L. J. J. Caron

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tagsperson, colonial, dutch, administrator
aliasesMr. Dr. L. J. J. Caron, Caron, Louis Jean Joseph Caron

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L. J. J. Caron — published as Mr. Dr. L. J. J. Caron (i.e., holding both the Dutch Meester in de Rechten law degree and a doctorate) — was a Dutch colonial administrator who, in 1946, contributed the chapter De bestuursvormen (“The Forms of Government”) to the volume Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk edited by Dr. Wormser (pp. 186–203). His chapter is the volume’s principal source on the constitutional and administrative history of the Dutch East Indies, and it gives a central place to the *korte verklaring* (Short Declaration) policy that Van Heutsz and Snouck Hurgronje first applied in Atjeh.

Treatment of Atjeh

Caron’s account places the Atjeh reforms of Van Heutsz at the head of the twentieth-century administrative reorganisation of the Indies’ zelfbesturen (self-governing territories). Under the older, VOC-era system, the relationship between the colonial government and the self-governing sultans and chiefs had been regulated by contracten (contracts) “which can be regarded as treaties with sovereign princes”; these contracts spelled out the mutual obligations in considerable detail. By the early twentieth century, however, such contracts no longer matched colonial administrative thinking and frequently obstructed “more humane conditions in the self-governing territories”; moreover, repeated modification of the obligations undermined the stability of colonial policy. “In cooperation with his then-eminently capable adviser Snouck Hurgronje,” Caron writes, “Van Heutsz drafted the korte verklaring.” The korte verklaring reduced the relationship to three clauses: the prince declared that his territory formed part of the Netherlands Indies, that he would be loyal to the Queen of the Netherlands and to the Governor-General as her representative, and that he would refrain from political contacts with foreign powers and would comply with all regulations and orders of the Governor-General. After some hesitation in the Raad van Indië (Council of the Indies) as to whether this still constituted a contract with a self-governing territory or in fact implied its incorporation, the Dutch government sided with Van Heutsz’s interpretation. “This korte verklaring,” Caron concludes, “has since been introduced in the largest part of the Netherlands Indies where self-governing territory is found.”

Caron further notes that the zelfbesturen of Atjeh include “self-governing territories whose territory consists of only one or a few villages (Atjeh and Timor) with self-governing chiefs who cannot even sign their own names” — placing Atjeh at one extreme of the spectrum of self-governing territories, alongside Timor, against the great self-governing sultanates of Java and the Sumatra East Coast.

Constitutional-reform context

Caron also places the Atjeh reforms within the wider constitutional development of the Indies. He notes that the Carpentier Alting commission of 1918 was appointed to revise “the foundations of government in the Netherlands Indies” after the difficult days at the end of the First World War. He records the Proeve-Oppenheim — the 1922 Leiden commission of professors, including Snouck Hurgronje, Van Vollenhoven, Carpentier Alting and Kleintjes, with the Indonesian Mr. Oerip Kartodirdjo as secretary — that produced a proeve van een staatsregeling voor Nederlandsch-Indië (draft regulation of state for the Netherlands Indies). The eventual Wet op de Indische Staatsregeling (Law on the Indies State Regulation) of 1925 did not, in Caron’s judgement, live up to the promise of the 1922 constitutional revision: instead of an autonomous policy for the Governor-General, the law bound him to the King’s instructions, and “the assignment of the regulation of internal affairs to organs established in the Indies had not taken place” — generating, in Caron’s words, “great discontent in the Netherlands Indies.”

Significance

Caron’s chapter is the volume’s most direct treatment of how the administrative lessons of the Atjeh War were generalised into the constitutional structure of the late-colonial Indies. His account makes clear that the korte verklaring — first applied in Atjeh under Van Heutsz — became, by 1946, the standard instrument for managing the Indies’ 261 self-governing territories, and that the broader constitutional debates of the 1918–1925 period (in which Snouck Hurgronje remained influential) drew on the same Atjeh-derived frame of administrative thinking.

Dutch terms used in this article

  • Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk — What the Indies Received and Gave
  • Wereldbibliotheek N.V. — World Library Ltd.
  • Nederlandsch-Indië — Netherlands Indies
  • Proeve-Oppenheim — Oppenheim Draft
  • proeve van een staatsregeling voor Nederlandsch-Indië — trial draft of a state regulation for the Netherlands Indies
  • Wet op de Indische Staatsregeling — Law on the Indies State Regulation
  • korte verklaring — Short Declaration
  • zelfbesturen — self-governing territories
  • Raad van Indië — Council of the Indies
  • bestuursvormen — forms of government
  • pen — open/wide (Atjeh concept)
  • Atjeh — Aceh
  • Acheh — Aceh
  • Java — Java
  • Sumatra — Sumatra
  • Mr. Dr. — Master of Laws and Doctor (Dutch academic titles)
  • Dr. — Doctor

See Also

Source

Wat Indië Ontving en Schonk, onder leiding van Dr. C. W. Wormser (Amsterdam: Wereldbibliotheek N.V., 1946), pp. 186–203 (chapter De bestuursvormen door Mr. Dr. L. J. J. Caron).

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