A Unified Empire of Equal Parts: The Dutch Commonwealth Schemes of the 1920s–40s

Abstract

A few short years after the end of the Second World War, the Dutch colony in the East Indies became the independent Republic of Indonesia. Importantly, the final agreement signed in 1949 also established a Dutch-Indonesian Union, a loose commonwealth connecting the two nations. Contemporary and recent observers alike have dismissed this Union as a last-ditch and ultimately futile effort by the Dutch to maintain their fading imperial authority, but, as this article demonstrates, the commonwealth idea originated years before the events of decolonisation. Exploring the various schemes advanced during the 1930s and 1940s, this article devotes particular attention to the period 1941–45, when members of the Dutch resistance in the German-occupied metropole proposed and debated the Netherlands' imperial future for the benefit of a general public seemingly willing to consider colonial reform. Seen in light of its pre-war and wartime popularity, the commonwealth's post-war appearance hardly seems surprising or desperate. Rather, it emerges as a logical outgrowth of decades-old ideas and developments in both the European Netherlands and the East Indies.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Wm. Roger Louis, Dane Kennedy, Philippa Levine, Jason Parker, Pillarisetti Sudhir, and the members of the National History Center's Third Decolonization Seminar for their guidance and commentary during the early stage of this project. Eveline Buchheim provided critical feedback on this essay and a related paper presented at the European Social Science History Conference in Glasgow, Scotland in April 2012.

Notes

‘Charter of the Transfer of Sovereignty’ and ‘Text of the Hague Statute of Union’, United Nations Delegation Chronological File, Container 46, file 2 (1949 2/4), Jeanne S. Mintz Papers, Manuscript Division of the Library of Congress (hereafter JSM-LoC), Washington, DC; Resultaten van de Ronde Tafel Conferentie. For analysis of the queen's position vis-à-vis the Union, see the English-language discussion provided by Vandenbosch, ‘Netherlands-Indonesian Union’, 6.

Schermerhorn, ‘Nederlandsche Indië of Indonesië’, 186.

Rothermund, Routledge Companion to Decolonization, 248.

Moore, ‘Indonesia’, 334; Vandenbosch, ‘Netherlands-Indonesian Union’, 5.

van Goor, Imperialisme in de marge; Locher-Scholten, ‘Dutch Expansion’.

According to Derksen and Tinbergen, 13.7 per cent of the Netherlands' national income in 1938 derived from the colony, down from 14.7 per cent in 1925–34. Derksen and Tinbergen, ‘Berekeningen over de economische beteekenis van Nederlandsch-Indie voor Nederland’. More recent economic analyses include Dick, Houben, Lindblad and Wie, Emergence of a National Economy; van der Eng, ‘Economic Benefits’; Lindblad, ‘Economic Relationship between the Netherlands and Colonial Indonesia’.

Friend, Blue-Eyed Enemy, 19–20; Gouda, Dutch Culture Overseas, 48.

van Deventer, ‘Een eereschuld’.

Recent scholarship examining the ‘ethical policy’ in theory and practice can be found in de Jong, ‘In het kielzog van Multatuli’; Kuitenbrouwer, ‘Never-Ending Debt of Honor’; Locher-Scholten, Ethiek in fragmenten; Waaldijk and Legêne, ‘Ethische politiek in Nederland’.

Documentation concerning the creation, selection of members and inaugural meeting of the Volksraad is contained in van der Wal, De Volksraad en de Staatkundige Ontwikkeling van Nederlands-Indië, document nos. 54–104 (183–253). For these membership figures, see Ansprenger, Dissolution of the Colonial Empires, 108; Ricklefs, History of Modern Indonesia, 194.

‘Gouverneur-generaal (van Limburg Stirum) aan minister van koloniën (Idenburg), 14 Okt. 1918’, in van der Wal, De Volksraad en de Staatkundige Ontwikkeling, document no. 103 (253).

For a concise but thorough examination of the 1922 constitution and its effects upon colonial policy, see de Graaf, ‘Kalm temidden van woedende golven’, 339–43 (citation at 340).

Benda, ‘Pattern of Administrative Reforms’; Furnivall, Netherlands India, esp. ch. 9; to a lesser extent, van der Kroef, ‘Colonial Indonesia’.

Sandberg, Indië verloren, rampspoed geboren.

As discussed by de Graaf, ‘Kalm temidden van woedende golven’, 256.

Hansen, ‘Dutch East Indies and the Reorientation of Dutch Social Democracy’, esp. 60, 74–76. Additional analyses of the SDAP's colonial position include van Baardewijk, ‘De PvdA van het koninkrijk’; de Keizer, ‘“Mission Impossible”’; van Tuijl, ‘Koloniale politiek in crisistijd’.

Colijn, Koloniale vraagstukken, 59–60.

Drooglever, biographical entry; Taselaar, ‘A.D.A. de Kat Angelino’, 264.

de Kat Angelino, Staatkundig beleid en bestuurszorg. The much-abridged one-volume English-language translation appeared as Colonial Policy.

de Kat Angelino, Staatkundig beleid en bestuurszorg, vol. 2, 721, 724–27; Colonial Policy, vol. 2, 648, 651–53. In discussing this potential commonwealth-type arrangement, de Kat Angelino referred to a ‘Rijksverband’. During the wartime years, however, political thinkers and writers employed the term ‘Gemeenebest’ to describe the potential Dutch commonwealth. In Dutch, the former connotes a specific political arrangement between parts of the Dutch ‘Rijk’ or empire, whereas the latter is a more generalisable term, i.e. the British commonwealth or a commonwealth of nations.

As stated by von Albertini, de Kat Angelino ‘spoke in his comprehensive work of a “Greater Netherlands Commonwealth,” a community of peoples of different civilizations, but without giving more details or discussing institutional issues’:. Von Albertini, Decolonization, 492.

Resink, Indonesia's History, 17; Taselaar, De Nederlandse koloniale lobby, 327–32, and ‘A.D.A. de Kat Angelino’, 280–82.

For the history and work of the Stuw group, see Cheong, H .J. van Mook, 13–23; Locher-Scholten, Ethiek in fragmenten, 118–49.

Cheong, H. J. van Mook, 14–15, 19; Locher-Scholten, Ethiek in fragmenten, 122–23, 146–49.

Abeyasekere, ‘The Soetardjo Petition’ and One Hand Clapping, 3–4; Ricklefs, History of Modern Indonesia, 228–29; for Dutch responses to the Soetardjo Petition, see the documentation contained in van der Wal, De Volksraad en de Staatkundige Ontwikkeling, nos 55–64 (219–318), document nos. 76–80 (377–98).

‘Gouverneur-generaal (Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer aan minister van koloniën (Welter), 14 sept. 1938’, in van der Wal, De Volksraad en de Staatkundige Ontwikkeling, document no. 78 (382–90).

Abeyasekere, One Hand Clapping, 50–57, 70–72; Ricklefs, History of Modern Indonesia, 230–32; ‘Secretariaat van de Gapi aan gouverneur-generaal (Tjarda van Starkenborgh Stachouwer), 9 aug. 1940’ and ‘Minister van koloniën (Welter) aan de Koningin, 13 feb. 1941’, in van der Wal, De Volksraad en de Staatkundige Ontwikkeling, document nos. 103 (523–24) and 124 (570–72), respectively.

For two recent analyses premised on German conquest as imperialist project, see Baranowski, Nazi Empire; Mazower, Hitler's Empire.

Document 740.0011 European War 1939/2928, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1940, vol. 2, 731.

My analysis of these clandestine discussions draws upon the work of five leading political organisations in the German-occupied Netherlands: Het Parool, Vrij Nederland, De Waarheid, Je Maintiendrai and Trouw. These publications, plus scores of others, form part of the ‘Illegale Pers Collectie’ 556, at the NIOD Institute for War, Holocaust and Genocide Studies (hereafter NIOD), Amsterdam.

De Keizer's recent and long-awaited biography, Frans Goedhart, journalist en politicus (1904-1990) is presently available only in the Netherlands and therefore could not be consulted for the purposes of my article.

‘Naar grooter eenheid van ons rijk. De banden met Indonesië dienen versterkt te worden. Democratiseering van Indië's staatsbestel is noodzakelijk’, Het Parool, 27 Dec. 1941, 4–5.

‘Dominion Indonesië: Vrije en gelijkwaardige Bondgenooten tusschen de Volkeren,’ Het Parool, 28 May 1943, 7.

‘Na onze bevrijding die van Indonesië: Nederland bezinne zich op zijn taak’, Het Parool, 30 Oct. 1943, 1–2.

Hoekman, biographical entry for Petrus Johannes Schmidt. See, too, Hansen, ‘The Dutch East Indies and the Reorientation of Dutch Social Democracy’, 70–76; van Tuijl, ‘Koloniale politiek in crisistijd’, 47–50.

‘Nederland-Indie (Slot)’, Vrij Nederland 2 no. 13 (1942): 7–8.

Ibid.

See, for instance, ‘Wilhelmina Plans Autonomy Abroad: “Commonwealth” of Homeland, Indies, Curacao and Surinam to Have Internal Freedom’, New York Times, 7 Dec. 1942, 11; ‘The Netherlands: Brave New Commonwealth’, Time, 14 Dec. 1942, 46; more recently, Mazower, The Dark Continent, 195–96.

The complete Dutch-language version of the 7 Dec. 1942 speech appears in Schenk and Spaan, De Koningin Sprak, 54–57.

Speech of 10 May 1941, in Schenk and Spaan, De Koningin Sprak, 20–23.

‘Statement of the Netherlands Government Announcing the Calling of a Post-War Reconstruction Conference Composed of Representatives from All Parts of the Kingdom’, in Holborn, War and Peace Aims, 512–13.

For these and other cabinet discussions concerning the queen's speech, see Fasseur, ‘Een wissel op de toekomst’, and the slightly revised English-language version, ‘A Cheque Drawn on a Failing Bank’.

Fasseur, ‘Een wissel op de toekomst’, 271.

Ibid., 271–72, 275–76; Cheong, H. J. van Mook, 28–30.

Fasseur, ‘Een wissel op de toekomst’, 272–75.

‘Vorstel van een koninklijke proclamatie—Commissie-Visman’, in van der Wal, De Volksraad en de Staatkundige Ontwikkeling, document nos. 114–23 (536–70). The Visman Commission's report appeared in two volumes: Verslag van de Commissie tot Bestudeering van Staatsrechtelijke Hervorming. See, too, Fasseur, ‘Een wissel op de toekomst’, 268; de Jong, Het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden, 562–71; Kemperman, Introduction to Collapse of a Colonial Society, 28–29.

See, for instance,‘Dominion Indonesië: Vrije en gelijkwaardige Bondgenooten tusschen de Volkeren’, Het Parool, 28 May 1943, 7.

For further discussion of this enduring ‘American anti-imperialism’ idea, particularly as it concerned the Dutch empire and the East Indies/Indonesia, see Gouda, American Visions, 26–27; Homan, ‘The Netherlands, the United States and the Indonesian Question’, 124–25, and ‘The United States and the Netherlands East Indies’, 434–35; McMahon, Colonialism and Cold War, 43–44.

Dutch commonwealth supporters did not look to France as a model, and General Charles de Gaulle's Brazzaville Conference of early 1944 and tentative proposals for a post-war ‘French Union’ did not resound in the occupied Netherlands. Nor were these Dutch resisters especially concerned with the federalist idea that characterised British post-war planning for Malaya, for instance. Although a crucial sticking point between the Netherlands and Sukarno's Republic of Indonesia in the immediate post-war years, the federalist versus unitary structure debate did not play a major role in Dutch clandestine discussions. For British planning and developments in Malaya, see Stockwell, ‘Colonial Planning during World War II’.

‘Nederlandse-Indië na de oorlog’, De Waarheid, 1 May 1943, 5.

See, for instance, ‘De Toekomst van ons Nederland: Indonesië en Nederland’, Vrij Nederland 3 no. 12, 30 July 1943, 4–5, and the same organisation's Ons Gemeenebest, 19–20, contained in the ‘Illegale Brochures, 1940–1945’ collection, NIOD.

For van Randwijk's relationship with Setyadjit, see Mulder and Koedijk, H.M. van Randwijk, 337–38, and, for further discussion of Indonesian involvement in clandestine activity, see Foray, Visions of Empire, 180–86.

‘Indonesië-Nederland’, De Vrije Katheder, 13 Sept. 1943, excerpted in Schermerhorn, ‘Nederlandsche Indië of Indonesië’, 150–51.

‘Indië’, Je Maintiendrai 3 no. 3, 5 Aug. 1943, 4.

‘Indonesie en het Nederlandsch geweten’, Je Maintiendrai, Christmas 1943, 8–9.

‘Buitenlandsche overzicht: Het Britsche “Empire”’, Je Maintiendrai 4 no. 17, May 1944, 7.

Ons Gemeenebest, issued by Je Maintiendrai, July 1944.

‘Onze strijd om Indië’, Trouw 1 no. 8, 20 July 1943, 1; Trouw's special ‘Indies Edition’ of late December 1943, issued in both a Dutch-language version—intended for domestic consumption—and an English-language edition, intended for export to the Allies.

See, for instance, ‘De Bevrijding van Indonesië: Een verklaring der Verzetsbeweging’, Het Parool 5 no. 96, 24 April 1945; ‘Verklaring Indonesië’, Je Maintiendrai 5 no. 21 (Bevrijdingsnummer), May 1945, 15.

From September 1944 to April 1945, Ons Volk members distributed 20,000 to 30,000 copies of their ‘Indies Survey’. By 1 April 1945, the closing date of the survey, a total of 3,174 completed questionnaires had been returned to Ons Volk, with a few hundred additional ones arriving in the weeks and months to come. The organisation then completed an extensive statistical analysis of the survey results. Rapport over de Enquete inzake Indonesie, ‘Collectie Onderzoekingen—Ondergrondse Pers 1376’, Ons Volk files (263-7e), Doc II Collection, ‘Nederlands-Indië’, 482-A, Files 2 and 3, NIOD.

English-language studies of the Indonesian Revolution focusing on this early phase include Chauvel, Nationalists, Soldiers and Separatists; Elson, ‘Another Look at the Jakarta Charter Controversy’, and The Idea of Indonesia, esp. ch. 3; Feith, Decline of Constitutional Democracy in Indonesia; Feith and Castles, Indonesian Political Thinking; Kahin, ‘Sukarno's Proclamation’ and Nationalism and Revolution in Indonesia, 141–45; McMahon, Colonialism and Cold War, 74–113; Palmier, Indonesia and the Dutch, 46–53; Reid, The Indonesian National Revolution, 19–58; Schiller, Formation of Federal Indonesia.

For van Mook's participation in the various talks, meetings and negotiations of 1945–49, see Cheong's detailed study, H. J. van Mook. Van Mook's personal rendering of these developments appears in his Stakes of Democracy, chs 10–14.

Charter of the Transfer of Sovereignty and Text of the Hague Statute of Union: United Nations Delegation Chronological File, Container 46, file 1 (1949 2/4), JSM-LoC.

The seminal work on this conflict remains Lijphart's Trauma of Decolonization. See, too, Penders' recent West New Guinea Debacle.

The Information Office of the Republic of Indonesia's detailed statement of late January 1951, entitled ‘Dutch-Indonesian Relations: Dutch Stubbornness on the West New Guinea Issue Endangers The Netherlands-Indonesian Union’, clearly explicated the Indonesian stance as of early 1951: United Nations Delegation Chronological File, Container 52, file 3, JSM-LoC.

‘Agreement for Dissolution of Netherlands-Indonesian Union’ (signed 10 August 1954) in News Digest from Holland, 20 Aug. 1954, East Indies Box 3; ‘Netherlands Informs United Nations of Unilateral Abrogation of Union by Indonesia’, 24 Feb. 1956, United Nations Box 1; ‘Development of the Netherlands-Indonesian Relations 1950–1960’, Sept. 1960, East Indies Box 2; all included in the Netherlands Information Service collection, Holland Museum Archives in Holland, Michigan, USA.