Sprenger van Eijk — Minister Sprenger van Eijk — was the Dutch minister of colonies in 1889 who devised, against the beri-beri that plagued the Dutch troops in Atjèh, the beri-beri commission — the “commissie-Keuchenhuis” (as Damsté satirically calls it, after Keuchenius who had preceded Sprenger van Eijk as minister of colonies) — that was the government’s principal response to the beri-beri problem. Sprenger van Eijk’s ministerial stance — that, in the matter of Atjèh, the government wished nothing new, that one had now come to a modus and that that one thought must be maintained — was the immediate political context of Snouck Hurgronje’s 1889 despatch to Indië with a special commission to study the institutions of Islam on Java (rather than Atjèh).
The Beri-Beri Commission
In Atjèh, in 1889, one had the [[Geconcentreerde Linie|concentrated line] and the beri-beri. With the concentrated line one knew where one was financially: it cost so-and-so much per year, and that was that! About Atjèh-politics no further need be spoken. And the beri-beri? against that the same smart minister Sprenger van Eijk had devised a commission: the beri-beri commission; so on that point too one was covered.
The Atjèh-Political Stance
No, in the matter of Atjèh the government wished nothing new. One had now come to a modus, and that one thought must be maintained. The modus — the concentration system of 1884, with the concentrated line around [[Kota Radja|Koeta Radja] and the beri-beri commission as its medical complement — was the government’s settled Atjèh-policy, and Sprenger van Eijk’s ministerial stance was that no change was to be made.
The Tjilegon Murders and the Islam on Java
But Tjilegon and the Islam on Java! That the government wished to see studied. There at Tjilegon, in that same Bantam where also lay Lebak — the Lebak of Multatuli’s Max Havelaar — a number of Europeans were unexpectedly murdered, and hadji’s were involved, so the Islam must somehow be made responsible. But what was the matter with that Islam on Java? That the government meant Snouck Hurgronje to investigate; and so he got a special commission to go to Indië for at most two years, at the disposal of the governor-general, for the purpose of an investigation into the institutions of Islam.
Significance
Sprenger van Eijk is the Dutch minister of colonies in 1889 whose ministerial stance — that, in the matter of Atjèh, the government wished nothing new, and that the modus of the concentration system and the beri-beri commission must be maintained — was the immediate political context of Snouck Hurgronje’s 1889 despatch to Indië with a special commission to study the institutions of Islam on Java (rather than Atjèh). The beri-beri commission — “commissie-Keuchenhuis”, as Damsté satirically calls it — was the government’s principal response to the beri-beri problem; and the Atjèh-political stance was the principal obstacle to Snouck Hurgronje’s Atjèh interest in 1889.
Account from Verstege’s Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk (1886)
Verstege fastens on the minister’s public defences of the concentration. On 19 December 1884 Sprenger van Eijk told the Tweede Kamer, as the newly coined paradoxes required, “dat de Atjehers door onze concentratie van slechter conditie zijn geworden” (“that the Atjehers have come into worse condition by our concentration”), “that the former commanders, through unfamiliarity with the terrain and the circumstances, had chosen bad points for our fortifications, whereby the advantage was too much on the enemy’s side” and “that by choosing other points the advantage had come to ours” — sophisms of which only the Dutch people, and not the Atjehers, became the dupes, as the Proclamation of Toekoe di Tiroe (2 February 1885) showed. And in his Memorie van Antwoord (answer-memorial) to the Eerste Kamer of 20 January 1886 the minister declared “that by the course of affairs in Atjeh the predictions of those who at the time condemned the concentration plan had least of all come true; that without noteworthy losses that concentration, represented as most dangerous, had been brought about; and that a comparison between the present state of safety and that before the concentration, or between the demands then and now made upon the Indies army and upon the country’s financial forces, could not but fall out in favour of the present state”. “A taste of traditional government optimism in the Atjeh affairs”, Verstege comments, “an oracle-saying”, for nobody, not even the minister, then knew the amount of the expenditure that comparison pretended to weigh. Later rumour credited Sprenger van Eijk, when serving as Raad van Indië, and the majority of that council, with advice against the concentration of 1884 (see Concentration decision (16-17 June 1884)).
See Also
- C. Snouck Hurgronje
- Keuchenius
- Concentratie-stelsel (1884-1896)
- Geconcentreerde Linie
- Tjilegon
- Lebak
- Multatuli
- Bantam
- Hadji
- Islam
- Aceh War
- Atjeh-oorlog
- 1884
- 1889
Source
Drie Atjeh-mannen: Snouck Hurgronje — Van Heutsz — Van Daalen, door H. T. Damsté (September 1936). OCR-filename: 20260718_105749_DLP-111-Drie_Atjeh_mannen_Nemotron-OCR-v2_OCR.txt, p. 11.
Een beroep op het Nederlandsche volk in zake het Atjeh-vraagstuk, door J. J. W. E. Verstege (Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1886), pp. 66-67, 80, 94. OCR: DLP-158.