Liefrinck was the member of the Raad van Nederlandsch-Indië charged in 1908 with the periodical inspection of the civil conduct of the military Governor of Atjeh — the compromise by which minister Idenburg satisfied Dutch parliamentary and public opinion after the Van Daalen years without accepting Snouck Hurgronje for the role.
The commission
Unrest had been aroused, as the minister put it, “because the carriage ran off the rails,” and he therefore chose “the golden and safe middle way” — “the side of force is represented by the Governor, the side of deliberation by Mr Liefrinck.” It was thought desirable to have someone not schooled in the civil administrative task periodically enlighten the military Governor, clarify the Government’s views where wished, and dissuade the application of less desirable measures.
Liefrinck accordingly visited Atjeh in two successive years, “it had then become clear that Swart could manage perfectly well without the supervising guardian.”
Swart’s account
“Colijn is eenige maanden bij me geweest,” Swart related. “Afterwards I was for two years visited by Liefrinck, who came to see me as a kind of supervising guardian so that I should not get up to what Van Daalen had done. I had little trouble from him, but he had, to be honest, little insight into the matter either. I had placed a good lieutenant’s house near the Governor’s residence at his disposal, and when he began his tours I thought I really ought to go along.”
“We travelled in a directors’ carriage of the tram and at every halt we stopped — this had been announced — and then the oelèëbalangs came to pay their respects. And I remember how somewhere in Pidië it struck me that one of the chiefs was not properly dressed. He first paid his respects to Liefrinck. Then he came to me, and I pointed out to him his dress and his lack of hormat, and I did not accept his call, but sent him away: ‘on the return journey, when I come by again, you may pay your respects’.”
“When that fellow had gone, Liefrinck asked in astonishment: ‘how can you do such a thing? I had not even noticed it!’ — ‘Yes, but I do notice such things,’ I said, ‘and I do not receive the chiefs like that.’ Then he looked very astonished — he thought that very odd.”
Du Croo added: “There were more officials, and officers, private persons and publicists too, who found ‘odd’ things in Swart.”
Significance
The Liefrinck inspections were the institutional expression of the distrust with which Swart’s appointment had been received in the Netherlands, and their quiet discontinuation after two years was the first public sign that the distrust had been misplaced.
See Also
- H. N. A. Swart
- Alexander Willem Frederik Idenburg
- Raad van Nederlandsch-Indië
- Christiaan Snouck Hurgronje
- Hendrikus Colijn
- Gotfried Coenraad Ernst van Daalen
- 1908
Source
Generaal Swart, Pacificator van Atjeh (“General Swart, Pacifier of Atjeh”), by M. H. du Croo, Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with the collaboration of H. J. Schmidt, Titular Colonel K.N.I.L. (retired), with a foreword by His Excellency Lieutenant-General K.N.I.L. (retired) G. K. Dijkstra (Maastricht: N.V. Leiter-Nypels, 1943), Chapter IX, pp. 88–92.