Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) — known to his contemporaries and to history simply as Palmerston — was the dominant figure in mid-nineteenth-century British foreign policy, serving as Foreign Secretary (1830–1834, 1835–1841, 1846–1851) and later as Prime Minister. In the pages of Van der Kemp’s article on the Acheh agreement of 1819 he appears in his capacity as the British minister who, in the 1830s and 1840s, “adhered simply to the letter of the treaty of 1824” so as to obstruct Dutch expansion over Sumatra, and in particular over Acheh.
The 1824 treaty in British hands
Under Article 2 of the treaty of 17 March 1824, Britain undertook not to establish any office on Sumatra or to conclude any treaty with the native princes of that island; in exchange, the Dutch exchanged notes promising that this stipulation would not be construed so as to affect the independence of Acheh. The reservation was, in Van der Kemp’s reading, originally intended to be of no practical importance: a sop to the opposition and to those who, like Raffles, still dreamt of British influence on Sumatra. The exchanged notes containing it may be consulted in the compilations of Van Hogendorp, Elout, E. de Waal and De Sturler.
In Palmerston’s hands, however, the Acheh reservation became a weapon. As Van der Kemp puts it — quoting E. de Waal’s Onze Indische Financiën — the Foreign Secretary “adhered simply to the letter of the treaty of 1824”. The treaty said only that Britain would not establish itself on Sumatra; it did not, on its face, grant the Netherlands any positive right of expansion there. So when the Dutch began to extend their authority over districts in Sumatra that did not strictly belong to Acheh, Palmerston had no difficulty in finding grounds for objection.
The “unequal duties” objection
Van der Kemp quotes De Waal to the effect that, against the Dutch territorial extensions on Sumatra, Palmerston “advanced only the levying of unequal duties” — that is, the differential tariffs that the Netherlands imposed on foreign, in practice British, merchandise. Palmerston’s objection to these duties was, in Van der Kemp’s view, the only lever he actually used against Dutch expansion; and even this lever was, in turn, a curious one, since differential duties had been expressly contemplated by Article 2 of the treaty and had been accepted by Britain at the time. The Dutch, for their part, complained of the “style of the British notes”, which, De Waal observed, “really did not always excel in politeness”.
The Transvaal parallel
Van der Kemp’s interest in Palmerston’s policy is not, however, purely antiquarian. He introduces it to set up a structural comparison with the Transvaal suzerainty question of the 1880s. In both cases — the Acheh reservation in the 1824 treaty and the omission of the word “suzerainty” in the London Convention of 1884 — a stipulation originally represented as being of no significance was later treated by the stronger party as decisive of the legal position. The testimony of Faure to Lord Derby’s conferences of 1883 in the final appendix of the article is, in this sense, the late-nineteenth-century pendant to Van der Kemp’s account of Palmerston’s Sumatra policy. The Sumatra Treaty of 1871, which finally released the Netherlands from this British tutelage, may be read against the same template.
Significance
Palmerston is invoked in the article not as an actor in the Acheh events of 1819 — which took place before he came to office — but as the statesman who gave the 1824 treaty its enduringly obstructive construction. It was Palmerston’s reading of Article 2 that turned the Acheh reservation from a piece of polite diplomatic boilerplate into the legal basis of a fifty-year British veto on Dutch expansion over the sultanate.
See Also
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Sumatra Treaty of 1871
- London Convention on Transvaal (1884)
- D. P. Faure
- Lord Derby
- P. H. van der Kemp
Source
Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, by P. H. van der Kemp, in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, 6e Volgr., Deel VII (1900), pp. 159-239. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, LS.08781.
Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston (1784–1865) — known to his contemporaries and to history simply as Palmerston — was the dominant figure in mid-nineteenth-century British foreign policy, serving as Foreign Secretary (1830–1834, 1835–1841, 1846–1851) and later as Prime Minister. In the pages of Van der Kemp’s article on the Acheh agreement of 1819 he appears in his capacity as the British minister who, in the 1830s and 1840s, “adhered simply to the letter of the treaty of 1824” so as to obstruct Dutch expansion over Sumatra, and in particular over Acheh.
The 1824 treaty in British hands
Under Article 2 of the treaty of 17 March 1824, Britain undertook not to establish any office on Sumatra or to conclude any treaty with the native princes of that island; in exchange, the Dutch exchanged notes promising that this stipulation would not be construed so as to affect the independence of Acheh. The reservation was, in Van der Kemp’s reading, originally intended to be of no practical importance: a sop to the opposition and to those who, like Raffles, still dreamt of British influence on Sumatra. The exchanged notes containing it may be consulted in the compilations of Van Hogendorp, Elout, E. de Waal and De Sturler.
In Palmerston’s hands, however, the Acheh reservation became a weapon. As Van der Kemp puts it — quoting E. de Waal’s Onze Indische Financiën — the Foreign Secretary “adhered simply to the letter of the treaty of 1824”. The treaty said only that Britain would not establish itself on Sumatra; it did not, on its face, grant the Netherlands any positive right of expansion there. So when the Dutch began to extend their authority over districts in Sumatra that did not strictly belong to Acheh, Palmerston had no difficulty in finding grounds for objection.
The “unequal duties” objection
Van der Kemp quotes De Waal to the effect that, against the Dutch territorial extensions on Sumatra, Palmerston “advanced only the levying of unequal duties” — that is, the differential tariffs that the Netherlands imposed on foreign, in practice British, merchandise. Palmerston’s objection to these duties was, in Van der Kemp’s view, the only lever he actually used against Dutch expansion; and even this lever was, in turn, a curious one, since differential duties had been expressly contemplated by Article 2 of the treaty and had been accepted by Britain at the time. The Dutch, for their part, complained of the “style of the British notes”, which, De Waal observed, “really did not always excel in politeness”.
The Transvaal parallel
Van der Kemp’s interest in Palmerston’s policy is not, however, purely antiquarian. He introduces it to set up a structural comparison with the Transvaal suzerainty question of the 1880s. In both cases — the Acheh reservation in the 1824 treaty and the omission of the word “suzerainty” in the London Convention of 1884 — a stipulation originally represented as being of no significance was later treated by the stronger party as decisive of the legal position. The testimony of Faure to Lord Derby’s conferences of 1883 in the final appendix of the article is, in this sense, the late-nineteenth-century pendant to Van der Kemp’s account of Palmerston’s Sumatra policy. The Sumatra Treaty of 1871, which finally released the Netherlands from this British tutelage, may be read against the same template.
Significance
Palmerston is invoked in the article not as an actor in the Acheh events of 1819 — which took place before he came to office — but as the statesman who gave the 1824 treaty its enduringly obstructive construction. It was Palmerston’s reading of Article 2 that turned the Acheh reservation from a piece of polite diplomatic boilerplate into the legal basis of a fifty-year British veto on Dutch expansion over the sultanate.
See Also
- Anglo-Dutch Treaty of London (1824)
- Sumatra Treaty of 1871
- London Convention on Transvaal (1884)
- D. P. Faure
- Lord Derby
- P. H. van der Kemp
Source
Raffles’ Atjeh-overeenkomst van 1819, by P. H. van der Kemp, in Bijdragen van het Koninklijk Instituut voor Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde van Nederlandsch-Indië, 6e Volgr., Deel VII (1900), pp. 159-239. Universiteitsbibliotheek Vrije Universiteit, LS.08781.