De Rijkdom van Atjeh (1923)

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tagsdocument, book, colonial, dutch, aceh, economic, agricultural, 20th-century, source, atjeh-instituut, pamphlet, rice, wirtschaft
aliasesDe Rijkdom van Atjeh (1923), De Rijkdom van Atjeh, Rijkdom van Atjeh, Atjeh's Rijkdom, Het Atjeh-Instituut Rijkdom van Atjeh brochure, The Wealth of Atjeh, Atjeh-Instituut rijkdom, Atjeh-Instituut pamphlet 1923

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De Rijkdom van Atjeh (“The Wealth of Atjeh”) is a Dutch-language brochure of twenty-six pages published in 1923 by the Atjeh-Instituut of Amsterdam, prepared by the Directorium of the Institute as a colonial-economic assessment of the Atjeh region in the immediate aftermath of the Atjeh-oorlog. The brochure surveys the historical basis of Atjeh’s wealth — the pepercultuur (pepper cultivation) that had sustained the Sultanate of Atjeh from the early sixteenth century — and prescribes the substitution of rijstbouw (rice cultivation) as the principal future export crop, supported by irrigation works, rice mills (pellerijen), and an organisation for the marketing of the product.

Authorship and Purpose

The brochure was published by the Atjeh-Instituut of Amsterdam — the metropolitan institutional successor to the earlier Koloniaal Instituut interests in Atjeh — and is the work of the Directorium of the Institute. Its purpose, as stated in the opening, is to consider Atjeh “even nuchter van een koloniaal-economisch standpunt” (coolly, from a colonial-economic standpoint) as the Dutch were accustomed to do with other parts of Nederlandsch-Indië. The name “Atjeh” had, the brochure acknowledges, “in Nederland een eigenaardigen klank verkregen” (acquired in the Netherlands a peculiar ring) — evoking the long, anxious years of war. But the Directorium now hoped, with the war “uitgestreden” (fought out), to be heard in Atjeh itself on the question of the country’s wealth.

Structure

The brochure is organised in three principal sections, preceded by an historical preamble:

  1. The historical basis of Atjeh’s wealth — the pepercultuur (pepper cultivation) from its introduction in Samoedra between 1350 and 1400 A.D. by the first dispersers of Islam in North Sumatra, through its transfer to Pidië between 1435 and 1500, the rise of Atjeh under Sultan Ali Moeghajat Sjah after the defeat of the Portuguese fleet of Yorge de Brito in May 1521, the apogee of the sultanate under Sultan Iskandar Moeda (1607–1636), the decline under the four successive queens and the Buginese dynasty, and the state of Atjehese prosperity at the outbreak of the war in 1873.

  2. The decline of pepper and the case for rice — the observation that, with the war over, the pepper seems “his time to have had” and no longer to thrive in many places, and the prescription that the rijstbouw (rice cultivation) is the new great-trade article that must take the place of pepper. The brochure estimates 120,000 hectares of rice-cultivable land in the afdeelingen of Groot-Atjeh (15,000 ha), Pidië (25,000 ha), Samalanga / Peusangan / Lho’ Soekon (70,000 ha), and Oostkust (Peureula) (10,000 ha).

  3. The requirements of an export rice cultivation — a detailed prescription for the three prerequisites of rice as an export article: a suitable rice variety (with the failure of the Carolina-rijst experiment at Tapa’ Toean as a cautionary example), rice mills (pellerijen) for hulling (with a detailed capital and operating account), and an organisation for the sale of the product at market price. The brochure then surveys the history of the Atjehsche Irrigatiedienst since the visit of the engineer Van Tubergen in 1911 and the bandjir-freedom works on the Peusangen and Arakoendo rivers.

Argument

The central argument of the brochure is that the wealth of Atjeh, historically based on the pepercultuur, must in the post-war period be re-established on the basis of the rijstbouw. The neighbouring Culturen-Gewest Oostkust van Sumatra (the East Coast of Sumatra cultivation region), which annually imported 140,000–150,000 tons of rice for food, was the natural market. With 120,000 hectares of cultivable land and an average yield of 25 picol per hectare on irrigated sawah, Atjeh could supply more than half of the East Coast’s requirement. The three prerequisites — a suitable rice variety, rice mills, and a sales organisation — could be met with the cooperation of wealthy Atjehers (who had previously advanced money to pepper planters and could now invest in rice mills), the technical assistance of the Irrigatiedienst, and a sales contract with the East Coast.

The Acehnese Proverb

The brochure opens with an Atjehese proverb: “Kaja meutiah hana meusampe, kaja pade meusampoerna” — “Rijkdom aan goud is niet voldoende, rijkdom aan rijst is volmaakt” (Wealth in gold is not sufficient; wealth in rice is perfect). The proverb, cited at the threshold of the brochure, frames the entire argument: the historical wealth of Atjeh, based on pepper (a trade article exchanged for gold and other goods), is to be replaced by a new wealth based on rice — the staple of life.

Significance

The brochure is one of the principal Dutch colonial-economic assessments of Atjeh in the immediate post-war period. Its publication by the Atjeh-Instituut placed it in the institutional context of the metropolitan successor to the Koloniaal Instituut interests in Atjeh, and its argument for the substitution of rice for pepper as the basis of Atjeh’s wealth shaped Dutch colonial-economic policy in Atjeh in the 1920s. The brochure’s detailed prescription — a suitable rice variety, rice mills, and a sales organisation — and its survey of the Atjehsche Irrigatiedienst since 1911 together constitute the principal Dutch program for the post-war economic development of Atjeh.

Account from Verkenningen in Atjeh (1923)

De rijkdom van Atjeh — The Wealth of Atjeh — is a small treatise issued by the Atjeh-Instituut in 1923, locating the future wealth of the Gouvernement Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden in the development of its rice-cultivation and proposing a programme of reform to that end. Broersma reviewed the pamphlet in De Locomotief of 25 July 1923 and discusses it at length in the eighteenth essay of Verkenningen in Atjeh.

Argument

The treatise argues that the prosperity of the gewest lies principally in ‘den rijstbouw van het gewest, indien hij zich ontwikkelt’, and that the development of that rice-cultivation is therefore the proper economic task of the immediate future. It proposes a three-part programme: first, the identification of geschikte padisoorten — rice varieties suited to local conditions; second, the opening of facilities for ontbolstering (husking) so that the harvest may be turned into marketable rice; and third, the creation of an organisation capable of selling the product at any moment at the market price. The treatise further insists, in language Broersma endorses, that the oeléebalangs are the indispensable collaborators in any such programme.

Reception

Broersma welcomes the pamphlet as a ‘toekomstbeeld’ — a picture of the future — and endorses its insistence that the Oostkust van Sumatra is not indifferent to the economic life of Atjeh, since the great contract-labour estates of the East Coast would gladly buy Atjeh rice in place of the Rangoon or Saigon rice they were then importing. But he presses the Institut to go further and to ‘aanwijzen, hoe het meent dat het groote werk van verbetering der paditeelt is aan te vangen’ — to point out how it thinks the great work of improving the rice-cultivation is to be begun — and to nominate a bemiddelaar (mediator) between the Atjehnese producer and the Sumatran East-Coast consumer. Broersma’s own proposal, set out in Verkenningen, is the appointment of a real expert on rice-cultivation to act in continuous consultation with a college van kundige hoofden.

Significance

The pamphlet is the principal printed programme of the Atjeh-Instituut in its earliest period and reflects the Institut’s ambition to act as a broker between the colonial government, the Atjehnese oeléebalangs and the East-Coast planter interest. It is also an early statement of the rijstbouw doctrine which was to dominate Dutch economic policy in Atjeh down to the depression.

See Also

Sources

De Rijkdom van Atjeh, uitgegeven door het Atjeh-Instituut, Amsterdam, 1923. OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-110-De_rijkdom_van_Atjeh_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, pp. 3–26.

De rijkdom van Atjeh, uitgegeven van wege het Atjeh-Instituut (1923). Reviewed by Dr. R. Broersma in De Locomotief of 25 July 1923, and discussed in Verkenningen in Atjeh, pp. 122–123.

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