The Cultuurraad (Cultivation Council) was the representative council of the European plantation enterprises of the Cultuurgebied (plantation region) of the East Coast of Sumatra — the body through which the tobacco, rubber and tea planters of the Deli country made their collective voice heard by the Netherlands Indies Government on all questions touching the plantation economy, including harbours, railways and concessions.
The railway debates of 1912–1913
The Council’s most consequential recorded debates, preserved by J. Roest in De spoorwegverbinding tusschen Deli, Atjeh en de Aroebaai (1916), concerned the completion of the Atjeh-tram and its connection with the network of the Deli Spoorweg Maatschappij:
- At the meeting of 26 September 1912, under the heading “Uitdieping Belawangeul Deli-Atjeh-verbinding” (Deepening of the Belawan channel; Deli-Atjeh connection), Schadee moved that the Council regret that the Government had fixed the plan for the connection of the Atjeh tram (with the harbour of Telok Taboehan in the Aru Bay and with the Deli Company’s lines) without the Council having been able to take knowledge thereof and that the Council be heard before execution; Beyerman amended it. The unamended motion was rejected by 18 votes to 4, the amended motion carried by 19 votes to 3.
- At the meeting of 20 February 1913, whose report Roest took from the Deli Courant, the Council gave advice on the continuation of the Atjeh tram via Besitang to Telok Taboehan and its connection with the Deli railway network, on which the Government had asked its advice in answer to the September petition. The chief of construction of the Atjeh tram defended the eastern trace to the bay and the connection Besitang–Tandjong Slamat as the shortest road; Schadee’s counter-motion to prefer instead the connection with Pangkalan Brandan was carried by 28 votes to 1. Governor Van der Plas spoke for the Government’s plan.
Its influence
The Council could advise but not decide: the Government maintained its Aru Bay plan, taking the Council’s right of consultation seriously enough to have the whole project laid before it. Its debates nevertheless made the connection Besitang–Pangkalan Brandan, which the Deli Company built in the end, the fixed counterweight of the government line Besitang–Pangkalan Soesoe–Telok Taboehan.
See Also
- Deli-Atjeh railway connection controversy (1912-1916)
- Schadee
- Beyerman
- Van der Plas
- Gouvernement Oostkust van Sumatra
- De spoorwegverbinding tusschen Deli, Atjeh en de Aroebaai
Source
De spoorwegverbinding tusschen Deli, Atjeh en de Aroebaai, door J. Roest, in Tijdschrift voor het Binnenlandsch Bestuur, Deel XLIX, Afl. 6 (Batavia, December 1916), pp. 467–477.