The N.V. Vereenigde Javasche Houthandel Maatschappijen (“United Java Timber-trade Companies”), with its direction-offices at Amsterdam, was the Dutch timber company which transplanted its Java enterprise to the island of Simaloer (Simeulue) in Atjeh — the foremost of the c. eighty forest-exploitation concessions of the province, holding by 1923 the whole island in concession — and built there, against some of the hardest natural obstacles in the Archipelago, a mechanized exploitation of the endemic rassak wood.
The undertaking
Langhout introduces the company as the Naamlooze Vennootschap which “haar bedrijf op Java heeft ‘uitgezet’ tot dit gedeelte van Atjeh” (“extended its Java enterprise to this part of Atjeh”), where the rassak tree grows — an own variety of the genus Shorea (“simaloerensis”) whose timber, per the report of the Technical Laboratory of the Vereenigde Indische Bosch-Exploitatie Maatschappijen at Semarang, “in several qualities far surpasses oak-wood”. The first attempt at exploitation, worked exclusively with the native population, yielded disappointing results; the particular circumstances — the difficult terrain, the peculiar growth conditions, the heavy dimensions of the trees, and a population not inclined to work — decided the company to introduce a maximally mechanized exploitation on the American pattern (in use in America for twenty years), beside the processing of the raw product in a sawmill also mechanizing the forest working — the snigging-out and transport of the stems by machines. Since nowhere in the world was a combination of such heavy wood with such difficult terrain found, the application of the American method posed many problems, solved by steady experiment, “wherefrom finally an almost wholly own system of forest exploitation has come into being”. Details of the concern were published by the company itself in a separate booklet to which Langhout refers his readers.
Rails, cables and sawmill
Starting from the industry-centre Sinabang, where the sawmill and the stockyards were established, the company built a stamlijn (main line) crossing the island in its breadth and then following the west coast, with side-lines and further secondary side-tracks bringing the iron road as near as possible to the standing wood — though the growth conditions kept the rails still 600–1,000 metres from the stands, separated by very accidented terrain with an extraordinarily dense undergrowth. After the laying-out, trees were felled, the stems sawn into logs by fixed rules and snigged out by a winch-engine posted at the rail; the gauge was fixed at 1.43 metre for the exceptionally heavy loads, with “logging-trucks” extendible like a harmonica to stem-lengths of 5–20 metres, worked by four 15-ton and one 40-ton four-axle locomotives over sharp curves and steep gradients. A permanent cableway, spanned between two hills of 20–30 metres, bore a loopkat (traveller) of four tons for unloading and reloading the trucks; in the sawmill, electrically driven machines stood ready, the sawdust serving as fuel for the boilers; the sawn product dried on stacks and was finally taken to the quay and loaded on lighters, from which the sea-steamers in the bay took over the cargo.
Settlement and sanitation
Beside the works, the settlement required the building of dwellings, sheds, kitchens etc. for the European employees and for the great number of native workpeople — more than 1,000 Javanese coolies had to be imported, the islanders’ willingness to work being initially too slight. Extensive sanitation works removed the highly unfavourable state of health which reigned among the inhabitants of the island: the low ground at the bay was raised with soil dug out by an evacateur; a new water conduit with prise d’eau was laid — between two mountain offshoots a dam being excavated and raised, giving a water-reservoir of 3½ hectares of surface, whose filtered water was found on scrupulous examination of excellent quality; the whole terrain was levelled and provided with spacious sewerage, cement gutters along all roads carrying off the rainwater. “After all dwellings, both of the Europeans and of the natives, had been connected to the water conduit, the formerly frequently occurring dysentery wholly disappeared.” To the undertaking belonged a hospital, a hotel, an ice-factory, a sociëteit-building and a bioscoop, both work- and dwelling-establishment being wholly electrically lit. Langhout concludes that the company “can look back with great satisfaction upon her work”, and that with the ever wider application of rassak wood for bridge decks, lock-works, ships’ keels and skittle-alleys the economization of an island like Simaloer gradually accomplishes itself.
See Also
Source
Vijftig jaren economische staatkunde in Atjeh, by Joh. Langhout (The Hague: N.V. Boekhandel v/h W. P. van Stockum & Zoon, 1923), pp. 164–171 (chapter “De houtaankap op Simaloer”), pp. 107–108.