The mailrapport — mail report — was the periodic summary of principal events in the Netherlands Indies, instituted by Minister De Waal, transmitted by the Governor-General with every mail steamer. The mailrapport of 9 January 1873 — which contained the letter of 4 January from the General Secretariat to the resident of Riouw regarding the mission to Atjeh — became a contested document during the Tweede Kamer debate, because the Minister claimed it contained nothing beyond the instruction to Schiff and Van de Wall, while Insinger demonstrated that it contained the passage instructing the resident to demand recognition of Dutch supreme lordship over Atjeh.
The Insinger reading
Insinger read aloud the appendix to the mailrapport: the letter of 4 January 1873 from secretary Stortenbeker to the resident of Riouw, which stated: “As er botsingen komen tusschen partijen en den Sultan, en den Sultan hulp vraagt, behoort die te worden verleend, onder beding evenwel van de erkenning der opperheerschappi van Nederland over Atjeh. […] Eene zoo zich gunstige gelegenheid zal zich welligt niet ligt voordoen” — and argued that this constituted “peaceful contact with significant display of power, with the point of the bayonet,” contradicting the Minister’s claim that the instruction was purely peaceful.
See Also
- Instructie gouvernements-commissaris (1873)
- Insinger
- I.D. Fransen van de Putte
- Schiff
- Van de Wall
- T.N. Nieuwenhuyzen
- Tweede Kamer debate on Atjeh war origins (April 1874)
- Riouw
- Declaration of war on Atjeh (1873)
Source
Verslag van het verhandelde in de vergaderingen der Tweede Kamer in comité-général van 16, 17, 18 en 20 April 1874: Oorlog met Atjeh, pp. 10, 14, 19.