The Nieuwsblad voor Atjeh en Onderhoorigheden — begun in 1900 when the Deli Courant of Medan opened a filial at Koeta Radja and “immediately thereafter” founded the paper, appearing at Langhout’s time twice a week with a respectable circulation — was the newspaper of Atjeh, called in Governor Van Sluys’s years Het Atjehsch Nieuwsblad, and one of what author Joh. Langhout calls the “steunpilaren der pacificatie” (“pillars of the pacification”).
Foundation and premises
In 1900 the undertaking of the Nieuwsblad was opened in a small building on the Peunajoengsingel at Koeta Radja. As the first industrial establishment of its kind in Atjeh, the Atjeh printing office enjoyed straightway the powerful support of the then Governor of Atjeh and Dependencies, General Van Heutsz; thanks also to the support of the officials of the Civil Administration in Atjeh and of the manager of the Atjeh Tram, the building in which the printing office began its work in 1900 proved too small already in 1902, so that a greater printing-office building had to be sought. In 1903 the N.V. de Deli Courant built a spacious building for press and bookshop on a suitable terrain, situated aan den Peunajoengsingel (on the Peunajoengsingel), which was occupied in the same year; beside the press, the stock included a bookshop. Through the ever increasing turnover more space was again needed in 1913: by purchase the Atjeh printing office and bookshop came in 1914 into possession of a capital building at the Sociëteitsweg, formerly inhabited by the firm Kanner, and her enterprise was transferred into it; from that time bookshop and printing office with bindery and magazines dispose of very roomy and solid premises, in which they are still established (photograph plate: “De Atjehdrukkerij te Koeta-Radja. Boven: het gebouw in 1900. Beneden: het gebouw thans in gebruik” — “The Atjeh press at Koeta Radja. Above: the building in 1900. Below: the building currently in use”).
Role
It was this paper which, under Governor Van Sluys, “zorgde steeds voor goede verslagen van de vergaderingen der commissiën [der plaatselijke fondsen] en stelde zijn kolommen voor nadere besprekingen daarover open” (“always cared for good reports of the meetings of the commissions [of the local funds] and opened its columns for further discussions of them”), serving the municipal-in-embryo debates of 1922–1923. Langhout points to the paper as the first of the organs by which European and native opinion in the province would have to follow “the finger-pointing to what lies ahead”.
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. 122, 176–178, illustration caption p. 190(?).