W. J. van Welderen Rengers — Willem Jan, baron Van Welderen Rengers (1834-1916) — was a Dutch liberal politician and the original author of the Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis van Nederland van 1849 tot 1901 of which the 1955 fourth edition is the source of the present Aceh Wiki History articles. His interventions in the colonial parliamentary debates of the 1891-1918 period are cited throughout the Vermeulen section of the fourth edition.
The “eerste pas” maxim
In the 1897 Tweede Kamer debate on credits for Nieuw Guinea, Van Welderen Rengers (lib.) formulated what became a frequently-quoted maxim of colonial parliamentary debate:
“In koloniale zaken [geldt] het allerminst het spreekwoord: c’est le premier pas qui coûte. De eerste stap wordt gemakkelijk gedaan, het zijn juist de volgende stappen waartoe men ter wille van het prestige gedwongen wordt, welke ons geld en helaas ook mensenlevens kosten.”
— In colonial affairs it is least of all true that the proverb c’est le premier pas qui coûte applies. The first step is taken easily; it is precisely the subsequent steps, to which one is driven for the sake of prestige, that cost us money and, alas, also human lives.
Van Welderen Rengers pointed, as the type-specimen, to the Sumatra-tractaat ([[1871)|sluiting van het Sumatra-tractaat]] of 1871, when some chambermembers had feared “moeilijkheden met Atjeh” but had been reassured by minister Van Bosse. In 1873 the Netherlands had nevertheless declared war on the sultan of Atjeh.
Authorship of the Schets
Van Welderen Rengers is the original author of the Schets eener parlementaire geschiedenis van Nederland van 1849 tot 1891 that, in the 1955 fourth revised edition, was extended to cover the period up to 1918. The fourth edition comprises four volumes: the first three cover the Netherlands itself; the fourth volume, edited by Vermeulen (Oost- en West-Indië) and de Vries (Nederland 1914-1918), carries the colonial story forward to 1918.
Significance
Van Welderen Rengers’s authorship of the Schets makes him — alongside Vermeulen — the principal narrator of the parliamentary history of the Atjeh-oorlog ([[1873-1904)|Atjeh-oorlog]]. His “eerste pas” maxim is the type-specimen of the liberal parliamentary critique of the diplomatic prelude to the Atjehnese war.
See Also
- W. H. Vermeulen
- Sumatra-tractaat (1871)
- P. P. van Bosse
- Declaration of war against the Sultan of Atjeh (1873)
- Nieuw Guinea
- 1871
- 1873
- 1897
Source
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), pp. 267-268, title-page.