Stories from Deli

Java Bode 23-10-1895

Medan, October 15, 1895

On the 12th of this month, the long-awaited moment finally arrived for the European residents of Medan to attend the palace of His Highness the Sultan of Deli for an enjoyable evening event hosted by His Highness and the resident. Most of the approximately 300 invited guests attended; naturally, not all residents of the ever-growing Deli population received invitations, and many felt slighted. Interestingly, those who feel most offended by such events are often the ones who are least entitled to such attention.

Regardless, the uninvited were already creating much activity in Medan’s main street before the start of the event, and the vestibule and inner hall of the palace gradually filled with ladies and gentlemen who, after the customary greetings to His Highness, mingled and enjoyed post-dinner coffee together. The garden entrances and paths leading to the entrance were tastefully lit, and this time, the heavens refrained from the usual downpour, preserving the lovely scene for the guests. Meanwhile, the garden was teeming with locals who also enjoyed the festivities; food stalls were set up, there was music and dancing, and many locals took full advantage of the free entry to a section of the garden.

As the evening progressed, the guests were considered to be fully assembled, and after the resident entered to the sound of our national anthem, preparations were made for the polonaise. The inner hall quickly proved almost too small to accommodate the numerous couples eager to take a turn.

Before the ball officially opened, there was a solemn ceremony in which two toengkoes (local noblemen) were promoted to higher ranks. Once this ceremony concluded, there was nothing left to impede the eager dancers, and soon many faces were glowing with the pleasure and exertion. The authorities were dressed in black suits; the event had no official character.

Refreshments were generously provided, and many took advantage of them between dances. The sequence of dances was only interrupted by the unique spectacle of a group of Bataks performing a traditional dance and by a musical performance during the intermission by Madame Armista and Monsieur Valenza, whose stay here I mentioned in my previous letter. Preparations for the supper began after 2 a.m., which was arranged downstairs. Many guests chose to sit in the open air and had chairs and tables brought outside; others, who had found a place under the galleries, enjoyed the delightful, albeit somewhat cool, night without needing to move. The good mood at the table was not diminished, even by the difficulty some had in finding a proper seat or by the disappointment with the menu. Expectations had been rather high regarding the food, leading to some disappointment. For the first time in Deli’s history, the catering was handled by a chef from Batavia, but the offerings were not much different from what the local hotels could have provided. Nevertheless, the atmosphere remained pleasant, even during and after the supper, when fireworks were set off in the garden—though nothing particularly remarkable—and in the ballroom, where many a dainty foot continued to dance until dawn. The overall impression left by the party was very positive, and it was a clear indication of the good relations on the East Coast, at least between Europeans and locals.

Although this party is naturally “the topic of the day” in conversations and will be for some time, another matter has also captured attention—the resignation (a forced decision) of Captain Kuijk from active service. Although his service time had ended, many here consider his departure a loss for the army. It was expected that he would be promoted, and it is widely believed that his forced resignation is due to behind-the-scenes scheming, which has led to various rumors. It is hoped that time will bring clarity for this brave officer.

The Deli Courant criticizes me for what I wrote about the ship carrying Chinese coolies that arrived here with cholera on board and the quarantine measures applied. In the Deli Courant of October 5, I read: “Some newspapers in Java are fortunate to have correspondents in Deli, but of some of these gentlemen, it can be said that ‘not only cooks carry long knives.’ A certain Mr. Delis, for example, writes to the Java Bode about quarantine and immigration in such a way that elsewhere one might get a completely wrong idea of how serious matters are handled here. Therefore, we will refute him thoroughly in the next issue.” What follows is a rebuttal of some reports that appeared in the Locomotief regarding changes among the civil servants on the East Coast, which I already refuted in my previous letter. As for the remark I quoted from the Deli Courant, I am personally very much against arguing with proverbs. “Not only cooks carry long knives,” the editor of the Deli Courant surely intends to say, for it is well known that not only cooks carry long knives. But who is to determine whether someone who dares to wear a long knife has the right to do so or not?

The promised article appears in the Deli Courant of the 9th of this month. I am very grateful to the editors of the Deli Courant for their effort to shed more light on this matter, and I am sure many others on the East Coast are as well. However, to prove that I did not write recklessly, but rather reflected the prevailing opinion here, I will follow the writer closely and respond where necessary. I will quote from the article on “Immigration, Quarantine, and Cholera”:

“In the previous issue of this paper, we announced that we would refute what a certain Mr. Delis wrote about the above-mentioned topics from Deli to the Java Bode in detail. We now fulfill that intention, not because what this gentleman writes—after all, we don’t know anyone by that name here and are thus dealing with an anonymous writer—carries much weight, but because he has expressed an opinion that is shared by many here who are afflicted with cholera anxiety. However, fear is a poor advisor, and if Delis’s advice had been followed, strange things would have happened.

To clarify the situation, we will quote from his letter of September 7 what he wrote about the cholera cases here and the measures he wishes to see taken against the admission of potentially infected individuals.”

“My opinion is not important,” says the Deli Courant, but it also adds that it is shared by many. An opinion that is shared by many is, I believe, significant, whether it is correct or not. The Deli Courant then quotes what I wrote about the issue in the Java Bode of September 19, which I hope most readers have already read, and then continues as follows:

“As can be seen, Mr. Delis had no desire to delve into the question of whether there are regulations that allow passengers from an infected ship to be prevented from disembarking in our colonies. To enlighten him, should he wish to write about this topic again, and since there may be others in Deli who are not well-informed about the measures prescribed regarding the disembarkation of passengers and crew from ships arriving from an infected port or where cases of infectious disease have occurred, we reprint the relevant regulations from the Government Decree of February 11, 1892, Staatsblad No. 44.”

I had no desire to delve into that question, but I am now grateful to the Deli Courant for reprinting the regulations. Relying on their authority, I did not investigate further; after all, in the Deli Courant of August 17, I read the following:

“It is worth pointing out again that coolies who do not arrive by boat from the Immigration Bureau but by other means, and therefore cannot be isolated, are allowed to disembark freely after disinfection, which is optional, and in the absence of a designated quarantine station. If they carry the disease, they can spread it anywhere.”

Now that I have reviewed the relevant articles, it appears to me that more cautious action, armed with those articles, was possible.

“These regulations are insufficient in that they do not prescribe that passengers from an infected ship or port must undergo quarantine until it can be assumed that they are not infected with cholera or another dangerous disease. We already pointed this out in the Deli Courant of August 16.”

“Let us now see what Delis writes. ‘Elsewhere, the disembarkation of passengers (from an infected ship) would be prevented.’ This is incorrect and would also be highly inhumane, as it would expose healthy passengers and crew to the near-certain risk of contracting the infectious disease in question and succumbing to it. ‘Elsewhere,’ meaning near all major ports, quarantine stations have been established where healthy passengers from an infected ship are kept under observation. In the Netherlands Indies, such facilities do not exist—a significant shortcoming—but that is no reason to force passengers to remain on board an infected ship for several days. This is also not prescribed.”

It goes without saying that when I spoke of “disembarkation,” I meant free movement on land. Transferring from the ship to a quarantine station is not what is commonly understood by the disembarkation of passengers.

However, the question remains whether it is defensible, in the absence of a quarantine station— which could have been quickly established—to allow passengers from an infected ship to enter the country, as was done.

“Delis, however, suggests that the passengers (Chinese coolies) were not prevented from landing because they had received advances in cash and sending them back would have resulted in significant losses. Delis seems to be a stranger in Jerusalem and does not know that immigrants are free people who have not yet received an advance; they are people who only sign a contract here in Deli and then receive an advance; they are people who, if declared unfit for tobacco cultivation by the doctor in Medan, are returned to China at no cost, with no debt owed to the Immigration Bureau for previous travel expenses, clothing, or care.”

I wrote that “each coolie would be a loss of such and such an amount,” and the Deli Courant acknowledges this, as shown below. I am surprised that the coolies do not receive their advances in cash, although they are entitled to them; the coolie brokers, however, are a different matter; they probably do not get paid in advance, but they certainly do not serve Deli for free either.

As for the much-praised freedom of the coolies by the Deli Courant, anyone who witnesses the arrival of a shipment of coolies will quickly learn otherwise, as all possible precautions are taken to prevent these “free people” from escaping.

The measure that coolies are first examined and then sign a contract is naturally in the interest of the members of the planters’ committee.

That the unfit are returned at no cost is only fair, and that they are not charged for travel expenses is as natural as anything, for try to collect anything from a coolie whose only wealth is the shabby clothes on his back.

The coolies who are approved—and this is naturally the case for most—need the first few months to recover the advance, of which they received only a small amount in cash. They more than repay the expenses incurred for them. (I hope to revisit this topic on another occasion.)

“Of course, sending back a ship with Chinese coolies due to the paid freight and other costs would be a significant loss for the Immigration Bureau, and immigration would suffer greatly from it, possibly halting for several months, but since the regulations, as one will have seen, do not authorize the local authorities to send an infected ship back to its port of departure, the consideration that planters would suffer losses was not a factor at all, and Delis is thus guilty of a serious slander against the East Coast authorities.”

Would it really be so terrible if immigration were halted for a while? I believe that this would be the only effective measure against the overproduction of Deli tobacco, which the Deli Courant also fears.

Why is there no government oversight of the importation of coolies, even if only to curb the exploitative farming? It would certainly be a harsh measure for many, but it would be a fair measure for the country and the legitimate landowners if there were a fixed regulation regarding the fallow period of land and the number of coolies that may work on a plantation of a certain size. Some plantations are so small that they are almost fully exploited year-round, while others, due to their small size or the large number of fields laid out each year, cannot allow the land to lie fallow properly. Just as someone who rents a house cannot demolish it without the owner’s permission, I believe it is not fair for someone who has a land concession to exhaust the land in a few years, only to leave it as a squeezed lemon or, worse, sell it off to gullible shareholders in Europe.

As for the claim that I am guilty of slander, well, what I wrote is, according to the Deli Courant, merely the opinion “shared by many who are afflicted with cholera anxiety” and “should not be given much weight.”

“Authorities and the Immigration Bureau, in light of the prevailing regulations, did everything they could reasonably be expected to do to protect the health of the residents by first transporting the coolies by special train to Medan, isolating them in a building of the bureau there, and later, when the concentration of so many people in a small space increased the number of cases, transferring them to the plantations where they would remain as isolated as possible. Passengers from steamships arriving from the declared infected port of Singapore were allowed to disembark immediately after obtaining permission from the health officer, and were able to travel across the country on regular trains among other travelers.”

Since I already discussed the measures taken in my much-criticized letter, I will not repeat myself. However, I would like to note that I consider the Immigration Bureau in Medan unsuitable as a quarantine station.

“That the cholera cases in Medan were caused by transferring the passengers from the immigrant ship to the estates is highly unlikely. According to people who can assess the situation, they were caused by infections from those returning from Arabia, where cholera was prevalent among the Mecca pilgrims, or by passengers from Singapore, where the disease was epidemic at the time. Delis writes that about 6 to 7 fatal cases were officially reported daily in Medan. How he arrived at those numbers, we don’t know, but we do know that they are incorrect and exaggerated.”

In my opinion, there is no justification for “people who can assess the situation.” It is strange that out of the three possibilities, the two that had nothing to do with the infected coolie ship were chosen. As for the figures mentioned, one can read in the Deli Courant of September 7: “Since the last report, there were 7 cases of cholera in Medan on the 4th, 6 on the 5th, and 5 on the 6th, all of which were fatal. Additionally, one of the previously affected patients died, leaving 16 patients under treatment yesterday.” So, I did not exaggerate, or if I did, it was based on the Deli Courant, which, as it later reported, obtained its figures from official sources.

“In the Straits, ships from Belawan—where cholera was not epidemic at all—must undergo quarantine if they have more than 20 deck passengers on board. Delis may once again claim, ‘You see, there are no planters’ interests there!’ But that regulation is even more flawed than the one in the Netherlands Indies, where all passengers, regardless of how few or how many, from ships from infected ports must be examined before they are allowed to disembark. Could it be that among 19 passengers there are no individuals with cholera, but among 21 there are?

The interests of the inhabitants of Deli were, as one can now see, not at all subordinate to those of the planters.”

I must honestly admit that this is still somewhat unclear to me.

“In the Straits, just as in the Netherlands Indies, the regulation likely applies that a ship from an infected port (Singapore) cannot freely enter Penang just because its last port of call was uninfected. Evading quarantine regulations would then be all too easy! Therefore, Delis’s reasoning on this matter is also incorrect.”

“Therefore” and “thus,” easy words for reasoning from thin air; even here, they do not seem entirely appropriate.

“Finally, let us return to the idea of ‘sending back’ a ship on which cholera broke out during the voyage. If the authorities of a port had the right to do so, then the port of departure and all other possible ports where such a returned ship docked could do the same, and the unfortunate ship, or rather the deeply unfortunate passengers and crew, would be doomed to wander like a second ‘Flying Dutchman,’ until and after all on board—including Delis, if he happened to be among the passengers by some unfortunate coincidence—had died a miserable death, for in such close quarters, the infection would eventually spread to everyone.

One writes such enormities when common sense is paralyzed by fear.”

N.T.C.

I strongly doubt that a ship bringing infection from its port of origin could be forbidden to return there. Certainly, sending it back would not be a gentle measure, so it is better to avoid the necessity of choosing between sending it back or bringing infection into the country by establishing a proper quarantine station, especially for a port like Belawan, where thousands of coolies and many other passengers land every year—a necessary luxury. Moreover, Deli’s situation more than allows for such an expenditure.

Although I can congratulate the East Coast on the steady decline of the disease, it has not yet completely disappeared, as evidenced by the following report from the Deli Courant of the 9th of this month:

“Cholera cases are still occurring on the tobacco plantations in Deli. Since September 27, four coolies on the Kloempang plantation, one on Arnhemia, and two on Kalah Penang have died from the disease; 25 cases were reported in total, 9 of which were fatal. On the Two Rivers plantation, there were 10 cases throughout September, 9 of which were fatal.”

There have also been a few cases in Medan recently. With a population as dispersed as that of the East Coast, this unwelcome guest could linger for some time.

Delis.

P.S. I hear that in Penang, where the declaration of Deli as infected had already been lifted, that ruling was reinstated following a cholera case on the steamboat Arayaan arriving from Deli. The Arendsburg Tobacco Company has decided that henceforth, its assistants who have served for three years or more will be guaranteed 5% of the profits, and those who have served for eight years will be granted leave to Europe at the company’s expense. Bravo! A good example for others to follow.