The liggelden were, in Borel’s account, a structural incentive to delay that compounded the absence of a zeehoofd at Oeleh Leh and the criminal overcrowding of the transports on the outward voyage — a financial scandal that heaped cost on top of the operational and human failures of the occupation.
The Contract
The liggelden were fixed by the contract between the Indische Stoomboot-maatschappij and the Dutch colonial government at ƒ 1,200 per day for every ship held beyond 24 hours after arrival at the Atjeh roadstead. The arrangement was, in Borel’s diagnosis, a structural incentive to delay: every additional day at anchor was a fresh ƒ 1,200 to the contractor, while the government bore the cost in money, in men (through cholera bred in the overcrowded ships), and in operational tempo (through troops kept idly afloat when they were needed ashore). The contract was, in effect, a guaranteed revenue stream for the Indische Stoomboot-maatschappij at the expense of the Dutch treasury — a stream that flowed faster the longer the government failed to provide a zeehoofd at Oeleh Leh and the longer the kwade moesson kept the ships at anchor.
The Baron Sloet van de Beele
The single most damaging example Borel cites is the Baron Sloet van de Beele, which arrived with ~400 reinforcements on 11 June 1874 and alone cost the government almost ƒ 17,000 in demurrage before its troops could be landed. The sum — almost ƒ 17,000 — represented roughly fourteen days of contracted delay: at ƒ 1,200 per day, the ship had been held at the roadstead for some fourteen days beyond the first 24 hours after arrival. The troops, who could have been landed in a day if a zeehoofd had existed, were kept idly afloat while the surf and the absence of a pier made debarkeeren “hoe langer hoe moeilijker.” The delay was, in Borel’s account, the consequence of the systematic neglect of the infrastructure of the vestiging — the zeehoofd, the spoorweg, the artesian well — in favour of the afwachtende houding and the schop en spade works that van Swieten had preferred. The Baron Sloet van de Beele was, however, only the most striking single example: every ship that anchored at the Atjeh roadstead and waited for its troops to be lightered through the surf was, in effect, a fresh source of liggelden for the Indische Stoomboot-maatschappij and a fresh charge on the Dutch treasury.
The Cost of the War
The liggelden were, in Borel’s account, one of the recurring costs of the Atjeh-oorlog — a cost that ran, on the Baron Sloet van de Beele alone, to almost ƒ 17,000, and that compounded with the costs of the vesting-artillerie, the Red Cross comforts, the kettinggang convicts and the spoorweg K. Radja–Oeleh Leh as part of the “kolossale offers” the war had already cost by 1878. Borel’s proposed Indische Brigade of 3 000–4 000 men, estimated at ƒ 6 000 000 for the first year and ƒ 10–15 million for the whole two years, was, he argued, no more than a fraction of what the war was already costing in liggelden, reinforcements, and the slow attrition of the Indische leger — and would, by ending the war, eliminate the very demand for the Indische Stoomboot-maatschappij’s transports that the liggelden fed. The liggelden were thus, in Borel’s account, both a financial scandal and a strategic argument: a symptom of the structural failure of Dutch preparation that could only be remedied by the metropolitan reinforcement that the Indische Brigade would supply.
See Also
- Indische Stoomboot-maatschappij
- Zeehoofd
- Oeleh Leh
- Crisis at Kota Radja (May–June 1874)
- Indische Brigade (proposed)
- Indische Leger
- Vereniging Het Roode Kruis in Atjeh
- Kettinggangers in Atjeh
- Jan van Swieten
- 1874
Source
Onze vestiging in Atjeh, critisch beschreven, by G. F. W. Borel, Kapitein der Artillerie. ‘s-Gravenhage: D. A. Thieme, 1878. pp. 11–12, 77, 144, 150–162, 167, 195, 336–337.