Opium to Java

210

Opium to Java

forced to import illegal opium and to encourage opium use among
the people. Furthermore, the lion's share ofopium profits, Groene-
veldt argued, went to the farm and not to government. Could the
farm system be reformed so that the interests of the state and its
farmers more perfectly coincided? "I think this is impossible."35
Nothing shon of a state-administered monopoly would eliminate
the abuses and conflicts ofthe past and thus permit the final achieve-
ment of Holland's dual aims. ~A.~ the image of the Regie gradually
developed before me," he wrote, "as I came to know her in her
success, in her failure, in her strength and her weakness, I was
overcome with the firm conviction that it was she who could .. .
bring us the deliverance we have thus far sought in vain."36

Groene.veldt's prototype regie was based on the French design,
but it incorporated improvements of his own and of Struick's devis-
ing. In it the state would import, manufacture, package, and sell all
the opium in the colony. The opium supply should be unlimited,
Groeneveldt argued, but a strong land- and sea-based opium police
would so obstruct the How ofillegal opium that the state could sell its
product at high fixed prices. The high price of opium would make
immoderate use impossible for most people. The initial costs in-
volved in constructing a modem opium factory and of staffing an
opium bureaucracy would, he thought, be offset in the long run by
profits.

Groeneveldt's repon, in short, proposed a radical institutional
reform in the interest of meeting long-established but unachieved
objectives. It reflected neither guilt nor racial fears; it addressed the
opium question stricrly as a matter of sound policy. Groeneveldt's
solution was all the more palatable because it offered the hope that
the Netherlands might enjoy its opium revenues even more abun-
dantly without the farms and without the Chinese. The Groeneveldt
report irrevocably tilted opinion within the government in the direc-
tion of a regie.

Three years intervened, however, before that opinion manifested
. itself in a parliamentary vote officially initiating an experimental
Opium Regie. During the interim, the farm system was not without
its defenders, and as a result 1891 and 1892 were the years of the
Anti-Opium Bond's greatest activity. The bond wholeheartedly en-

35· Ibid., p. 23.
36. Ibid., p. •5·

211

War against the Opium Farm

dorsed the Gweneveldt plan. In its magazine and in frequent public

meetings-often enlivened by Elout van Soeterwoude's primitive
slide shows- it feverishly made the case against the farms and for
the regie.~7 Individual members, meanwhile, such as Levysohn Nor-
man and Schimmelpenninck van der Oye, kept the issue alive in
Parliament. Typical was Dr. H.T.A.M. Schaepman's speech ofJanu-
ary 1892 before the lower house in which, again invoking the image
of Holland as a Christian motherland acting on behalf of her
"younger brothers," he referred to the hoped-for adoption of the
regie as an act of national rehabilitati~n.38 More specific and just as
damaging to the farm cause was Levysohn Norman's speech two
months earlier in which he revealed to his fellow parliamentarians
Liem Kok Sing's complicity in the Marungan s~uggling scandal and
Charles T<;Mechelen's close relationship with and behind-the-
scenes lobbying for the Kediri kongsi.39

Among the major opponents in Holland ofan Opium Regie were
two former directors of finance (Batavia), H. R. Bool (1872-74) and
L.W.G. de Roo (1883-87).40 De Roo especially made himself the
center of pro-opium-farm sentiment,debating with Elout before the

Indisch Genootschap and publishing a succinct dissection of pro-
regie thinking in 1892.4 1 Adherents of the traditional policy, Boo!
and de Roo saw smuggling, rather than the opium farm itself, as the
central problem. They argued accordingly that the government's
efforts should be directed toward eliminating the black market.
Once accomplished, an honest farm amenable to state regulation
would provide the simplest and most expedient means ofexploiting
the opium monopoly and achieving the state's moral goals. Both felt
that the establishment and administration ofan opium bureaucracy
would be more trouble and more expensive than it would be
wonh.42 De Roo criticized the antifarm muckrakers as alannists and

37· For a dcscrip1ion of such a m~ting, sec the shon article on p. • of the Mail
Courant """ lltl Nimws wn den Dag, t'cbruary 6, 18g2. At this particular meeting
1-!.J.A.M. Schaepman held fonh on "Our C.olonial Policy and the Opium Question"
to the enthusiastic response of his audience.

38. Reprinted in Opium-Vlo.A, 2:2.
39· MvK to Kongingin Weduwc Regenten. November 2. 18g2. no. 39 in V
2it tit8g•/39·
40. SvD H.J . Bool. P 295; SvD LW.(;. de Roo. N 233,512.
4 1. 1- W.G. de Roo, 0. vnAoop 1/Qn opium opJava (Nijmegen. 18g2); L.W.G. de Roo.
"Nota en voordracht over d e opiumkwestic met debat." VIG. 1Bll9, pp. 227- 39. and
18go, pp. ·-64.

42. t-1 . J. Bool, "De opiumpacht op java." Vragm d., Tijds, 15, 1 (1888-Sg), 75;

Struick. Opiumpacht, p . 34·

212
Opium to Java

scandalmongers and was particularly provoked by those who
claimed to promote the Regie in the interest of protecting Indone-
sians from Chinese exploitation. It is Europeans, we Dutch, who
exploit java, he said frankly. Why do we not admit it and get on with
it?43

In Batavia there was less excitement over the Groeneveldt report
than in Holland. Here the views of Bool and de Roo found echoes in
objections raised by ~he departments and by members of t.he Colo-
nial Service.44 Charles TeMechelen prepared a sixty-six-page report
with eighty appendices condemning the proposal.4 5 He felt that
"the general pressure for reform" in the political atmosphere was
prompting, in this case, an unnecessarily radical departure from
past practice. He argued that few of the abuses of France's farm
system in Cochin China, which had inspired the French regie in the
first place, existed in Java. (Most farm critics disagreed.) And he
asked: why should a policy, basically sound, be abandoned when
reforms will suffice? Besides, he said, some features of the regie
would create abuses far worse than those of the farms. TeMechelen
was wary of the army of petty European bureaucrats who he imag-
ined would step in to replace local Chinese opium bandars.46 Like
de Roo, he had no confidence that Europeans would act with any
less self-interest than the Chinese. A regie, he went on, could only
succeed if the government invested heavily, far more heavily than
heretofore, in a comprehensive antismuggling campaign. There
was nothing to indicate that it would now be prepared to do so.
Finally, according to his complex calculations, the colony could
ex pect to lose millions each year if it attempted to bring opium
under its direct rnanagement.47

In his advice to the governor general, Finance Director Rovers
also homed in on the possible evil consequences of abandoning the
opium farms. "The condition of Indies finance," he began, "is highly
alarming." In a point-by-point discussion of Groeneveldt's pro-
totype, he restated many of the objections raised by TeMechelen,
and then added several more of h is own. One in particular that
worried his department was that the state's regie would be forced to

13· De Roo. De tltTAoop van opium. pp. :n-g8.
44· Groeneveldt, "Opium Regie," p. 227.
45· TM to OF, Febntary 16, 18g1, no. 1fi9l12 in Exh g/8/tSg•/ 76.
46. TM to DF. February 16, 18g1, p. 36in Exh gl8l18g2/76.
47· See ibid., Bijlage G, "Raming der lnl<.omsten."

213

War against the Opium Farm

accept illegal currency-the ubiquitous duits-in payment for

opium, just as the farm did. Whereas the farm could release duits

back into circulation, the state could not and would therefore lose

even more money on the regie. He concluded that "the Regie is ugly

and troublesome. In my view uglier and certainly in everyone's view

more tr~ublesome than the farm ." But then, as if to confirm Te-

Mechelen's worst fears about "the general pressure for reform,"

Rovers, his friend and staunch supporter, added: "But its heart is

better, more honest; there beats in it something that does not beat in

the heart of the farm. For me, this realization has turned the scales.

Focusing less upon outward beauty and efficiency than upon inner

worth, I have in the end, hesitatingly, come over to the Regie."48

Governor General Pijnacker Hordijk was similarly persuaded.

Overriding the local consensus, he formally proposed that an

Opium Regie be set up in Java and Madura. Having appointed

Groeneveldt to study the technical problems of manufacturing,

packaging, and distributing candu and tike, he awaited parliamen-

tary approval for the expenses ofbuilding a state opium factory and

organizing a trial regie.49 The appointment of Baron van Dedem as

ministerofcolonies in the Liberal ministry of 1891 greatly increased

the chances for approval. The opium issue was not a major one; the

great political questions ofthe day revolved around domestic issues,

schools, suffrage, and social legislation. Van Dedem's program as

minister emphasized the separation of home and colonial revenues

(decentralization), and called for public works-irrigation projects

and railroads-to enhance the welfare ofthe indigenous population

and, on this basis, lay the foundations of the future prosperity of the

colony. ~ ·

Long a critic of government opium policy, van Dedem now made

the Opium Regie part of this program. In the budget debates of

1892 and 1893 he patiently defended the costs involved, which by

then had replaced the question of the opium farms themselves as

the major issue. Both houses finally approved his budget in the

spring of 1893. In September 1894 the Dutch Opium Regie re-

.48. DF to CG . May 22. 18g1 , no. 7637 in T MC H422c.

49· Grocnevekh. "Opium Regie,"' p. 227.
so. Fumivall. NttN:rland.! India. p. 230: "van lkdtm," ENI; H. A. ldtma, Parlmtm-
tairt CA.schudmi.s van Ntder/and.!ch-lndU 1891- 191 8 (The Hague, 1924), p. 51; and

W. J. van Weldtren Baron Rengers, Sdltts tmn Parlemnlktirt ~sdtietknis van Ntder-

/and van 18~9 /Ol1901 (l'he Hague, 1948), 1:798-99.

214
Oplum to Java

placed the opium farm in the first trial residency, the island of

Madura. In January 1896 the Opium Regie entered three residen-
cies in east java; and in 1897· following the successful outcome of
these trials, Parliament gave the Opium Regie its final seal of ap-
proval and voted to replace opium farms with the regie throughout
J ava.51

The parliamentary decision to abandon the opium farm system in
favor of a government-run Opium Regie brought Charles Te-

Mechelen's career to an ~nd. While the fate of the opium farms

hung in the balance, he had continued to advocate his own solution
to the opium question: a reformed opium farm system coupled with
an extensive land and sea opium police with supraresidency author-
ity.s2 He submitted a number of proposals for such a force between

t88g and 1892, the most extens.ive of which was his t8go report in
which he envisioned a land-side corps of four European inspectors,
twenty-eight opium hunters (each assisted by an Indonesian police

mantri), and two hundred Indonesian oppassers (policemen) acting

in concert with the task force at sea-all under his dircction.53

Although Rovers supported the creation of such an organization,
many residents, jealous of Colonial Service prerogatives in police
affairs and burned by TeMechelen's often high-handed ways with
local officials, voiced strong opposition.54 The notoriety of the task
force had left iis mark as well; and, as governor general, Pijnacker
Hordijk objected to TeMcchclen's insistence on overall authority,
for he feared ils potential for strife between the task force and the
Colonial Service.55

For all these reasons he did not approve th!! TeMechelen-Rovers
proposal. Instead, in t8gt Pijnacker Hordijk authorized both Resi-
dent Uljee of Rembang and Resident Castens ofJ apara to establish

51 . Parliamentary debates on the regie budget in 1892 and 1893 are summarized
in Opium·VIt><Jr. 2:100-126. Groeneveldt. "Opium Regie," p . 228. ·

52. His recommendations for improving t.he regulation and supervision of the
fanns. including the suggestion that the government take over opium rnanufa<~ure.
are summarized in TM lO DF, September 16, 1887, no. 11 71 /.1 Ceheim in TMC
H422c.

!'>3· TM to OF, March 28, 18go. no. 463/3 in TMC H422d.
54· See Of to GG . September to, 18go, no. 13638 in TMC H422d; also ex- .
Resident H. H. Oonker Curtius's attack on TcMechelen in his letter to members of

the lower house, December 1891, reprinted in his Rtkuu van hrt Rtgtnt t'<2n llfagtuan
1m I.Aslt gtkgdt &pium s/uikn, rn lut tinanuJ ingtskldt ondnwei (Surabaya, 18g2).

55· First Government Secretary to OF, No,•ember 1 2, 189<>. no. 2707 in TMC

H422d.

215
War against the Opium Farm

their own smuggling-suppression programs-in effect, to replace
task force operations in the very residencies where it was originally
created and had always been most active.56 This was a direct blow
both to TeMechelen's hopes and to his personal esteem.

Another blow soon followed, or at least in his gloomy frame of
mind TeMechelen interpreted it as such. In April 1892 Pijnacker
Hordijk appointed a three-man committee, composed of Te-
Mechelen and the residents ofSurakarta and Surabaya, to study the
whole opium-police problem in Indies society and to submit a defi-
nitive recommendation.57 Both the fonnation of th~ committee and
the choice of its members affronted TeMechelen. As the acknowl-
edged expert on policing the clandestine opium trade, he saw no
reason to l'onn such a committee in the first place. and the selection
of Surdkarta's resident, 0. A. Burnabij Lautier, a vociferous Te-
Mechclen critic within the Colonial Service, made participating in-
tolerable. Recalling the.various and extensive studies and proposals
he had already prepared over the years, he wrote to Rovers: "If in
the view of hig~er authorities revisions and improvements were
thought necessary, individual consultation with me about them
would have been far more compatible with the deference to which l
humbly claim the right, than bringing in others foreign to my field
of cxpertise.''58 Insulted, he requested sick leave and sailed for
Europe. Four years later, still in Europe, he submitted his resigna-
tion.59 His departure from java in the spring of 1893 coincided with
the final votes in Parliament which rang the death knell for Java's
opium farms and heralded the inauguration of the Opium Regie.

TeMechelen's erd was a transitional one, a time of institutional
readjustment and testing in which his voice was a conservative one,
although he did not perceive it to be. The day was passing when
semi-independent organizations could fit comfortably within the
increasingly bureaucratized administration of colonial Java. This
was as true of the task force as it was of the opium fanns. Te-
Mechelen chose not to adjust. Instead he fought his own rear-guard
action against "the general pressure for reform" and , having lost, he
quit. Had he stayed in the Colonial Service, it is most likely that

56. TM 10 OF, March 5· 1892, no. 521/12 in Exh g/8/ 18g2/76.
57· ExlrdCI RegiM~r der Besluilen van den Gouverneur·~nerAal V'dtl N l, April g.
18g2. no. 16 in TMC H4ud.
58. TM 10 OF, January 28, •893· no. tg8/3 in TMC H1 22d.
59· SvD TcMc:chelen, folio 505.

216
Opium to Java

TeMechelen would have been entrusted with the management of
the new. Opium Regie.60 Instead, he bowed O!lt and devoted .his
retirement to prospe(:ting and big-game hunting. He became the
subject of lore, and upon his death in 1917 Rouffaer remembered
him as "a romantic Indo ... a charming piece ofJava's past.''61

6o. Pijnacker Hordijk was ~pparcntl)• counting on T e Mtthelen's experti.,., in
setting up the Opium Regie. When TeMechelen resign«!, Pijnacker Hordijlr. was so
angry he considered denying TeMechclen his pension hy firing him. SvO T e-
Mechclen, folio 505.

6 t. Rouffaer. "Charles TcMechelen," pp. 31 1-12. TeMcchclen did noc rc1um to
Java until tgo6. having spent the intervening years in Germany and South Sumatra.
He liv<d injava until his death in 1917. TcMechelen was also known as a "Javanicus."
someone expcn in things Javanese. He published three works on Javanese theater:
"Drie-cn twintig schctsen van wayang stukken gebruikclijk bij de venooningen der
Wayang Poerwa opJava," VBG, 40 (1879); and shadow puppet play (WIJ)'6ng) texts in
VBG, 4!1 (1882), and VBG. 44 (1884).

11

The Opium Regie
and Ethical Java

The anti-opium-farm crusade was part of a sweeping re-
orientation in colonial thinking which began in the t88os. Observing
that the Liberal policies of post-1870 Java had evidently failed to
improve life for the Javanese, many of the Dutch began advocating
new measures to foster native prosperity. Pieter Brooshooft's Mnno-
rie of 1888 was the first important political document of this trend.1
Brooshooft·called for a reduction in native taxes, an end to system-

atic exploitation (like the Chinese revenue farms), and for state-
sponsored projects to improve indigenous agriculture. He alsoadvo-
cated local autonomy in colonial governanc~-for the Dutch, of
course. These ideas found favor with the growing number of non-
official Europeans in the Indies-planters, for example, and profes-
sionals, merchants, and employees ofWestern firms and enterprises.
They found favor as well with humanitarian-minded politicians of
the right (Anti-revolutionaries), center (Progressive Liberals), and
left (Socialists) in Holland, and with Dutch industrialists who wanted

to improve the purchasing power of Holland's Asian subjects.
Baron van Dedem's program as minister of-colonies in the early

t8gos responded to some of these sentiments. In 1899 C. Th. van
Deventer brought them into sharp focus with his eloquent plea that

Holland pay "a Debt of Honor" in restitution for its neglect of the
colony and its people, and in 1901 Queen Wilhelmina officially

•

1 . Brooshooft,M~.

217

218
Opium to Java

lamented "the diminished welfare ofthe population ofjava." Broos-
hooft's pamphlet of the same year, De ethische lroers in tk lroloniale
politieh, gave a popular name to the program of welfare, efficiency,
expansion, and autonomy which characterized Dutch·colonial pol-
icy in the first decades of the twentieth century: the Ethical Policy.2

The Ethical years were marked by an expansion of state-spon-
sored education for Indonesians, great outlays for irrigation proj-
ects and other public works, anc,i the promotion of popular credit
facilities-these to replace Chinese moneylenders. The same years
brought the definitive establishment of Dutch sovereignty through-
out the Malay Archipelago, an act of imperialism that Holland's
Ethici applauded, along with Brooshooft, as a "solemn duty."~ They
were also years in which racial lines were drawn more tightly than
ever before, especially as the number of-Dutch men and women in
the colony rose and as a more purely European elite class formed. At
the same time, the lines of authority were pulled ever more directly
beneath the Dutch administration. Members of the Colonial Service
now adopted an attitude of aloof paternalism toward Indonesians
(with whose progress they were impatient) and ofcontempt for the
Chinese.

Symbolic of the new spirit, the Opium Regie was a government
department erected to right past wrongs. To its more idealistic
promoters, it was an institution dedicated to expressing concern for
the spiritual and material welfare of Indonesians. Although the
regie fell shon of such lofty aims, its innovations were profound
nevenheless. The Opium Regie was one of the first fully developed
institutions of Ethical Java.

Under the Opium Regie, all opium affairs were centered in the
capital. In place of local farm-run opium factories, each producing
its own distinctive candu and tike, a government plant in Batavia
now manufactured opium products ofuniform quality and taste. In
place of local opium farms and subfarms and their organizations, a
Java-wide opium bureaucracy, staffed by pryayi and supervised lo-
cally by the Colonial Service, now sold regie candu and tike through-

2. Queen Wilhelmina quoted in Amry Vandenbosch. 1M Dulch Ea.t Indus
{Berll.eley, Calif., 1944), p. 64; C. Th. van Deventer, "Een Eereschuld" ( 18gg), re-
printed in Colenbrander and Stokvis, Leven tn Arbeid ... van ~Xvtnln, pp. 1-43:
Pieter Brooohooft, Dt •tltiuhe k.om in <k Jwi()Tii<Jk poliluk (Amsterdam, 1901); on the
Ethical Policy and its roots, see Locher-5cholten, "BrO<l'hooft"; Fumivall, Nnllnlands
Indio, pp. 225-37: Werthci.m,/ndootsian SocUq, pp. 65, !)6.

3· Locher-Scholten, "Brooshooft," p. 337·