W. M. van der Veer was the Superintendent of the Baleq enterprise of *‘s Lands Caoutchouchedrijf — the colonial government’s rubber and turpentine enterprise in the Gajo-Landen-Atjeh border region — in the late 1920s and early 1930s. He is named in the Atjeh-terpentijn pamphlet of 1930 as the Superintendent v/d ond. Baleq — the Superintendent of the Baleq enterprise — who supplied the private mededeelingen (private communications) on which the production section of the pamphlet was partly based, and as the donor of the photographs of the Baleq enterprise reproduced in the pamphlet.
The private communications
The Atjeh-terpentijn pamphlet records that the data for the production section of the pamphlet were deels ontleend aan de Jaarverslagen van ‘s Lands Caoutchouchedrijf en de Jaarboeken v/h Departement van Landb., Nijverh. en Handel in Ned.-Indië, deels aan private mededeelingen van den Superintendent v/d ond. Baleq, den Heer W. M. van der Veer — partly drawn from the Annual Reports of ‘s Lands Caoutchouchedrijf and the Yearbooks of the Department of Agriculture, Industry and Commerce in the Netherlands Indies, partly from private communications of the Superintendent of the Baleq enterprise, the Heer W. M. van der Veer. The private communications supplied by van der Veer are the principal source for the operational details of the Baleq enterprise — the application of the quarre system, the conversion from the experimental old distillation kettle of 100 kg capacity to the locomobiel-ketel of July 1925, and the introduction of the modern French installation in October 1928.
The donation of photographs
The Atjeh-terpentijn pamphlet records that several of the photographs reproduced in the pamphlet were een geschenk van den heer VAN DER VEER voornoemd — a gift of the Heer van der Veer aforementioned. The photographs include the view of the Pinus Merkusii forest in Atjeh (Fig. I), the photographs of the tapping of a Sumatra-den with the quarre method (Fig. II), and the photographs of the refreshing of the tapping wound (Fig. III). The interior and exterior views of the old and new factories at Baleq (Figs. IV–VII) are credited opn. L. P. de Bussy — photograph by L. P. de Bussy — indicating that de Bussy personally visited the enterprise in May 1927 (the old factory) and December 1928 (the new factory).
Significance
Van der Veer’s significance in the historiography of colonial Aceh is as the senior on-site officer of the Baleq enterprise — the figure whose private mededeelingen supplied the operational details of the early factory-scale production of Indonesian turpentine, and whose photographs of the enterprise are the principal published images of the Pinus Merkusii forests and of the old and new factories at Baleq. His position as Superintendent of the Baleq enterprise placed him at the intersection of the colonial forestry service, the colonial rubber factory, and the metropolitan Koloniaal Instituut — and his communications with de Bussy and Spoor are the principal documentary evidence of the way in which the early factory-scale production of Atjeh-turpentine was managed and reported.
See Also
- Baleq
- ‘s Lands Caoutchouchedrijf
- Pinus Merkusii
- Quarre
- Atjeh-terpentijn (Spoor, 1930)
- L. P. de Bussy
- W. Spoon
- Dienst van het Boschwezen
- 1928
Source
Atjeh-terpentijn: tegenwoordige kwaliteit en nieuwe beoordeelingen, by Ir. W. Spoon, Berichten van de Afdeeling Handelsmuseum van de Koninklijke Vereeniging Koloniaal Instituut No. 57, Amsterdam: J. H. de Bussy, 1930, pp. 6, 8, 13 (footnotes).