The Article 6 controversy is the long-running dispute, examined at length by Van der Kemp in the central section of his 1900 article, over the meaning and consequences of Article 6 of the Treaty of Pedir (1819). The article, in which the Sultan of Acheh promised “to exclude the subjects of every other European power, and likewise all Americans, from a fixed habitation or residence in his dominions” and to enter into no treaty with any foreign power without British consent, was represented at the London negotiations of 1824 as if it granted Britain an exclusive right of trade with Acheh. Van der Kemp argues that this representation was historically inaccurate and probably wilful, and that the misrepresentation had fateful consequences for the whole subsequent history of Dutch claims to supremacy over Sumatra.
The Text of Article 6
Article 6 of the treaty of 1819 contained, according to the text reproduced by Van der Kemp, two distinct obligations on the Sultan: first, to exclude the subjects of every other European power, and likewise all Americans, from a fixed habitation or residence in his dominions; second, to enter into no negotiation or treaty with any foreign power, prince, or potentate whatsoever without the knowledge and consent of the British Government. Van der Kemp insists that the article contains no exclusive right of trade: it forbids only the residence of other Europeans in Acheh, and residence cannot be equated with trade. “It was after all the order of the day,” he observes, “that one traded with countries in which no Europeans were established.”
The Alleged Conflict with Article 3 of the Treaty of 1824
At the London negotiations of 1824 the British plenipotentiaries alleged that the Acheh treaty of 1819 was in conflict with Article 3 of the projected Treaty of 17 March 1824, by which the High Contracting Parties promised that no treaty henceforth made by either with any native state in the Eastern seas should contain any article tending, directly or by unequal duties, to exclude the commerce of the other party. On that ground the Acheh treaty was said to require modification. Van der Kemp argues that this contention was doubly mistaken. In the first place Article 6, properly read, contained no exclusive-trade provision at all. In the second place, if any article of the Treaty of 1824 was applicable, it was Article 9 — by which Britain renounced all political relations with the chiefs of Sumatra — rather than Article 3.
The Diffusion of the Error
The error, once made, was repeated by successive writers on both sides. Lauts asked rhetorically whether Raffles and Coombs had not, in Article 6 of the treaty with the Sultan of Acheh of 22 January 1819, “excluded the trade of that kingdom from all other European powers and the Americans.” Smulders read in Article 6 “the exclusion of all trade of other European nations.” Meinsma stated that, in consequence, Article 6 of Raffles’s treaty had to lapse. The official Nota of 1873 spoke in the same sense; and the Tijdschrift voor Ned.-Indië, “elucidating” the official communication, let it be followed by the assertion that “the treaty concluded in 1819 between England and Acheh stipulated exclusive trade for England.” Minister Elout had already given the same construction in his Pro Memorie on the instructions issued to the Indian government for the execution of the treaty, on which Falck advised on 6 August 1824 without controverting it; and it reappeared in the Instructions of 31 August 1824.
Van der Kemp’s Conclusion
Van der Kemp concedes that the error was not wholly without foundation: Article 6, by excluding the residence of other Europeans, did indirectly restrict the kind of permanent commercial establishment from which exclusive trade might have flowed. But he insists that the British plenipotentiaries of 1824 were not entitled to treat the article as if it expressly stipulated exclusive trade, and that the Dutch plenipotentiaries — by accepting the British construction rather than pointing to Article 9 — committed a diplomatic error of the first magnitude. Kniphorst, in his Historische schets van den Zeeroof in den Oost-Indischen Archipel, had come nearest to the truth by observing that Article 6 had “in a certain sense” given occasion for the declaration on Article 3 of the Treaty of 1824, and that the declaration had governed the whole relation with Acheh down to the Sumatra Treaty of 1871. “In a certain sense,” Van der Kemp comments; “in fact the declaration, in connection with Article 6, had no sense at all.”
See Also
- Acheh treaty of 1819
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Raising of the Acheh treaty in London negotiations
- Elout’s advice of 12 February 1824
- Instructions of 31 August 1824
- G. Lauts
- Smulders
- J. J. Meinsma
- J. H. P. E. Kniphorst
- Elout
- Anton Reinhard Falck
- Captain Elout
- Sumatra Treaty of 1871
- Van Bosse’s Second Chamber statement (17 January 1872)
- Acheh
Source
Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, by P. H. van der Kemp, in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, 6e Volgr., Deel VII (1900), pp. 159-239. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, LS.08781.