C. Th. van Deventer — Cornelis Théodore van Deventer (1844-1922) — was a Dutch vrijzinnig-democraat (liberal-democrat) member of the Tweede Kamer and one of the principal parliamentary exponents of the ereschuld doctrine — the view that the Netherlands owed a debt of honour to the Indies for the surplus (batig slot) extracted from the Cultivation System period. His interventions in the Van Daalen-affair debates of 1908 are among the most penetrating liberal analyses of the post-pacificatie administration.
The ereschuld doctrine
Van Deventer’s name is associated, above all, with the parliamentary agitation that drew attention to the surplus that the Netherlands had extracted from the Nederlandsch-Indische archipelago during the cultuurstelsel period. In the Vermeulen retrospective, Van Deventer’s view is recorded in passing: “al hetgeen dat van 1831 af tot en met 1877 door ons is ontvangen, volgens minister De Waal rondom 700 millioen” — everything that we received from 1831 to 1877 inclusive, in the round figure of 700 million guilders given by minister De Waal. The proposition that the present generation could not, however, compensate a dead Indies generation for the wrong done to it was, Vermeulen notes, one that Van Deventer’s contemporary Bos contested.
On the Van Heutsz-Van Daalen transition
In the 1908 Tweede Kamer debate following the June 1908 report of governor-general Van Heutsz, Van Deventer (v.d.) declined to accept that the mishandling of the hoofden (chiefs) was the principal cause of the continuing unrest in Atjeh. What kept the Atjehnese in revolt was that the cost of the subjugation was being charged to the Atjehnese themselves:
“Men legde de bevolking zware lasten en boeten op en vorderde zelfs spionnen- en gidsendiensten als herendienst. Had Van Heutsz in 1893 niet zelf geschreven: ‘wij zitten niet in Atjeh om vliegen te vangen en maar steeds onze millioenen weg te werpen; Atjeh moet onderworpen worden, dat is de zaak, en om dit resultaat na al ons morsen en knoeien nog te erlangen moet Atjeh zelf betalen wat daarvoor voortaan nog aan dit land wordt ten koste gelegd’?”
— Heavy taxes and fines were imposed on the population, and even spy- and guide-services were demanded as herendiensten (corvée). Had Van Heutsz not written in 1893: “we are not in Atjeh to catch flies and to keep throwing away our millions; Atjeh must be subjugated, that is the point, and to obtain this result after all our messing and botching Atjeh itself must pay what is henceforth to be spent on this land”?
Van Deventer suspected that governor-general Van Heutsz had permitted Van Daalen to act in accordance with the 1893 view, and had only abandoned him when the December 1907 inspection tour had made the unworkability of “this harsh and grasping policy” plain. The parliamentary ally IJzerman (u.l.) replied that it was unfair to pursue Van Heutsz with a brochure fifteen years old. “Hebben dan alleen de grote mannen in Nederland het recht om er oude plunje op na te houden?” — Have then only the great men in the Netherlands the right to keep old clothes in the closet?
On the 1904 mindere-welvaart commissie
Van Deventer was one of the three editors — alongside Fock and Kielstra — of the economisch-historische bijdragen that the Ministerie van Koloniën published in 1904 as a more modest, “maar minstens zo nuttig” — but at least as useful — alternative to the 33-volume report of the Commissie tot onderzoek van de mindere welvaart ([[1902)|commissie tot onderzoek van de mindere welvaart]].
On the adat-law revision
During the Fock-Lohman debate on the revision of the adat-law provisions for the indigenous population, Van Deventer (v.d.) was one of the few supporters of minister Fock’s position, alongside De Waal Malefijt (a.r.).
Significance
Van Deventer’s 1908 speech on the Van Heutsz-Van Daalen transition is the principal liberal analysis of the post-pacificatie administration. The citation from Van Heutsz’s 1893 brochure supplied the most damaging text from the conqueror’s own pen.
See Also
- Ereschuld
- Batig Slot
- Cultuurstelsel
- Pacificatie van Atjeh
- Van Heutsz’s report on Atjeh (June 1908)
- De onderwerping van Atjeh (Van Heutsz, 1893)
- Herendienst (in Atjeh)
- Commissie tot onderzoek van de mindere welvaart (1902)
- J. B. van Heutsz
- G. C. E. van Daalen
- D. Fock
- Lohman (De Savornin Lohman)
- IJzerman (vrij-liberaal MP)
- 1893
- 1904
- 1908
Source
Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis van Nederland van 1849 tot 1901, by Mr W. J. van Welderen baron Rengers, 4th rev. ed., Vol. IV: Oost-Indië 1891-1918 by Dr W. H. Vermeulen (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1955), pp. 273-275, 284-285, 326.
J. B. van Heutsz, De onderwerping van Atjeh (1893), p. 79.