Stories from Deli

In 1903 and 1904 it drew attention that the number of passengers of the emigration service was declining: against 8,124 coolies in 1902, 6,410 arrived in 1903. A connoisseur of Chinese affairs, therefore asked to give his opinion, stated that the Chinese immigration was declining because too few workers from Deli went there with savings. The entrepreneurs acknowledged the mistake of deviating from the right path of the laukeh mission, and they agreed in 1904 that each company would return twenty men and suitable field coolies with a pair of savings before the start of the barn time (see p. 117). . In 1906, the convention was changed for three years, stating that each company would send five percent of its coolies to China annually. In addition to the laukeh mission, the sending of letters and money from the coolies to their families was also promoted. Some of the laukeh’s, returning, performed that post-looper service, as a result of which many unsure people ended up in the money. If a coolie had withdrawn a sum from his manager to think up his family with it, but indeed to please himself, there was no supervision to prevent this deception. Happy to be the Immigrant Office service to workers, who were not using a maillooper, and made sure that the depot reached the specified address. The Planners Committee and the Immigrants Bureau, convinced of the beneficial effect of these remittances on the extent of emigration, encouraged her, pointing to the certainty obtained from the mediation of the Immigrants Bureau.

A year later it came to the point that the members of the Deli-Planters association undertook by agreement to send the money through the IB and to ensure that every coolie could pay his family once a year. send.
In the sending of money the entrepreneurs were able to act adequately, on the other hand they could not completely prevent the degeneration of laukeh recruitment into kehtau recruitment, and at least they could not suppress the actions of the kehtau alongside the laukeh. It is curious how light develop outgrowths in recruitment in the healthiest organism.
The laukeh went to his village and moved relatives to Deli; that was kampong emigration, which the entrepreneurs were and are very fond of. If that kampong emigration did not yield enough sinkehs to meet the needs of the company, then there had to be replenishment. The manager understood this, the main tandil understood that, which moreover had a great interest in clearing planting and harvesting. So he arranged for replenishment, using a kehtau as an accomplice, who joined the shops in Swatow, guest houses, to which certain recruiters brought their recruits. The shopkeeper was the professional recruiter who arranged his prices. He understood that the head teeth in Deli were embarrassing to buy sinkehs and therefore also had to be prepared to pay more.
However, the additional payments encumbered the main tandils; in 1912 it happened that they met, no less than 55 in number and agreed that they would pay no more than $ 8 per sinkeh to the shop. They each brought an amount of 300 guilders to the meeting, which amount would forfeit whoever violated the agreement. The Immigrant Bureau had to get involved with this novelty, if necessary guide it, since it was clear that very undesirable relationships could grow from it. In particular, a pecuniary relationship between the main tusks and the shops could become unwholesome for the kampong emigration.

After consultation with the agent of the IB in Swatow, the DPV came to the decision that money should be sent for the main tandils through the mediation of the IB and the agents in Swatow; that the payment to the shop would not exceed $ 8 per sinkeh; that the laukeh’s in Swatow would no longer have access to large sums, which they often used for additional payments to the shops, but that the laukeh would receive his expenses for accommodation and food back up to a maximum of 10 dollars, while returning him with the same benefits fall as the sinkeh ie 45 dollars, of which 25 dollars in account (= f. 35), 20 dollars as a gift (= f. 28) and f. 4.50 as a gift to the company, from which gift the amount for accommodation in Swatow would be deducted; finally that the companies with a shortage of sinkehs would allow themselves to be supplied by the IB by immigration from Singapore. 
How clearly it came to light again that the simplest route was the best, the cheapest also: kampong emigration, generated by letters and money, promoted by laukeh’s with the mediation of the IB and its agency in Swatow. The more one could break away from the kehtau, from the man who, traveling between Deli and Swatow, made his profession of recruiting in the shops, where again the recruiters lodged Chinese, the better it was. The more laukehs the corporations sent, the more vigorously they promoted the exchange of letters and money, the less they needed the kehtau.

The outbreak of war in 1914 hampered shipping between Deli and China, and it was also likely that the tobacco companies, downsizing the business, would be less likely to apply lauke recruitment. It is certain that the kehtau continued to play its part in emigration in the revitalization of the company in the following years. In 1914, 720 laukeh’s arrived with the laukeh boats in Deli, including a kehtau 396 times; the 324 laukeh’s brought 976 sinkeh’s, the 396 kehtau’s brought 1772. Some members of the association had not kept the agreement to broadcast 5 percent of the field coolies annually with letters of introduction, a phenomenon which also occurred in 1915. The 985 laukeh’s that returned then brought 3,484 sinkeh’s, the 209 kehtau’s brought 1,163; in 1916 came 1054 laukeh’s with 3925 sinkeh’s,

The struggle of the Canton government against the northern forces for possession of Swatow in late 1917 threatened emigration with severe diminution. Finally, the impact of the disaster was not too bad. In 1917, 1,067 laukeh’s delivered 4,334 sinkeh’s, while 542 kehtau’s came with 2,266 sinkeh’s. This time in the kehtau business a favorable special could be discerned: among them were many relatives of head toothils, from whose kampongs they brought sinkehs, thus serving the kampong emigration in addition to their professional recruitment.
Worse than the struggle of Chinese north versus south, the seizure of Dutch ships in British ports took hold of emigration; it had to be discontinued in the spring of 1918 and could not be resumed until November. In 1918 only 181 laukeh’s returned with 752 sinkeh’s and 116 kehtau’s with 669 novices; for 1919 amounted numbers 154 laukeh with 972 novice and 37 kehtau’s me (139 novice’s. The work of kehtau’s continued to ends youngest time significance maintain end Chinese emigration to Deli.
To make the entry of agricultural income Chinese from the interior to increase and their after termination of the agreement make it easy to keep and herteekenen, devised the bottom took what they had in the past also thought, namely that the passage of married women and children would have a beneficial effect. In the past it had been heard that there were objections to the emigration of women and children in China; they seemed to have gradually diminished in strength. In 1910 it was decided to grant free passage for the Chinese husbands and children, whereas a regular domestic life would allow the Chinese coolie to be a more solid workman and to put more order on his financial resources; that, free from debauchery, he would appreciate life in Deli better and readily renew his contract of employment. Moreover, it was understood that the Chinese woman, accustomed to field labor in her country, would occasionally participate in the labor in Deli as well.
Still, the results of the first tests were not great. Of the 86 letters, only 6 had consequences, which was partly attributable to the caretakers’ negligent application of the regulation in this regard. When that carelessness was avoided, things got better.

In 1914, 53 women came out, in 1915 the number rose to 129 and 24 children, in 1916 to 238 and 147 children, in 1917 to 329 women and 131 children, in 1918 there were only 69 and 25, fewer again in 1919, namely 51 and 37.
If the emigration from China to Deli has a future, will the Chinese woman be a vital factor in this? The figures did not end encouragingly, and it was not forgotten that the Chinese adat forbids a woman to return to China once she left the country.
It should not be ignored that in the few years of experience less favorable opinions have been expressed about the influence of the Chinese consort. Searching for caterpillars, raking, and threading leaves are useful activities for the company, which Chinese women have performed there as well as Javanese women and children elsewhere.
Mr. After graduating in law, HJ BOOL followed his lust for rural areas and came out in 1890 for the Medan Tabak-M’J ‘; after 1905 coffee planter in Serdang; was asked in 1902 to describe the rights and obligations arising from the land permits, and also emigration and labor matters, for which he conducted research at Medan, Batavia and Malacca and about which he drew up writings of lasting value; was 1905-1916 secretary of the DPV; in 1918 acted as secretary of the Amsterdam Tabaks Bureau.

they carried out, but an undertaking can have little peace with it, if the woman urges the man to leave the plantation as soon as the agreement is concluded and then settle somewhere as a greengrocer or craftsman. This may still benefit the society of the East coast of Sumatra, but she too must reject it when the Chinese woman has arrived to deposit money at usurious interest or to argue with the other half of the husband’s neighbor or comrade. It is still noteworthy that among the emerging wives, the husbands of tandils and old-timers were the majority, those of sinkehs were the minority. And finally it may be added to this story of the Chinese coolie woman that the Javanese wife of the Chinese coolie, who came to his side in Deli, often has a useful and good existence there, however, often a miserable life gets when she follows her husband to China. For despised and maltreated by husband and family, she is without money to travel back in a stranger and can at most obtain from the agents of the IB as a favor an amount for the return trip, when she sees the opportunity to reach the office in Swatow.
How the DPV treated the Chinese emigration as a tar plant became apparent in 1908 when the businessmen, quite convinced that the Hakkas were less desirable coolies, nevertheless assumed those folks too, fearing otherwise to discredit Deli’s enlistment. If the Hakkas could not find placement outside the companies of the DPV, the members would have to place them.
Outside the DPV, no Chinese were used as laborers except in the years of busy expansion of rubber cultivation, when businesses all over the place were struggling with a lack of garden people. Then Chinese coolies also ended up in the rubber, and tobacco entrepreneurs have sometimes had reason to complain that rubber planters persuaded the Chinese coolies, whose agreement was about to expire, to enlist in the rubber instead of re-signing for the tobacco.

Anyone who has his business not too far from the inhabited world and who works with contractors must be aware of the runaway, the droshing that seems to be in people’s blood. There are enough reasons for this, but there are only a few reasons. A Chinese in Deli dares for the advantage of envisioning his newfound liberty, which is commonly found in his secretly leaving the country for Malacca and enlisting or recruiting elsewhere for service there; or he hides for a while and then takes up a craft or a small market garden with pig breeding.
The Javanese workers have the same desire to gain this deceptive advantage, but the degree of satisfaction with the environment in which the enterprise brings him is particularly relevant. The Javanese likes socializing and neither the work nor the supervision of it should embarrass him. Furthermore, his satisfaction turns out to be a real spice-me-not: a debt to these people or genes, an unpleasant relationship with a neighbor or a mandur, feeling for or against a woman can be reasons to run away.
There have always been complaints about drossen, and it was only possible to devise new measures to prevent them or to tighten up the old ones from time to time. In 1907, against the Chinese running away with false steps, which they obtained with the help of shopkeepers, the portrait was invented, which henceforth had to be placed on the pass. And the planters, together with the board, had a boat cruised on the shore, repeating it now and then, to see if the great canoes were also securing Chinese runaways. They also appointed watchers and onlookers, who receive an appreciation fee for each drosser they bring back. 

After 1908 there was also runaway: in 1910 no less than 698 Chinese were conceived and in 6 months 198 Javanese. What further benefit us from figures? Running away is an inevitable evil that can only be kept within certain limits through constant supervision. If one sets aside the inhospitality of the enterprise, which after all cannot be tolerated by any worker, then one must recognize that it is impossible to guarantee satisfaction with any means or arrangement of the worker, at least that of the Javanese, for the reasons for his desertion are as innumerable as they are insignificant.
The Chinese emigration from Swatow, already very limited in 1919, had to be stopped in 1920, because the war situation in southern China made everything uncertain and also because the dollar exchange rate had risen too much (to NLG 3.40), making it come true. from a sinkeh to a venture cost more than 300 guilders. In the late 1920s the DPV decided to give up its emigration service at Swatow and transfer it to Hong Kong.
Will China’s immigration in Deli blossom again? Will it end altogether? These are questions that cannot be answered yet. It is a fact that some tobacco entrepreneurs began to use Javanese as field coolies years ago, and that Javanese field cool has gradually become common, although not all the suitability of the Chinese is his.
In 1916 the first Chinese consul, based in Medan, arrived, and since then this civil servant has been able to convince himself of the life and merits that Deli offers the worker. But if the authorities and generals of the south, as well as those of the north in China, forbid the poor husbandman from temporary emigration, welcoming him to war in his own country, the voice of the consul in fertile Deli will still prove to be a voice. one crying in the wilderness.