The Deli Courant was the newspaper of the East Coast of Sumatra whose notice of the opening of Tamiang to land concessions, reprinted in Het Vaderland, was cited by Troelstra in the Tweede Kamer on 16 November 1897.
The notice
The report, as Troelstra summarised it, stated “dat Tamiang weldra zal worden opengesteld en dat de houders van aanspraken op landconcessiën zullen worden opgeroepen om daarvan te doen blijken.” — that Tamiang will soon be opened up and that the holders of claims to land concessions will be called upon to prove them. Troelstra used it as evidence that since the more aggressive policy in Atjeh had begun, the exploitation of land in the districts bordering Atjeh also appeared likely to increase.
Context
The Deli Courant was published in the region of the tobacco estates whose interests Troelstra alleged to be bound up with the war: Deli, Batoe Bahra, Serdang and Assahan, where according to the Indische Regeeringsalmanak of 1894 some hundred and thirty tobacco estates had been established, of which the Deli Maatschappij was the chief. Its readership was precisely the body of planters and concession-holders whose position in the Atjeh question the socialists sought to expose; see Economic interests alleged behind the Atjeh-oorlog (1897).
See Also
- Pieter Jelles Troelstra
- Het Vaderland
- Tamiang
- Deli Maatschappij
- Economic interests alleged behind the Atjeh-oorlog (1897)
- Oostkust van Sumatra
- 1897
Source
Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer: Debatten bij de behandeling der begrooting van Nederlandsch-Indië voor 1898, uitgave van de Sociaaldemokratische Arbeiderspartij in Nederland (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br P95-178, p. 38.
Acknowledgement of sources. The material in this article derives from Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer: Debatten bij de behandeling der begrooting van Nederlandsch-Indië voor 1898 (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.