N. van Zalinge was a director of the Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij whose unpublished travel report of late 1922 on Atjeh — made over to author Joh. Langhout by the Amsterdam directorate of the K.P.M. — confirmed for the outside world that the pacification of Atjeh could be regarded as finished and that the province was no less safe than anywhere else in the Indies.
The journey of 1922
In the last months of 1922 Van Zalinge, on his journey to the Indies, sojourned in the Government of Atjeh and made the journey from Koeta Radja to Medan. At Sabang he had the pleasure of meeting the assistant-resident at disposal, the heer Caron, who travelled to Oelèë Lheue and had much of importance to communicate about the province.
Findings
“De pacificatie van Atjeh kan als geëindigd worden beschouwd en men is dientengevolge op Atjeh niet minder veilig dan overal elders in Indië” (“The pacification of Atjeh can be regarded as ended, and consequently one is no less safe in Atjeh than everywhere else in the Indies”). The population applied itself ever more to rice-growing, with such good results that the import of rice was reduced to a minimum; it was even already possible to feed the troops still stationed in Atjeh (about 4,000 men) with rice bought from the population. The government schools everywhere founded in the land were well visited, giving reason to expect that whatever hatred of the Hollander might still slumber among the Atjehnese population would wholly have disappeared in a following generation. The journey revealed an extraordinarily rich cattle-stock; the traveller following the Atjeh tram could not but notice how the fields were tilled everywhere, also in those regions where formerly, because of the war, all was waste and desolate. Pepper was planted less — the decline of that former export article par excellence found its cause in the considerably fallen price at the Overwal and on the world market — while more work was made of planting pinang-nuts, whereby the export of that product gradually increased. Of the “malaise” little was noticed in the land; the import and export diminished only through the disappearance of the rice shortage, while exports went up. In the south of Atjeh were numbered “tal van ondernemingen” (numerous estates), all shipping via Langsar or ports still further south on Sumatra’s East Coast; the import and export of Oelèë Lheue was gradually diminishing because trade had shifted to other harbours, and trade was moving ever more to Langsar, “the centre of culture-estates”, counting twenty estates — twelve producing rubber only, seven planting oil-palms and rubber, and one cultivating cocos-palms — with the expectation that, when all partly-reclaimed estates should come to full production, Langsar would shortly become a shipping place of significance.
The mimosa experiment
Van Zalinge observed that several estates worked with too little personnel, so that gardens stood unweeded and grass and weeds shot up between the hevea; other estates planted mimosa between the trees, whereby weeding had become unnecessary because the weed was choked, while the mimosa seemed to do no harm to the growth of the hevea — “Should it appear in practice that the mimosa everywhere restrains the weed and does not damage the growth of the trees, then this means an enormous saving and an economic example of significance for the rubber culture.”
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. 125–128.