THE ‘SPIRIT OF BERRINGTON HOUSE’

Abstract

During the Pacific War prominent ‘neo-ethicals’ H.J. van Mook, Ch.O. van der Plas and F.D. Holleman established a civil service school in Melbourne, Australia, to train a new generation of Indies administrators who would realise their vision for a post-war Indonesia. Reflecting the ambitions of this post-war future, the school's students would be both Dutch and Indonesian. This study explores the neglected Bestuursschool at Berrington House as a first step in wartime efforts to realise a neo-ethical future for Indonesia. A focus of the study is the experience of two of the school's students; the Ambonese war heroes Julius Tahija and Samuel Jacob. The neo-ethical future for Indonesia would not be realised. The ‘Spirit of Berrington House’ could not successfully negotiate the changes to Indonesian society brought on by the Pacific War.

Notes

¹See Resink (1974: 428–9); Fasseur (1989); Drooglever & Pelita (1991: 29); Mrázek (1994: 116); and Efthymiou (2005: 663–4). Willem Otterspeer (1989: 204) has observed that the ethical policy needs to be distinguished from the so-called ‘Leiden ethical school’.

²Yong Mun Cheong's earlier study of van Mook had an approach not too dissimilar to Frederick's. He too concentrated on van Mook's pre-war vision of Indonesia's future when examining his later behaviour (Yong 1982). The phrase ‘dark chapter’ is J.J.P. de Jong's and his study of van Mook is a most useful companion to Frederick's work (J.J.P. de Jong 1997: esp.190–1).

³Jack Ford (1996) has provided some insights within the broader story of Australian/Dutch wartime relations.

⁴One of the more surprising omissions of Berrington House at the time is to be found in Preger's 1944 study Dutch administration in the Netherlands Indies. The book was written and published in Melbourne but maintained the strange habit of writing about Dutch administration in the present tense with only the occasional admission that the Indies were under Japanese occupation.

⁵Van Mook was replaced as the head of the newly created Netherlands East Indies Commission for Australia and New Zealand by his former colleague in the Bureau for Economic Affairs, Dr Jacob Emile Hoogstraten. Hoogstraten was Director of the Bureau before his evacuation to Australia.

⁶The address noted that after the war a conference would be held, with representatives from all over the Dutch empire, aimed at reconstructing the Kingdom. Reconstruction would be based in ‘complete partnership’ under a Dutch Commonwealth inspired by the United Nation's ‘Atlantic Charter’. See H.F. van Panhuys (1980: 157). Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper (2007: 167) have argued that the future promised in the Queen's 1942 speech actually held less than the colonial reforms promised by the Dutch in 1918.

⁷Colonial administrators had been instructed by the Governor-General to stay at their posts during the Japanese invasion meaning that they were interned by the enemy. Those who did escape had hard questions to answer on their arrival in Australia. For example H.J. Heijnen, an administrator based at Geser in East Seram faced charges in Melbourne for disobeying the Governor-General's instructions. See ‘Memorie van verediging van HJ Heijnen, Gediplomeerd Gezaghebber bij het bb laatstelijk Gezaghebber van Oost-Ceram ca (Afdeeling Amboina Residentie Molukken)’, Ministerie van Kolonien te Londen 1940–1945, 2.10.45 Inv 812, Algemeen Rijksarchief (ARA), The Hague.

⁸A British intelligence report of 1940 noted Visman's close relationship with the Governor-General, See ‘NEI Personalities, 8 October 1940 to 1 July 1942′, WO 106/3305, The National Archives (TNA), Kew. The Visman Commission was formed to consider the Indies’ political future. Its release was drowned out by the onslaught of the Pacific War. For a discussion of the Commission see van den Doel (2001: 59–60).

⁹For an introduction to van Vollenhoven see Kubben (2009). Van Vollenhoven's belief in the emancipation and autonomy of the East Indies informed the ‘ethical’ period in Dutch colonial administration (Nagazume: 1978, 28). Vollenhoven's role in the development of adat law in Indonesia has been the subject of critical analysis, see Burns (1989; 2004). A recent re-examination of van Vollenhoven which problematises such analysis is von Benda-Bechmann & von Benda-Bechmann (2011: 167–95).

¹⁰Van der Plas to van Mook, 18 April 1943, Ministerie van Kolonion te Londen, 1940–1948, 2.10.45 Inv 812, ARA. There are a number of Gonggrijps associated with the Indies colonial administration in the late 1930s. This one is not the noted Indies economist George Lodewijk Gongrijp who spent the war years in the Netherlands.

¹¹The members were Dr van Hoogstraten and a colleague, the economist and former Secretary/Director of the Indies central bank (Javaasche Bank), Dr R.E. Smits, who would become president of the bank in 1946 until his sudden death in 1949.

¹²F.D. Holleman, ‘Verslag aan den Ministerie van Kolonien over de Bestuursopleiding te Melbourne’, 23 September 1943, Ministerie van Kolonien te Londen 1940–1945, 2.10.45, Inv 812, ARA.

¹⁴It is not clear how long Helsoot held this post. A Penjoeloeh article, dated 23 August 1944 lists him as the ‘former head’ of the Malay Department.

¹⁵De Wilde de Ligny was an Engineer who published on Dutch New Guinea in the 1950s.

¹⁶Until his appointment to the Netherlands Indies Supreme Court in February 1939, a lawyer and attorney for the Judicial Council in Semarang (Het nieuws van den dag voor Nederlandsch-Indië, 9 February 1939, p. 3). Originally a Naval Reserve officer, he did much work negotiating the treatment of Dutch and East Indies service personnel under Australian law. See the files of the Ministerie van Marine Marinecommandant Australie, 2.12.26, Inv 99, ARA.

¹⁷Locher was one of the ‘young talented students’ who completed his PhD under the noted anthropologist J.P.B. de Josselin de Jong in 1932. In 1941 he was completing fieldwork in Timor. He worked with Australian commandoes before being evacuated to Australia. He went on to a notable academic career with his work being seen to ‘anticipate many of the basic arguments of Said …’ (Prager 1999: 352).

¹⁸Holleman, ‘Verslag aan den Ministerie van Kolonien over de Bestuursopleiding te Melbourne’.

¹³Influenced by Frederick, Stein Tønnesson (1994: esp. 7–8) has also explored van der Plas' vision.

¹⁹Holleman, ‘Verslag aan den Ministerie van Kolonien over de Bestuursopleiding te Melbourne’.

²⁰Holleman, ‘Verslag aan den Ministerie van Kolonien over de Bestuursopleiding te Melbourne’.

²¹Frederick (1995: 52) notes that van der Plas fought strongly for this unification in Australia but does not identify the Bestuursschool as a practical effect of this effort. Again this viewpoint was universally held amongst neo-ethicals and many other Dutch with interests in the East Indies. Van Mook had long called for the indigenisation of the civil service. The Visman commission had recommended an end to ‘legal racial discrimination’ (see Frey 2004: 88; Ford 1996: 17).

²²Allied Geographical Section, ‘Terrain Study No 38, Aroe Islands”’, 18 November 1942, held in Douglas Macarthur Papers, Box 44, Jean MacArthur Research Center, MacArthur Memorial, Norfolk, Virginia.

²³See Argus, 1 September 1943, 5 (the same report appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald of the same date, p. 7). The report noted Jacob was now studying at the ‘school for NEI civil servants.’

²⁴As well as students and lecturers, the guests were confined to van Aerssen, local senior Dutch/Indies army and navy officers, the school's management committee and spouses of the lecturers and students. The only non-Dutch/Indonesians at the opening were the US Consul-General Dr Walter Foote (who had previously represented the United States in the East Indies) and the Melbourne honorary Dutch consul, the Australian principle of the Batavia Fire and Insurance Company, Colonel F.H. Wright. By September the first course had grown to 27 members with a further 4 arriving in October. F.D. Holleman, ‘Tweede verslag aan den Ministerie van Kolonien over de Bestuursopleiding te Melbourne’, 11 February 1944, Ministerie van Kolonien te Londen 1940-1945, 2.10.45, Inv 812, ARA. It was not until November that the Netherlands Indies Information Service issued a press release to the Australian media announcing the school's existence. Inflating the numbers of the first class, it claimed 50 ‘Indonesian and Dutch nationals who escaped occupied Holland and the Netherlands East Indies, and others from USA, Australia, South Africa and the West Indies — are undergoing special training in colonial administration.’ Clearly unaware of its significance, the Sydney Morning Herald of 18 November 1943 noted that the students were completing ‘an abbreviated and intensified version of the course of colonial administration conducted at the University of Leyden, Holland, for 100 years.’

²⁵Holleman, ‘Tweede verslag aan den Ministerie van Kolonien’.

²⁶Jacob's daughters recall him working on a dictionary. Interview by the author with Ann Tanood and Sister Therese, 22 August 1997 at Glen Waverley, Victoria. Designed and originally used for military purposes, the dictionary would eventually be published in Melbourne (Helsloot 1946).

²⁷The issue of the racial sensibilities of the neo-ethicals has been the subject of prolonged discussion. Debate ranges from Otterspeer's argument that ‘the representatives of the Leiden ethical school can be reproached for many things, but not for racial prejudice’ (Otterspeer 1989: 218) to interpretations that their pronouncements and understandings on racial matters simply masked a paternalistic or orientalist approach that hid their ‘softened’ racism (Frey 2004: 93; Henley & Davidson 2007: 20; Frederick 1995: 60).

²⁸Holleman's own contribution ‘had not been any less important’ according to L. de Jong (1986: 354). Henley and Davidson (2007: 20) have explored Holleman's approach to Adatrecht and noted how he appreciated the ‘communal trait’ with its ‘emphasis on harmony, solidarity, and the good of the community as a whole’.

²⁹Holleman, ‘Tweede verslag aan den Ministerie van Kolonien’.

³⁰Julius Tahija to Jean Walters, 28 June 1942, Private papers of Jean Tahija, Manuscripts Division, National Library of Australia, Canberra, MS9866, Box 1.

³¹Tahija to Walters, 10 May 1943, Tahija Papers.

³²Tahija to Walters, 15 June 1943, Tahija Papers.

³³For a discussion of gelijkgestelde consult Gouda (2008: 18).

³⁴Tanood interview.

³⁵‘Toean Samuel Jacob’, Penjoeloeh, 24 November 1944, p. 1.

³⁶Van Panhuys (1980: 157) argued that during the war years the speech had become ‘the fountainhead of wisdom concerning Dutch policies in the East Indies’.

³⁷‘Toean Samuel Jacob’, Penjoeloeh, 24 November 1944, p. 1.

³⁸Raden Singer had been an Assistant District Officer in the west Javanese regency of Bogor before assuming a District Officer role at Tanah Merah from 1938 to 1943. He was awarded the Meritorious Cross in August 1944 (Penjoeloeh, 13 April 1945).

³⁹‘Hoe Het Is In Indie’ [How it is in the Indies], De Opdracht: Tijdschrift gewijd aan het Nieuwe Indie, 1 June 1945.

⁴⁰ Penjoeloeh, 13 April 1945, notes that Raden Singer stepped down from the Director's role in April 1945 to take up an Assistant Resident's position. It is the case that by at least May 1945 NICA had established a base in Eindhoven (which had been liberated by the Americans as part of Operation Market Garden in late 1944) and was actively recruiting in the Netherlands. An article on ‘Civil recruitment’ which appeared in De Opdracht (22 May 1945) noted that the ‘preparatory work for the reconstruction of Indonesia is carried out in Australia’ and that the Besturrschool ‘with Dutch and Indonesian students’ had built ‘solid foundations’ which would ‘gradually be transferred to the Indies.’ The report noted that 2,630 administrators were required. Those with an ‘Indies background’ were preferred regardless of ‘nationality or race’ and encouraged to apply. Special consideration would be given to ‘Indology’ students and law students with a knowledge of Indies law.

⁴¹Singer to van der Plas, 3 November 1945, Officiele Bescheiden betreffende de Nederlands-Indonesische Betrekkingen 1945-1950, Part 1, 10 August to 8 November 1945, KS 36, Document 294, p. 521.

⁴²Tahija to Walters, undated and 5 August 1945, Tahija Papers.

⁴³Tahija to Walters, 20 September 1945, Tahija Papers.

⁴⁴Tahija to Walters, 6 October 1945, Tahija Papers.

⁴⁵Tahija to Walters, 1 May 1945, Tahija Papers.

⁴⁶Tahija to Walters, undated 1945, Tahija Papers.

⁴⁷See Tahija to Walters, 8 December 1945, Tahija Papers.

⁴⁸Tanood interview.

⁴⁹Annie O'Keefe expressed her fears in a number of media interviews. See for example Sunday Herald, 30 January 1949.

⁵⁰The news of the School had been circulated earlier. See for example Pro patria, 9 October 1944.

⁵¹ Houdt Stand, 5 May 1945.