Stories from Deli

Title: Memories from My Editor’s Life (1899—1904) From Eventful Times in Deli by W. J. H. Mulier, former chief editor of Deli Courant

Nothing is more difficult than being brief. Recently, when I was honored with the task of writing a few articles about my time in Deli, I re-read the heavy bound volumes, created an overview, and will attempt to provide a summary of that time of learning and work, my ‘Indies years,’ which I would not have wanted to miss.

Already in 1893, I wrote for the Deli Courant and from 1895, under the pseudonym Flaneur, I regularly sent contributions from Brussels. In ’97, I looked for an editor for the director of the N.V. De Deli Courant, along with friend Willem Cremer (which was unsuccessful) when he — in ’98, suddenly took me under his arm in the Passage and said: Why don’t you go to Medan yourself? It was impossible; but after my mother’s death, the question was repeated and I embraced it with both hands. That year I traveled with the small ‘Alexander,’ visited part of the Straits Settlements, where rubber planting was just emerging, traveled across Java, paid my respects to the G.G., at the Secretariat in Buitenzorg, Mr. Piet Brooshooft of the Locomotief and Kruseman of the Java Bode (with whom I maintained such strong relations) and arrived in Medan.

My affable predecessor, Major van Staden ten Brink, did not know I was to replace him due to a lost letter. A difficult start, which did not prevent him from receiving me most kindly! There I was then in the Indies! I had already endured a sweltering day in the humid, oppressive Cheribon, a day that made me anxious and uneasy. I had already had a little cholera incident in Semarang but Deli seemed immediately different; a much more bearable climate with an Italian evening atmosphere!

The hotel with the jovial, noisy assistants was indeed a bit of a strange novelty, it was just a ‘hari besar,’ but I got used to it. The first evening in my little house on the djalan-Serdang was also an initiation. A flying squirrel flew against the petroleum hanging lamp and a tokay gecko from the attic. Afterward, of course, it never happened again!

Inspection of the printing press, a trip to our branch in Tandjong Poera, official visits, doedoek station, and quickly began the acclimatization. The daily news gave me reason to think. Indeed, everything gave reason for ample reflection when one falls so green in the East. I felt tremendously green, ‘green-green’ as the eighties called it. In the evenings, when the cool wind from the mountains swept over the Delian lands and one found reports in the local news such as: ‘Raid in Tamiang,’ or ‘Gajo and Atjehnese make a raid on the highlands; tobacco barn burned down, Pa Palita of Beras Tagih threatens our—’, the murder of Clifford in the independent lands” the journey of the missionary G.H. Simon through the Tobalands then — then that gave much to think about.

One fine morning I told my friendly mentor, the major, that I wanted to take a 14 days’ break and see Aceh! Perhaps we could also do business there! And so it happened. I began sending Acehnese travel letters to Medan.

The Deyckerhoft era, also the time of Karel van der Heyden, had passed, and Van Heutsz had been in charge there for a short time. I went on some excursions with Heidens, met great figures like Father Verbraak, the combative jungle pioneers, the fearless leaders, van der Maten, Veltman, Knechtmans, Darlang, Vis, and Schepens, promised General van Heutsz to set up a printing press and a newspaper if my Directorate allowed it, wrote that to The Hague, Cremer said ‘yes’ and then the matter was fairly quickly settled. Like a hurricane, the rapidly growing era then rushed at you. I still own a letter from 1873 from my late uncle J. Albarda, auditor-military, who writes: ‘Then, Wim, we landed.

The road via Laboean to Medan was extremely difficult due to the countless holes from hundreds of elephants’.

January 5, 1900, the Sultan of Deli had just been 25 years in the Government, just the whole history of Deli! China was awakening; Chinese exports amounted then to only 36,600,000 taels. Taylor, from the Packet, visits Surabaya to see what residue as fuel would mean! South Sumatra is going to build railways. The Arabs are trying for equality, after which all Muslims would follow!

In March ’99, the Japanese were equalized. The Royal rises while the Financier preaches caution concerning a ‘Company that gives no overview and no figures’. The Dutch newspapers still write about the fat-greased civil servant auctions, the Java Bode, and others about the shenanigans of coolie recruiters, Rooseboom becomes G.G. Balfour promises that in Transvaal ‘no one’s rights will be violated (!) and constantly belong to the faits divers the invasions in the Residentie O. of Sumatra!

The time grows, grows just then ragingly fast… In a raging pace, all this storms at you, at the bar, the grass-green newcomer, who still has so much to learn and … must write about it. An obsession!

My first articles were titled: ‘Meditations in a Kareta sewah’. I told of the new rubber culture, which I had seen on the Overwal, proposed the following: Cut down those worthless and dangerous djohore trees, plant rubber along the roads, let the Government station overseers here and there with a piece of garden land; this creates population, the rubber tapping will bring the Government money. Laborers will come to live on the land, they become native, then follows rice planting…

This brought me into contact with the ‘old’ Mr. Tiele, who came to see me, since then always very willing. He felt something for encouraging Javanese settlements and rice (own rice) planting, for freshwater fish breeding (as on p. 488 of my book Fish Farming, chapter ‘Fish as Food in N.-Indies’). Well, there you have something I wasn’t green in. The Indies were still so strange to me. Only in 1898 had I sent a memo to the G.G. urging preference in the selection of soldiers, who had to go on expedition, for those who wanted to submit to training and abstention.

Also, in ’95 I sent a memo about the same track width for all projected tracks in N.-Indies, because I knew something about that from my Russian time but otherwise I still felt … very green, The facts eventually got the better of me and then you dive, albeit still unprepared, into the issues of the day. The petition of the timber merchants against the facil in Idi was the first case, just at the time (July 9, 1899) when the Acehnese ran off Pangkalan Soesoe, the plague broke out in Penang, rabid dogs roamed Deli, and Turkish intrigues in N.-Indies attracted attention.

What a time! How interesting it all was! I begin to dare to write about Sabang as a future major port and then get scolded in the Dutch newspapers when I come to tell that the general has told me that the war will be over in about four years and I believe that (both things were found rather silly). Professor Grassi sends the Deli Courant a study on anopheles and malaria, which I had to try to translate soundly from Italian. (The ‘old Mr. Tiele’ pointed to freshwater fish as hygienic mosquito eaters and as food for the coolies of course).

The Pinang Gazette on October 14th had an article that was really something! It warned us not to show too much sympathy for the Boers. ‘There’s still time enough before Christmas to hoist the English flag on Deli!’ What a rush of time! How to do? We must not sit still!

Towards the end of the year, the Deli Company in Medan forbids assistants from keeping dogs and colleague Jacques Deen asks in the Deli Crt. if they’ve been bitten by a dog in Deli! Rightly so, because it remains, still, the best night-time security service. While the Czar sounds the peace trumpet, the Dreyfus affair begins, the Boers are attacked, and we enter the year 1900.

1900

Hundreds of pages I must skip. I get acquainted with my distant cousin H. Westenberg, the coffee planter from Serdang and controller of Kempen, the later governor of S.O. Coast now a member of the Second Chamber. Westenberg enriches the Deli Courant with a series of very important articles about coffee cultivation interests.

Old sports buddies set up a sports club in Medan with me (I think after a little lecture of mine about: the Krossi Malay as the pait and the maid) and we actually start playing football from 6 to 11, and I begin to most humbly ask the head administrators to take an interest in a point from that lecture: The psychological life of the assistant, the drinking parties, and the Djalan Hülténbachsche roema-tinggi, for lack of better! Give them tennis courts and are (so I ask) married assistants truly a mirage?

Jacques Deen’s article: ‘Do our tobacco tycoons stay too long? The British-Indian system is better’ ties into that. The Overwal acts unfriendly, hostile. I hold a lecture about ‘Our just right of defense,’ start to toss around the idea of a defense corps, and immediately receive support from Ewald Tweer, the later director of the Senembah, J. van Vollenhoven from the Deli f/r’. Tate, Heinolt, S.v. Reesema, Ponse, the assistant-resident de Neve, later resident of the S.O. division of Borneo, the controllers v. Kempen and Muller.

My first fight was with the German consul Hick. I had heard that our German fellow citizens wanted to start an Association and wrote: Come gentlemen, let’s not do that, let’s stay united. Mr. H. came into my office and accused me of having taken something from an advertisement lying at the press and discussed it in the D. C. before anything was established. Not true! I said. True! he said, to which I asked him to leave. I have never met a more generous man in my life. When he understood that I had told him nothing but the truth, he came storming in with a ‘reich mir die Hand’. We remained friends ever since and I went to live in a beautiful big house owned by him, right next to the offices of the Deli Ct.

Mrs. Mc. Leod passed by daily, four times a day. The famous Mata Hari never caught my eye. Female beauty is a matter of individual taste it seems! Qualitate qua I was shortly after my arrival placed in the high seat of the Negorij council, mostly presided over by the assistant-resident de Neve, from whom I received a lot of support.

I sought contact with the Mission, learned to know and appreciate people like Dr. Adriani, Joustra Guillaume, but got a bit into a fight with the Mission bosses, as I claimed that the Mission should actually stand too high to do political-pioneer work A governor of Queensland dared to write that it was time to take back our Archipelago!

The Straits press is derisive, writes inciting, hateful language. I draw attention to the giant work of ‘the Royal’, combat a quite filthy slander brochure from Holland, fiddle a little map of the oil stations at the Bajan-, Langsar- and Tamiang rivers, the Aroebay, Besitang, and P. Brandan together, and receive a visit from Loudon, the later director of the Royal then still a pioneer chief.

A clean-shaven gentleman places his planter’s hat on a table and looks at me not unfriendly. What can I do for you? my look says. Then he asks: Why do I tell such neat things about their Company? I thought: because people in Holland are contradicting you. But I said something like: Oh, it’s true, what I wrote, it’s going well, isn’t it? Then he soon after took his helmet hat again and left! That was the same helmet hat with which he ventured into the swamps, armed… with 2 sandwiches and laid the groundwork for what is now one of the financial anchors for the Netherlands. He did something special, he found petroleum! Others are always named as the primates, but as a sportsman, I always had a huge admiration for him. I have therefore modestly asked at a few Queen’s birthdays: why did this man not receive a solid high distinction? while so many middle-men were automatically put in their goodies. Shortly after that visit, I get — unasked — the monthly production figures of the Royal in the Deli Crt., upon which the Gentlemen in The Hague praise me very much for my diplomatic talents! ? (It was purely stupidity between us said) but we were the only newspaper that got those figures.

Van Heutsz is making headway in Aceh and many a brave head of the Acehnese lays down the ax. The general sends a company of those Acehnese ex-princes, who had submitted to Medan, where they were accommodated above a horse and carriage business (!). They were entertained at my home and the pictures appeared in ‘Eigen Haard’. They were later very pleased with that.

Meanwhile, Toekoe Samalangan and T. Moeda Peudada surrender, those regions are thus mainly subdued. The Merdus region and the Pasei region are next. From Medan to Idi it becomes safe and a lighthouse sends its light over Diamond Point. Feverishly work is being done in Aceh. I start on my own to issue daily bulletins. The Deli Crt. is progressing.

1901.

The Deli Crt. is invited to visit Poeloe Berhalla along with the administration, where we will set up a quarantine station for cholera and plague epidemics. In Aceh, the Deli Courant sets up a local paper, which is published on a modest scale, and in February a large expedition goes to Samalanga, to cleanse that land of the irreconcilables. The assistant-resident de Neve is then fatherly-friendly towards me. I had written that a princely ruler was robbing his subjects, and more strange things were happening. De Neve taught me to see that you shouldn’t write that even if it was purely the truth and I could end up in jail that way. A governo! I thought, I had not paid attention to that side of the medal before. As an editor, you’re always with one leg in jail.

My competitor, whom I had as the only opponent entirely to myself, K. Wijbrands, meanwhile leaves the Sumatra Post and the Javanese editors now receive his special attention.

The Deli Courant becomes the newspaper for the Aceh war. We are moving forward. The Muslims begin to stir, forerunner of the S. Islam movement. In the Mosques, prayers are held for the Sultan of Turkey, the legitimate ruler over N.-Indies!

There still existed in those days a circular from resident Scherer (resident after Kroese and Hoos) according to which coolies, who create disturbances and fights, manslaughter etc., could be locked up, but not longer than 24 hours and at the order of the administrator (actually in conflict with the Regulation of the Judiciary at S.O. Coast Staatsblad 1887 No. 48) and everyone was authorized, in case of such a crime, to arrest the suspect and bring him to the Police. That worked as a rule, despite some abuses, quite well. Now that circular was withdrawn! In my opinion, this might have been legally correct — but the repeal has had undesirable consequences. I wrote about that, claimed that there was far too little administrative help for the planters, no Police independent of planters on or near the enterprises (proposal of the Deli. Ct.) and that the unshackled ‘keeping’ (without locking up) and similarly leading to the controller would turn out to be a difficult provision to execute! And so it was.

Guides were attacked by those dangerous criminals, or murdered; they also escaped. That embittered me. In August, I pointed out, I must say afterwards in a rather sharp and unusual way in the Deli Ct., that on Queen’s birthday neither the administrative buildings nor the resident’s dwelling hoisted the flag and neither did H.H. Sultan and other princes in Deli.

The next day our Deli Courant was under censorship — possibly also because I had written that we should point out to the Government if that continued. At that time we sent a mantri from the Police to warn a Batak prince that he must not make robbery raids. I don’t answer, there’s only one answer pil lor (bullets) said the man. And we… swallowed that N.B.! If I were king I sighed sometimes.

As for that censorship, the Javanese Courant wrote that it ‘must be impossible to publish a newspaper under such draconian restriction’ etc. The Deli. Ct. was dressed up as a martyr. But it was bearable.

The Sultan flagged on the national holiday at six places at once, also the Crown Prince and also the head of Administration. We noted it briefly, but did not boast about it further. I then became quite friendly with the old Sultan, who sometimes came riding up late in the evening to have a chat about matters he did not talk about with others, like Religions, occult manifestations, the afterlife, about our State authority, British-India, the Boers…

On Nov. 21, the Penang Gazette says: Isn’t it about time that England deals with Holland and moves the Sultan of Aceh to England (Major van Daalen was just then pursuing the pretender Sultan into the Gajoelands and we see people already calling for a British boycott. In the meantime, the Deli Courant appeared on January 1, 1902, as a Daily. With my friend Herckenrath of the Deli Rail, I submit a plan for the construction of a water supply. Fight quite a bit for more supervision on the health conditions, better Police, better fire brigade.

1902.

In those past years we have advocated for our own water supply, waited for an answer regarding permission to establish a Volunteer Corps, hammered on the safety on the enterprises, for more Police in independent barracks near the enterprises, written about the 4 bahoe-question, about other rights for immigrants and estates, about leprosy danger, rice culture and made a trip to the highlands, experienced that the Deli Rail rapidly expands, requests concessions from Serdang southwards and from TimbangLangkat to Tandjong-Poera and P. Brandan.

Murder and manslaughter, barn fires, an attack by Acehnese on Paya Bilik take place, The Ned. Trading Co. establishes an agency in Singapore, which shows considerable activity. Van Aalst, the later director of the Ned. Trading Co. comes to visit me. I point out the undesirability of ‘Chinese Boarding’ schools and a Japanese attempt. But find no hearing, write therefore a memo to the G.-General. The Administration refuses transportation costs of police aid to planters. ‘Only if urgency can be demonstrated’ they say. The Amsterd. Deli Co. is very upset about this and I am annoyed by this further unwillingness against the insufficiently protected planters, who are prevented from replacing the Police where it is lacking. My director then comes to stay with me. Shortly thereafter invitations await me to come dine with my guests at various planter bigwigs. At one such dinner suddenly the fist of the host comes down on the damask and it sounded heavy and threatening: ‘I recognize no one above me except God’, whereupon a chilling silence …. I said, after some thinking, … ‘Well sir, then I’m still a bit better off, I still have my director in between’. Admitted, immediately admitted that I should never have dared to say that; but I was still always a bit green, I fear I will remain so in such matters! Hoetink comes for inspection in March. Shortly thereafter the assistant-resident says in a circular: For the sake of completeness (?) I inform you that sending shackled can be done in case of serious offense etc. or danger of escape Schwamm drüber. I get a bit of justice. Felt not so green that day.

We get the quick-tourist from Kol on a visit, who held a lecture in the Oranje Hotel, introduced by ds. Bronders and mr. v.d. Brand, who have established a department of the Indian Bond here. (At the founding of that Bond I — fortunately — did not cheer very much). I dared to debate with van Kol about expansion feelings and Sabang and when His Excellency talked about s l a v e r y? and my imperialism humbly pointed to those same Bataklands, where war, extortion, raids, slavery, pawnship and hostile aid to Aceh with weapon delivery were the order of the day. Hence I was for imperialism and annexation.

De Koningh spoke about Coolie emigration and free labor and I, said the fool, about the containment of the leprosy danger. Shortly thereafter, — the lecture by de Koningh, the well-known D.E. Liana, from the Java Bode, had caused quite a stir — mr. v.d. Brand held a lecture about the death penalty, about which jhr. W.v.d. Brandeler, the president of the Landraad and writer of these lines still came into action, pointing among other things to the ‘thou shalt not kill’.

I argue in the Deli Courant the desirability of a road to the highlands and also the controller Westenberg, preferably as resident, but in any case as assistant-resident among the Batakkers! And that road not through Serdang because of the already subdued hinterland, but from Bandar Baroe through the independent (but to be won over) hinterland, straight through to Lake Toba and the West Coast!

In July resident Schaap comes to Medan. Shortly thereafter controller Westenberg can introduce the prince of the Rajalanden to him, as this one offers his subjection. The Deli Crt. points to the clandestine import of weapons through the Tjinkapas, weapons that go to Aceh. In the Straits newspapers the hostile articles against us are rampant.

Every now and then I write against it, in those organs, but it stays as it is. September 29 the Volunteer Corps is established.

And then comes the blow! In November mr. van den Brand’s ‘The millions of Deli’, advocating free labor in Deli (remarkably at a time, I believe, when there were no definite labor contracts yet). The Coolie ordinance is called ethically indefensible, abolition possible, it is unchristian; that is the starting point. In the meantime also the report Hoetink appears in the Netherlands and the Dutch press breaks loose!

The Sumatra Post immediately contests the brochure, the Deli Courant is silent for three days and then gives a review, in which the great generalization and the lack of dates with the facts are contested, the introduction of free labor as the future downfall of Deli is named, but admitted, that there are mistakes, which can be corrected, among other things by a special and greatly expanded Police, better and more interpreters, more control, but also more help for the planters.

In the Deli Courant come well a sign how serious the times were, almost no letters to the editor. The Deli Courant and its editor had hard times. Hundreds of subscribers were angry with me, because I did not take mr. v.d. Brand personally under the magnifying glass but had to agree with him on some points. Even from Holland I got reproaches. Deen wrote: you don’t blame the Administration enough, W. Cremer, my director thought, that I should have thought more of the planters’ interests. The administration was equally dissatisfied. Nobody loves me is a nice English picture of a terrier, sitting deeply unhappy in its basket. But Buitenzorg gave me a feather in my cap for my calm impartiality with which I was quite pleased. The Deli Courant lost countless subscribers. Time is a good healer. The planters came back. Friend Cremer became good on me again. And the minister of Colonies Theodoor Cremer, on whom the green Amsterdammer had let create a low cartoon (a rather mean picture in which the coolies as slaves with chains around their neck and assistants with a whip, were represented) said the right word: ‘The Indies must not be identified with party politics’.

1903

Former resident P.J. Kooreman holds a rather weak lecture about the burning issue. The Deli Courant brings a very impartial series of articles translated from German on the matter; Deen compares 1933 amusingly with 1888 and the first rumors about an inquiry bring the necessary unrest in Deli.

The Deli Crt. asks (April 27) for a Court of Justice, Police on the Kebon, a Chamber of Commerce or a Trade Association and an information bureau, sends a petition out to sea for much more and better mail (which was later answered and had success). Mr. van den Brand sends a second brochure out to sea, in which he only answers resident Kooreman (a fairly light task).

Colleague Deen sees no salvation in a Court of Justice (which I do not agree with, but keep quiet about). A third brochure by van den Brand appears, in which the writer seems willing to make changes and becomes much more moderate. Everything calms down somewhat. Then the writer of these lines goes to Batavia, accused of …. excusez du peu… scorn, insult and slander but does not stray into jail, because the examining magistrate found, that he had not at all done those ugly things. Thereupon the suspect (writer of these lines) traveled back and began again to fight for his road to the Highlands etc.

If the fruit is ripe… they had said in Batavia, it must fall. It is ripe, I claimed; do it now! But for the time being no troops went into the Highlands.

We got the famous ‘Investigation’ by mr. Rhemrev in August. Some planters were furious about that interference and I have had the greatest respect for the same planters at that time, 99 percent of whom behaved grimly, but dignifiedly with the application of the ‘little means’ at their disposal, such as inferior Chinese interpreters. An odd planter could not master his nerves and it cost him his job. (He was, despite that, very sympathetic to me, the poor v.d.K.!) Who was not sympathetic to me by exception? one head administrator who, (he too was hyper nervous in those days) claimed to have said things differently by phone than they had been reproduced by the Deli Crt. That is the only thing that has really grieved me in Deli

I have meanwhile after the 3rd brochure by van den Brand issued my own opinion, with various ideas for design improvement (‘Labor conditions in Deli’) and do not look back entirely dissatisfied on those difficult times. One fought, one worked, one strove for the good and the interest of the country.

Resident Schaap issued a new Circular in October. Shackled on the 10th was allowed! and… thank God also unshackled, locking up for one night until the next day was no longer a crime. (Of course those are after all quite unlawful makeshifts but one had forgotten before, that the planters stood almost unprotected against thousands of subordinates and the Police was altogether insufficient). Therefore the administration should not have interfered with that, before the evil was remedied and I, who turned out to be right, should have been treated more civilly. I almost forgot to mention just a small concatenation of matters that, with the greatest willingness and help from the sturdy resident Schaap, came about.

There was a lot of leprosy, there was a Chinese and a Sultan’s refuge, both disgusting hovels; the lepers infected the streets, the shopping arcades, the money, made ‘vegetable baskets’, grew vegetables. The Deli Courant, went fiercely against it. And with success, those ‘homes’ were demolished; yes also the vegetable farmers and basket weavers disappeared. Resident S. saw it, worked along! I then also set up the Horticultural Association. Our (healthy) prisoners I borrowed from resident Schaap for garden work and the families sent once a week baboe to buy vegetables as member they were. The lepers now were picked up whenever they were without ‘means of subsistence’ and locked up in a couple of large sheds behind barbed wire. When they came free after 6 weeks, they were, as soon as they had no more money, again taken into that institution. It was pleasant to work with resident Schaap.

On my visit to Java I spoke to prof. Treub about a Fruit Association on Deli. I also set that up. We grew fruit trees, potatoes, strawberries, kohlrabi and vegetables in the mountains and I believe that also still exists.

1904

Since 1902, when major Heidens laid down the pen as correspondent for Aceh for the Deli Crt., I got as correspondent the young officer Colijn, then still captain. Now our ‘strong man’. After his first ‘test of competence’ I wrote: Please write regularly once in 14 days. After his third article I wrote: ‘Please write as often as you like’.

When Fanglima Polim submitted, we got the first picture of it. We lived the life of the troops in Aceh very intensely, then in Deli. Just as we lived intensely with the Boers.

The first money sent to Transvaal came telegraphically from Deli, it was, I believe, f9000! which the Deli Courant sent.

One fine day a skinny, poorly English-speaking man came into my office. He was a Swede, had been an English prisoner and was now free again. Hultin his name was. ‘If I can just earn a dollar a day’ he said Come stay with me and speak little mother tongue I said and then he got a lump in his throat. Three weeks later I had a job for him. ‘Well if it’s just a dollar a day’ he began. ‘Well it’s a bit more’ I said, You can come to the Royal as ‘railway and telephone engineer’. (For years I got a New Year’s card from him).

In those days my: ‘The gradual subjugation and development of Sumatra’ came off the press, a summary of somewhat reworked articles from my beloved Deli Courant. I still attended the daybreak in the East.

The road had not only come, straight ahead over Bandar Baroe where the capable and in the Bataklands so rightly beloved Westenberg was stationed in 1904 at Poerba (he was later also elevated to resident, which he should have been much earlier). Also on the West Coast one reached out to Aceh’s action (which we on the East Coast could also have done safely a year or three earlier!) and the Kolonne de Graaf came back from the Gajoelands via the subdued Pak-Pak and Karo area— to Medan.

I still remember how I rode to resident Schaap in the evening and complained that the Government did not support me in setting up my corps and showed him a telegram to the G.G. ‘Well!’ said the resident ‘but you can’t send it like that’. Spoke it, took a pencil and considerably softened the content… Next day: Government telegram, urgent to the resident, who called me up. ‘Everything will be alright now, I congratulate you ‘ he said. ‘So you see now, how you can get a long way with a kind word, better than such a… ‘ ‘Excuse me resident’ I said ‘but I sent that telegram of mine unchanged’.

I spent the last year with colleague Anton Lievegoed, editor of the Sumatra Post now chief of the Government regarding Dutch press matters, as a gentleman competitor opposite me, worked pleasantly, paid a visit to the Royal at Brandan and was dined out by those same administrative officials and planters, with whom I had quite a bit of a stick (except with van Kempen and Muller of course) and by the officers of my corps and ridden in the salon car of the Sultan to Belawan after which my journey through Br.-India began.

Let me gratefully remember the support with all those wild leaps and new plans always received from the Directorate in The Hague and the exceptionally great cooperation and trust experienced from the Indian Government and the Secretariat (men like de Groot, mr. Nederburgh and others). The Hague, June 8, 1934.