P. J. Troelstra (Pieter Jelles Troelstra) was a Dutch socialist politician and leader of the Sociaaldemokratische Arbeiderspartij (SDAP), who served as one of the first two socialist members of the Tweede Kamer from 1897, representing the district of Tietjerksteradeel. He played a key role in opposing the Aceh War (Atjeh-oorlog) and supporting the anti-war motion submitted by his colleague H. van Kol.
Opposition to the Aceh War
Troelstra co-sponsored Van Kol’s Aceh War motion in 1897 — see Van Kol’s Aceh War Motion (1897) — which called for an impartial commission to investigate the moral, political, and financial consequences of the war. During the debate, he engaged in a heated exchange with other parliamentarians, demanding that they specify “welke voordeelen van kooplieden, plantagebezitters en reeders met voortzetting van den oorlog gebaat waren” (what advantages for merchants, plantation owners and shipping companies were served by the continuation of the war). This confrontation escalated to the point of a “vrij heftig tooneel” (fairly heated scene) in the chamber.
He later supported Van Kol’s analysis that the war was driven by capitalist interests — see Economic interests in the Aceh War — with the motion being defeated by a vote of 72 to 3.
Critique of monarchy and colonialism
In his broader parliamentary work, Troelstra drew explicit parallels between the position of the Dutch royal family and that of indigenous rulers in the colony. During the 1898 kroningsfeesten (coronation festivities) of Queen Wilhelmina, he argued that the crown functioned as a “verguldsel” (gilding) that concealed the rule of the propertied class: “Hij vergeleek de positie der Oranjes hier, met die van de inlandsche vorsten van Indië, die, bij behoud van alle uiterlijke teekenen hunner vroegere macht, door de Nederlandsche regeering alleen worden gebruikt, om de aan hen gehechte bevolking onder het juk te houden.” (He compared the position of the Oranjes here, with that of the indigenous princes of the Indies, who, while preserving all outward signs of their former power, are used by the Dutch government solely to keep the people attached to them under the yoke.)
Anti-militarism
Troelstra was a consistent anti-militarist, opposing all military expenditures. He argued that approximately one-fifth of all tax revenue was being spent on military purposes, and that this was a growing burden. In 1899, he calculated that the Dutch people were paying f1.15 more per capita for militarism than in 1888, a 17% increase over ten years. He questioned whether the Netherlands was actually defensible and whether the money might be better spent on social welfare, such as pensions for older workers.
Later role
Troelstra continued to advocate for workers’ rights, universal suffrage, and social reform. He was also involved in debates on the Hogerhuis case, state pensions, and labour conditions. In 1901, he made a final attempt to secure a parliamentary statement in favour of universal suffrage, but his motion was defeated by 65 to 20 votes.
Significance
Troelstra was a pioneering figure in Dutch socialist politics and one of the few voices in parliament to consistently oppose the Aceh War and expose its economic and political dimensions. His speeches and motions helped shape a socialist critique of colonialism that linked imperial expansion to domestic exploitation and class warfare. His interventions provide a valuable contemporary perspective on the Aceh War as seen through the eyes of the Dutch left.
Account from Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis (1955)
The following account is drawn from the parliamentary history of the Dutch Second Chamber as narrated by Vermeulen in the colonial section of the 1955 fourth revised edition of Rengers’s *Schets*.
Troelstra — Pieter Jelles Troelstra (1860-1930) — was the founder and leader of the Sociaal-Democratische (s.d.) Arbeiderspartij in the Netherlands and, in the Vermeulen-period colonial debates, the principal socialist voice. His contribution to the Atjeh-era colonial record is the formulation “een stel inbrekers, elkaar niet te hinderen bij hun bezigheden” — a set of burglars, not hindering one another in their pursuits — by which he characterised the Anglo-Dutch arrangement of spheres of influence of 1871.
The “stel inbrekers” judgement
In the Vermeulen retrospective on the official justifications of Dutch authority in the Indies, Troelstra (s.d.) is cited for the judgement that the expression “afbakening van invloedssferen” — delimitation of spheres of influence — was “veel te opgepoetst voor een afspraak tussen een stel inbrekers, elkaar niet te hinderen bij hun bezigheden” — much too polished for an arrangement between a set of burglars, not hindering one another in their pursuits. The remark is the canonical socialist comment on the Sumatra-tractaat of 1871 that had placed Atjeh in the Dutch sphere.
The socialist position on Atjeh
The socialist party in the Tweede Kamer was, in the Vermeulen narrative, the parliamentary formation most consistently opposed to the Atjeh-oorlog on anti-imperialist grounds. The Troelstra judgement on the Sumatra-tractaat is the type-specimen of the socialist critique of the diplomatic frame within which the Atjehnese war was launched.
Significance
Troelstra’s “stel inbrekers” formulation is the most-quoted socialist comment on the colonial parliamentary record of the Vermeulen period. It supplies the anti-imperialist frame within which the socialist party’s subsequent opposition to the pacificatie and the ethical-policy budget was organised.
Account from Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer (1897)
In the Atjeh debate of 16 November and 17 November 1897 Troelstra, deputy for Tietjerksteradeel, delivered the second of the two great socialist speeches, summarising the impression the debate had made on him in the formula: “de Kamer is radeloos, de partijen zijn redeloos en onze positie in Atjeh schijnt reddeloos te zijn.” — the Chamber is at its wits’ end, the parties are unreasoning, and our position in Atjeh appears past saving.
The Chamber at its wits’ end
Troelstra held that the apparent unanimity about the excellence of the new Minister of Colonies was itself the alarming symptom: the chamber was welcoming Cremer “als een Messias,” from whom a miraculous solution seemed to be expected, as had happened at every accession of a new Governor-General or minister since the war began. Equally alarming was the attempt to cut off all searching criticism with the argument that the Dutch had already changed tactics too often and should now persevere — and this at the moment when the tactics followed would cost more in money and lives than any other, being aggressive tactics.
As a proof of the prevailing perplexity he pointed to the complete uncertainty about the object of the new tactics. One said the sultan must be sought out in Kamala; another that Toekoe Oemar must be got hold of living or dead; but all came down to this, that Atjeh must be subjected, cost what it might, without anyone seeing how that object was to be reached. Were the coastal states, eastern and western, to be subjected, or was the work done when the sultan was caught in Kamala or Toekoe Oemar taken? And if that happened, what then would be done with him? Would he be put back in possession of munitions and war material and sent again into the field? He recalled that Toekoe Oemar had already been set to work a second time after his character was known, and that the minister had the previous year covertly indicated that his defection was a consequence of Dutch actions.
Against the political arguments
He answered De Visser’s warning that the abandonment of the war would deliver the Indies to Islam, saying that such an assertion must be motivated, and that he was not afraid of the bogeyman. Against the fear of foreign intervention he cited Fransen van de Putte’s statement in the chamber in November 1877 that the object of preventing foreign interference had already been attained. Against the argument from prestige he answered that “het prestige van Nederland heeft door niets zooveel geleden als door de barbaarschheden, die in Indië zijn gepleegd.” — the prestige of the Netherlands has suffered by nothing so much as by the barbarities that have been committed in the Indies.
The economic argument
The core of his speech was the analysis of the economic interests bound up with the war — the Deli Maatschappij and the tobacco estates of Deli, Batoe Bahra, Serdang and Assahan; the opening of Tamiang; the petroleum concessions in Perlak; the shares of the Koninklijke; and the former directorships of the minister himself. The argument is set out at Economic interests alleged behind the Atjeh-oorlog (1897).
The parties unreasoning
Under the heading De partijen zijn redeloos he answered Kuyper’s attribution of the guilt of the war to the liberal party. No one could deny that in the first years the strongest opposition came chiefly from the anti-revolutionaries, or that the government under which the war broke out consisted of liberals; but that opposition had always been “een oppositie in woorden, maar nimmer eene oppositie in daden.” — an opposition in words, but never an opposition in deeds. The same opposition that now wished to throw off the guilt had always cooperated in granting the credits, and when it had occupied the ministerial seats it had not said boldly that it would withdraw, but had let its fine words and glorious slogans yield to practical and opportunist considerations.
He charged Kuyper with a further change: formerly the opposition had resisted the war with arguments drawn from right, morality and religion; now right and morality were left to rest, the chamber stood before a fait accompli, and men went so far as to call a war that ought to burn on the national soul as a crime “een heiligen krijg.” He quoted Kuyper’s words of the previous year: “Dat wete Atjeh, dat ook in ons allengs een heilig besef ontwaakt, het besef der roeping, om niet alleen ons koloniaal bezit af te ronden, maar, wat veel meer zegt, om ook aan Atjeh eens die zegeningen te brengen van veiligheid en orde, die Nederland, sinds hier het licht der Evangeliën doordrong, door Gods goede gunste ontving.”
He also attacked Kuyper’s metaphor of verjaring (prescription): the figure was drawn from civil law, where the term was thirty years and not twenty-four, and where prescription required good faith — the very element Kuyper himself had always denied in the Dutch conduct of the war. Moreover the count of twenty-four years was wrong and must be halved, since as late as 1885 Keuchenius had discussed the vitium originis of the war using the words of Wintgens. And he quoted Kuyper’s own words of 12 May 1875: “Nu de rechtszekerheid van de kleine natiën al meer en meer bedreigd wordt, en onze wapenmacht te kort schiet voor elke ernstige worsteling, waarin wij konden geraken, kan nu het verlaten van het rechtsstandpunt politiek heeten?” — Now that the legal security of small nations is more and more threatened, and our armed force falls short for any serious struggle in which we might become involved, can the abandonment of the standpoint of right now be called politic?
The defence of the motion
He defended the motion against Kuyper’s charge that it did not go far enough. If the socialists allowed the war to continue another year it was because they could do nothing about it, being a minute minority; the guilt lay with the overwhelming majority and the government. Nor could they at that moment ask the chamber for immediate withdrawal, because a political line must coincide with an opinion existing among a great part of the people, and they did not conceal from themselves that popular opinion about the Atjeh war had been led astray and poisoned, such fanaticism having been roused against Toekoe Oemar — to whom verraad had been ascribed in order to excuse Dutch faults — that the Dutch people would not understand a motion “Trek u terug uit Atjeh!”
The motion’s greatest significance for them was that it was the mildest possible form in which their protest could be clothed. He affirmed openly that it was a vote of no confidence: “Wij ontzeggen aan deze Regeering, aan dezen Minister van Koloniën, in zake Atjeh ons vertrouwen.” — We deny to this Government, to this Minister of Colonies, our confidence in the matter of Atjeh. This declaration caused Ketelaar to withdraw his support.
The social democrats and Atjeh
He closed the first speech by stating three grounds of strength: that socialist hands were wholly clean of what had happened in Atjeh, while all other parties had shared in it; that they fought for the application of the principles of right, humanity and common sense; and that a great part of the Dutch people, once well informed, would feel what they felt. They set themselves the task of traversing the whole of the Netherlands — “steden, dorpen en gehuchten” — to rouse the people against the injustice committed for twenty-four years, so that when they returned with a protest motion against the Atjeh-krijg they would have a great part of the nation behind them.
The rejoinder
On 17 November Troelstra answered the minister’s geringschatting (disparagement), praised by the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant; rejected the jest about Russian and Swiss professors; suggested that if the minister thought one must go to Sumatra to judge conditions there, he should take a ticket to Sumatra and ask for a suspension of the budget debate in the meantime; and denied that fixing a term for a report was unusual. On the economic question he insisted that Cremer had conceded everything he had asked hypothetically, and that the concessionaries in Tamiang and Perlak wanted not any end of the war but only such an end as guaranteed the establishment of Dutch power in Atjeh. He explained that in naming the minister’s former directorships he had meant not to cast a personal stain but to characterise the class in power — “een echte, typische vertegenwoordiger van de geldmacht in Nederland” — and was twice called to order by the President.
His last word to Kuyper was that the socialists did indeed reckon with historical conditions, but that “de historische toestand van Atjeh is: onze steeds mislukte poging sedert 24 jaren, om den historischen tegenstand der bevolking te overwinnen” — the historical condition of Atjeh is: our ever-failing attempt these twenty-four years to overcome the historical resistance of the population; precisely because they reckoned with the real state of affairs and did not fly about in white garments, and not only on grounds of right and morality but because in twenty-four years the Dutch had not succeeded in conquering Atjeh, they wished to end the war by withdrawing.
See Also
- Aceh War
- Economic interests in the Aceh War
- 1897
- Tweede Kamer
- 1901
- Van Kol’s Aceh War Motion (1897)
- Sociaaldemokratische Arbeiderspartij
- H. van Kol
- Sumatra-tractaat (1871)
- 1871
- H. B. van Kol
- Ethische Politiek
- Atjeh-oorlog (1873-1904)
- 1873
Sources
De Sociaaldemokraten in de Tweede Kamer (Amsterdam, c. 1901). Vrije Universiteit Bibliotheek, pp. 1-9, 12-18, 21-32.
Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis van Nederland van 1849 tot 1901, by Mr W. J. van Welderen baron Rengers, 4th rev. ed., Vol. IV: Oost-Indië 1891-1918 by Dr W. H. Vermeulen (‘s-Gravenhage: Martinus Nijhoff, 1955), p. 276.
Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer: Debatten bij de behandeling der begrooting van Nederlandsch-Indië voor 1898, uitgave van de Sociaaldemokratische Arbeiderspartij in Nederland (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897). Koninklijk Instituut voor de Tropen, Br P95-178, pp. 34–45, 74–79.
Acknowledgement of sources. This article combines material from the publications cited above; the material newly added derives from Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer (Amsterdam: J. A. Fortuijn, 1897) and Een strijd in Atjeh (Rotterdam: N.V. Drukkerij Korteweg for the Vereeniging „SIMAVI”, 1934). Dutch passages are quoted in the original with an English rendering.