Van der Zwaag was a Dutch socialist politician and member of the Tweede Kamer for the Sociaaldemokratische Arbeiderspartij (SDAP) from 1897, who joined his colleagues H. van Kol and Troelstra in opposing the Aceh War. He was one of the three socialist members who supported the 1897 motion calling for an impartial commission to investigate the war.
Anti-war advocacy
Van der Zwaag co-sponsored Van Kol’s 1897 motion on the Aceh War — see Van Kol’s Aceh War Motion (1897) — which was ultimately defeated by a vote of 72 to 3. He consistently voted with his socialist colleagues against all military expenditures, including budgets for the army and navy. In debates on military spending, he argued that the true enemy was domestic poverty and that money should be spent on combating what he called “den steeds voortkankerende armoede” (the ever-spreading poverty) before spending on foreign defence.
Criticism of the penal system
Van der Zwaag was particularly active in criticizing the Dutch penal system, especially the “celstelsel” (cell system) and the use of preliminary detention (voorloopige hechtenis). He brought cases to parliamentary attention of individuals who had spent many months in pre-trial detention before being acquitted. He argued that the criminal justice system was biased against the poor and often failed to deliver justice.
Socialist solidarity
Although less prominent than Troelstra or Van Kol in the Aceh War debates, Van der Zwaag consistently voted with his socialist colleagues on all colonial and military matters. He supported the party’s positions on universal suffrage, workers’ rights, anti-militarism, and opposition to colonial expansion.
Significance
Van der Zwaag was a dedicated member of the first socialist parliamentary group in the Netherlands. His consistent anti-war and anti-militarist votes helped establish the socialist position on the Aceh War as principled opposition to all military expenditures. His work on the penal system complemented the party’s critique of the violence and injustice of the colonial state.
Account from Atjeh in de Tweede Kamer (1897)
Van der Zwaag spoke in the Atjeh debate on 16 November 1897, immediately after Kuyper, prefacing his remarks with the observation that it might seem strange for a layman and young member to ask for the floor at once on a budget of whose details he freely admitted he had been able to acquire little knowledge; but since members were obliged to vote for or against within the week, one must take the floor to make one’s standpoint known as a layman. He added the dry remark that when one had two specialists in the chamber they were always at odds, so that in the end one had to fall back on one’s own judgement.
Against Kuyper
He declared himself wholly at odds with Kuyper’s contention that the justice of the war should no longer be debated because such a debate was no longer of our time. Where for years the necessary emphasis had not been laid on the right of that war, he thought it more than time to place its lawfulness or unlawfulness in the foreground, and to do everything possible, within the limits of Dutch constitutional law, to make good the injustice done, or at least to leave off committing injustice.
Where Kuyper said that the liberal party bore the responsibility for the origin of the war, Van der Zwaag replied that when the funds needed for its continuation were granted each year without vigorous protest, all were jointly answerable for its continuance.
He turned Kuyper’s parable of the boy in the neighbour’s apple tree against him. He had nothing against a father who sprang over the fence to save his child from a beating that endangered its life; but he would object if that father called in some other boys and asked them, for a couple of pence reward, to help him thrash the neighbour in his turn. “En zoo iets doet ieder die spreekt en stemt vóór het voortduren van den Atjeh-oorlog.” — And such a thing is done by everyone who speaks and votes for the continuance of the Atjeh war. Whoever thought the war must end by force was morally bound to go to Atjeh and fight there himself; but that men did not do. They sent others, who had suffered shipwreck on the sea of life and were obliged, if they were not to die of hunger at home, to expose themselves to Acehnese bullets and to strike dead people who had personally never done them any harm.
On the prospects of the war
Noting that a specialist — he thought Verhey — had said that very little could be brought against Van Kol’s historical argument, so that the waging of the war was shown to be a grievous injustice, he held that every member ought to do his part to end it as soon as possible, in whatever manner. The moral and financial consequences were terrible. However unequal the advice of the Indies specialists might be, they agreed remarkably in this, that whatever tactics were followed one would not for a long time be able to withdraw from this wasps’ nest if one wished to continue on the road of violence. The government itself could not approximately determine the time within which the war would be finished; it would therefore continue for years and years, demanding not only financial sacrifices but a mass of human lives.
Everyone who by approving the Indies budget cast his vote for the Atjeh war must be deeply conscious of the responsibility he took upon himself. He read the Memorie van Antwoord passage on the fiscal dominance of the war and concluded: “de Atjeh-oorlog domineert alles.” To satisfy Dutch ambition, and to avoid retreating in such a manner that the Acehnese might say the Hollanders had proved cowards, the population of the Indies — “drie millioenen menschen” as the printed text has it — was sacrificed. He would rather accept the most shameful terms of peace, which from the point of view of morality would be better for the Netherlands than the shameful war so long waged.
On the means available to a member
He held that members had no power to propose withdrawal: “Wij hebben in dezen slechts in elkaar te zetten, te naaien, wat anderen klaar hebben geknipt, of we kunnen weigeren dit te doen. Dat is alles.” — In this matter we have only to put together, to sew, what others have cut out ready, or we can refuse to do it. That is all. The only means was to refuse the funds voted for the war; but even that was scarcely possible, since the expenditure for the Atjeh war could not be separated from that for the Indies army in general. The only remaining means for a member who wished to protest vigorously was to say: whatever minister sits at the ministerial table, I shall never give my vote to the Indies budget so long as no end has been made of the war in Atjeh.
On the motion
He stated two reservations about Van Kol’s motion. First, he could not expect the government, even if the motion were carried, to institute an impartial commission; he did not believe it capable of it. Second, he disagreed with the closing words about “het behoud onzer volkenrechtelijke stelling op Sumatra”: the Dutch were there not by virtue of any law of nations but by the right of the stronger, and for the preservation of that he was not to be found.
Why then did he support it? Because he was convinced that even a partial commission appointed by the government to give information would bring to light so much that was unlawful on the Dutch side that many members who by their vote now approved the budget would thereby be brought to other thoughts.
He voted for the motion on 17 November 1897 with H. van Kol and Troelstra.
Kuyper’s reply
Kuyper answered him on 17 November, granting him the praise of consistency for saying that he was ready to give up the whole colonial possession, but asking whether he had considered what decline and impoverishment such a blow would bring to Dutch national conditions; whether the abandonment of so covetable a treasure would not almost certainly provoke a European war between the great colonial powers; and what condition would arise in the Indies and elsewhere if all European powers together withdrew from their colonial possessions — pointing to Tunis, Algiers, Tripoli, Klein Azië and parts of the European portion of the Turksche Rijk as showing an older condition so deeply lamentable that any European colonial authority, even that of Spanje, was preferable.
See Also
- H. van Kol
- Troelstra
- Van Kol’s Aceh War Motion (1897)
- Aceh War
- Sociaaldemokratische Arbeiderspartij
- Tweede Kamer
- 1897
Sources
De Sociaaldemokraten in de Tweede Kamer (Amsterdam, c. 1901). Vrije Universiteit Bibliotheek, pp. 2-3, 5-7, 15, 22-27.
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. 24–27, 51, 70–73.
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.