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The Visible Hand in Tempo Doeloe: The Culture of Management and the Organization of Business in Java's Colonial Sugar Industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Roger Knight
Roger Knight
Affiliation:
University of Adelaide
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Extract

This article develops an argument about the business culture and managerial organization of the colonial Indonesian sugar industry. It argues that developments in both spheres during the third quarter of the nineteenth century — largely ignored in the relevant research literature — played an appreciable role in assuring the industry's survival in the crisis conditions of the 1880s, when the world price of sugar fell dramatically. An important explanation of such changes, it will be suggested, is to be found in the technological progress which took place in some sectors of the industry from the 1840s onward. This development, delineated here in terms of a “colonization” of the sugar factory or fabriek, began to set the industry apart from the dominant colonial socio-cultural environment in which it was situated, and to prefigure an ethos more commonly associated with the final decades of Dutch colonial rule in the Indies. A nascent business culture was paralleled, moreover, by changes to the ways in which both the fabriek itself and the industry in general were run — changes which pointed to the early growth of a specifically managerial type of enterprise within an industry where such developments have usually been allocated to the closing decades rather than the third quarter of the nineteenth century. Taken together, as will be argued, the two developments — however embryonic — formed one of the foundations which enabled the colonial sugar industry to survive a perìod of severe crisis in the mid-1880s and resume a vigorous expansion by the century's end.

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Articles
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Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 30 , Issue 1 , March 1999 , pp. 74 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1999

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References

An earlier version of this paper was given at the Centre for Asian Studies, Amsterdam, in September 1994. I am particularly grateful to Professor Jan Breman for his encouragement to pursue the idea of “colonizing” the, fabriek, to Professor Heather Sutherland for chairing what proved to be a most stimulating seminar and to Professor Frans Husken for his suggestions. Research for the paper was made possible by support from the University of Adelaide's Study Leave Fund and the generosity of friends in The Hague, Amsterdam and London.

1 Blusse, Leonard, Strange Company: Chinese Settlers, Mestizo Women, and the Dutch in V.O.C. Batavia (Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1986), pp. 73–96Google Scholar; Nagtegaal, Luc, Riding the Dutch Tiger: The Dutch East India Company and the Northeast Coast of Java 1680–1743 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1996), pp. 137–41Google Scholar.

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3 Sweeteners of various kinds, including cane and palm sugar, were made commercially on a variety of scales and in different locations in nineteenth-century Java. The reference here is to those factories which operated on contract to the Indies Government in the period 1830-C.1880 (when contractual arrangements began to be phased out) and other European-run factories, which until the 1880s accounted for a lesser, though increasing, part of the output of the industry's ‘colonial’ sector.

4 Major monographs include Elson, , Village Java Under the Cultivation SystemGoogle Scholar; Fasseur, , The Politics of Colonial ExploitationGoogle Scholar; Elson, R.E., Javanese Peasants and the Colonial Sugar Industry: Impact and Change in an East Java Residency, 1830–1940 (Singapore: Oxford University Press, 1984)Google Scholar; Fernando, M.R., “Peasants and Plantation: The Social Impact of the European Plantation Economy in Cirebon Residency from the Cultivation System to the End of the First Decade of the Twentieth Century” (Ph.D. diss., Monash University, 1982)Google Scholar; Breman, Jan, Control of Land and Labour in Colonial Java (Dordrecht: Foris Publications, 1983)Google Scholar; Soetrisno, Loekman, “The Sugar Industry and Rural Development: The Impact of Cane Cultivation for Export on Rural Java, 1830–1934” (Ph.D. diss., Cornell University, 1980)Google Scholar; Suryio, Djoko, “Social and Economic Life in Rural Semarang Under Colonial Rule in the Later Nineteenth Century” (Ph.D. diss., Monash University, 1982)Google Scholar; Van der Eng, Pierre, “Agricultural Growth in Indonesia since 1880” (Ph.D. diss., Rijksuniversiteit, Groningen, 1993)Google Scholar; Van Niel, Robert, Java Under the Cultivation System (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1992)Google Scholar.

5 At least partly as the result of oversupply fostered by world-wide competition between cane and beet production, international sugar prices, which had been experiencing a secular decline since the 1860s, suddenly fell to an historic low in 1884 and remained there for more than a decade. For a brief introduction, see Crisis and Change in the International Sugar Economy 1860–1914, ed. Albert, Bill and Graves, Adrian (Norwich: ISC Press, 1984), pp. 1–9Google Scholar.

6 T.G. Edwards to Batavia Factorij of the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij [NHM], 26.12.1860, enclosure in Batavia Factorij to NHM Amsterdam, 2.1.1861/915. Subsequent letters in this series (all Tweede Afdeeling) are referred to as “Factorij to Amsterdam”. They come from the archives of the Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij, held in the Algemeen Rijksarchief, The Hague [hereafter ARA]. All NHM-related documents cited in the notes come from the ARA, and location will only be cited subsequently where identification of a specific manuscript might otherwise be problematic. The following abbreviations are in use in the notes below in relation to NHM manuscripts: NFB refers to Notulen NHM Factorij Batavia, and JFB refers to Jaarverslag NHM Factorij Batavia. On the NHM, see below.

7 In broad terms, this is a reading of the industry's history which has scarcely been revised since it was given wide circulation more than half a century ago by Furnivall, J.S., Netherlands India. A Study of Plural Economy (London: Cambridge University Press, 1939 [1967]), pp. 198–99Google Scholar.

8 Taylor, J.G., The Social World of Batavia: European and Eurasian in Dutch Asia (Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), p. 106Google Scholar.

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10 A key publication was de Nijs, E. Breton, Tempo Doeloe. Fotografische Documenten uit het Oude Indie, 1870–1914 (Amsterdam: Querido, 1961)Google Scholar, along with the subsequent series of photoalbums celebrating Tempo Doeloe, edited by him, which appeared in the Netherlands during the 1960s and 1970s. An un-romanticised photographic version of Tempo Doeloe appeared in Vanvugt, E., Een Propagandist van het zuiverste water. H.F. Tillema (1870–1952) en het fotographie van Tempo Doeloe (Amsterdam: Jan Mets, 1993)Google Scholar. On the literary aspect of Tempo Doeloe, see Beekman, E.M., “Dutch Colonial Literature: Romanticism in the Tropics”, Indonesia 34 (1982): 17–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beekman, E.M., “Introduction”, in Nieuwenhuijs, Rob, Mirror of the Indies: a History of Dutch Colonial Literature (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1982)Google Scholar; Beekman, E.M., “Introduction”, in Daum, P.A., Ups and Downs of Life in the Indies (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

11 Beekman, , “Introduction”, in Nieuwenhuijs, , Mirror of the IndiesGoogle Scholar.

12 Chandler, A.D., The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business (Cambridge, Mass.: Bellknap Press, 1977), pp. 1–12Google Scholar.

13 See, for example, Locke, R.E., The Collapse of the American Management Mystique (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 For a wide-ranging critical discussion of Chandler's oeuvre, see Supple, Barry, “Scale and Scope: Alfred Chandler and the Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism”, Economic History Review XLIV (1991): 500–514Google Scholar. Chandler himself, of course, subsequently extended the purview of the Visible Hand to embrace a comparative analysis of American, British and German models of business organization; see his Scale and Scope: The Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism (Cambridge, Mass.: Bellknap Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

15 For example, Griffiths, J., “‘Give My Regards to Uncle Billy…’: The Rites and Rituals of Company Life at Lever Brothers c.1900-c.1990”, Business History 37, 37 (1995): 1–2CrossRefGoogle Scholar. “Chandler has suggested … that corporate success was predominantly due to the efficient configuration of organizational structure and scale. Chandler's framework has significantly overlooked the ‘softer’ cultural side of organizations which may play an equally vital role in achieving high performance”.

16 For a particularly vigorous attack (from which the quotation comes), see the anonymous article “Een Gunstige Suikercampagne”, in Tijdschrijft voor Nederlandsch Indie, Reeks, Nieuwe 12, 1 (1883): 260–61Google Scholar.

17 Hudig, J., Suikerlords (Amsterdam: Kampen, 1886)Google Scholar.

18 Schmalhausen, H.E.B., Over Java en de Javanen (Amsterdam: van Kampen, 1909), pp. 85–86Google Scholar. A similar note was to be struck by Wertheim, W.F., fifty years later, in his ground-breaking survey of Indonesian Society in Transition (2nd ed.) (W. van Hoeve: The Hague, 1959), pp. 247–49Google Scholar. For a more recent, though largely identical characterisation, see Fernando, “Peasants and Plantation”, p. 321, and Elson, R.E., “The Social Impact of the Western Sugar Industry on the Peasantry of the Pasuruan Area, East Java, from the Cultivation System to the Great Depression” (Ph.D. diss., Monash University, 1978), p. 288Google Scholar.

19 Knight, G.R., Colonial Production in Provincial Java: The Sugar Industry in Pekalongan-Tegal, 1800–1942 (Amsterdam: V.U. Press, 1993)Google Scholar.

20 Pieter Adriaan van Blommestein (b. Batavia 1823 d. Batavia 1896) and his father Hermanus van Blommestein (b. Delft 1791 d. Pekalongan 1864). See the relevant entries in Nederland's Patriciaat 55 (1969): 61Google Scholar; Nederland's Adelsboek 30 (1932): 229–30Google Scholar; van der Wall, V.I., Indische Landhuizen en hun Geschiedenis (Batavia: Kolff, 1932), p. 96Google Scholar; Jhr MrBaud, W.A., De Semi-Officiele en Particuliere Briefwisseling tussen J.C. Baud en J.J. Rochussen (3 vols., Assen: Van Gorkum, 1983), 1, p. 130Google Scholar.

21 Colonial-era spellings of sugar factory names have been retained throughout the text which follows.

22 Stoler, “Carnal Knowledge”, p. 74.

23 For brief notes on Be (1826–1904), who was “Major China” at Semarang and a leading “farmer” of the Netherlands Indies Government's opium monopoly, see Salmon, Claudine, “Ancestral Hall, Funeral Associations and Attempts at Resinicization in Nineteenth Century Netherlands India”, in Sojourners and Settlers. Histories of Southeast Asia and the Chinese, ed. Reid, Anthony (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1996), p. 191Google Scholar; Rush, James R., Opium to Java: Revenue Farming and Chinese Enterprise in Colonial Indonesia, 1860–1910 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1990)Google Scholar.

24 [extract] NHM Batavia Factorij to Amsterdam 22.7.1881. Dossiers Cultuurzaken. Wonopringo & Kalimatie NHM 3681.

25 Wachlin, Steven, Woodbury & Page. Photographers Java (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1994), pp. 104, 124, 127Google Scholar.

26 Rush, , Opium, pp. 77–78, 94Google Scholar.

27 Mankunegara IV (d.1881) was the ruler of the Mankunegaran “principality” in Surakarta from 1853 to 1881. For details of his business interests, see Houben, V.J.H., Kraton and Kumpeni. Surakarta and Yogyakarta, 1830–1870 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1994), pp. 98, 281–83, 301Google Scholar.

28 Buddingh, S.A., Nederlands Oost-Indie. Reizen over Java … gedaan gedurende het tijdvaak van 1852–1857 (2 vols., Rotterdam: Wijt, 1859), 1, p. 158Google Scholar.

29 See for example, the exchange between H.J. Lion and H. van Blommestein: Lion, H.J., “Beordeeling der Verhandeling over het Verbeterde Suikerfabriekaat op Java, door H. van Blommestein”, Tijdschhft voor Nederlandsch Indie 8, 1 (1846): 219–57Google Scholar; van Blommestein, H., “Vermeerde en Verbeterde Verhandling over de Suiker-Fabriekaat”, Tijdschrift voor Nederlandsch Indie 8, 1 (1846): 348–66Google Scholar and 8,2 (1846): 99–125. Pieter Adriaan evidently grasped the futility of this and introduced new machinery at Kalimatie — by which point it was virtually de rigueur at all but the most retrograde of factories.

30 Everts to Factorij 13.5.1881 — in Dossiers Cultuurzaken. Wonopringo & Kalimatie NHM. 3681.

31 Fasseur, Cornelis's chapter on “Sugar and Scandal”, in The Politics of Colonial Exploitation, pp. 185–206Google Scholar — first penned in 1975 — remains obligatory reading on the whole subject of midnineteenth-century proprietorship. See further, Leidelmeijer, Margaret, “Van Suikermolen tot Grootbedrijf. Technische Vernieuwing in de Java-Suikerindustrie in de Negentiende Eeuw” (Ph.D. diss., Technische Universiteit Eindhoven, 1997), pp. 155–70Google Scholar; Nederland's Adelsboek 12 (1914): 342–45Google Scholar; Nederland's Patriciaat 44 (1958): 168–78Google Scholar; Baud, , Briefwisseling, 1, pp. 161–62Google Scholar.

32 Buddingh, , Nederlands Oost-Indie, 1, p. 148Google Scholar.

33 The information comes, however, from a bitter diatribe against the whole Lucassen “connection” in Director of Cultivations [hereafter DC] G. Umbgrove to Governor-General Netherlands India [hereafter GG] 3.5.1859/1872/2 in Exh. 20.10.1859/17. ARA Archief Ministerie van Kolonien [hereafter Kolonien].

34 Kortenhorst, J., “Eduard Douwes Dekker in den Haag”, Jaarboek Die Haghe (1969): 88–89Google Scholar.

35 He was Nicholas Anthony Holmberg de Beckfelt (b. Tjandjoer 1828). NFB 12.12.1863/889 & 2.1.1864/897.

36 NFB 5.12.1860/668.

37 On the Greek merchant family of Vitali/Vitalis and its connections in Paris (at the time of the Greek War of Independence in the 1820s), see Dakin, D., The Greek Struggle for Independence 1821–1833 (London: Batsford, 1971), pp. 157–89Google Scholar. For Louis Vitalis himself, see ‘Extract uit de Memorie aantoonende den gang van de Suikeronderneming Sragie… 1839 tot… 1857’ Verbaal 9.8.1861/12 ARA Kolonien; Besluiten GG 1.2.1840/6 & 23.3.1840/1 ARA Kolonien; Resident Pekalongan to Director Cultivations, 24.4.1861/809 Exh. 2149/2 Arsip Nasional Republik Indonesia, Jakarta (hereafter AN) Arsip Cultures 467; Politiek Verslag Pekalongan 1860:5 and 1861:5 AN Arsip Pekalongan; Exh. 8.1.1863/1 ARA Kolonien; Anon, Wanbeheer der Suikerfabriek Sragie (The Hague: [unidentified publisher], 1878), pp. 3–33Google Scholar; Vitalis, L., Nog een Word over het Voorstel van Vrijen Arbeid en van Uitbesteding der Kontracten op Java (The Hague: [unidentified publisher], 1859), pp. 7–8Google Scholar.

38 Adas, Michael, Machines as the Measure of Man: Science, Technology and the Ideologies of Western Dominance (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1989)Google Scholar.

39 Gouda, F.G., Dutch Culture Overseas: Colonial Practice in the Netherlands Indies, 1900–1942 (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 1995), p. 22CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 Stoler, A.L., “Rethinking Colonial Categories: European Communities and the Boundaries of Rule”, Comparative Studies in Society and History 31 (1989): 136CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

41 Westall, O.M., “British Business History and the Culture of Business”, in Business History and Business Culture, ed. Godley, A. and Westall, O.M. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1996), pp. 25, 43Google Scholar.

42 For a recent revival of debate about the impact of cultural values on business performance, see Godley, A. and Westall, O.M., “Introduction”, in Business History and Business Culture, pp. 1–20Google Scholar.

43 Edwards to Factorij, 24.12.1860, in Factorij to Amsterdam 2.1.1861/915.

44 Mansvelt, W.M.F.'s pioneering study, Geschiedenis van de Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappij (2 vols.) (Haarlem: Joh. Enschede, 1924)Google Scholar, still stands as the only authoritative work on the firm.

45 For a brief account, see Mansvelt, , Geschiedenis, 2, pp. 364–66Google Scholar. The detailed data is to be found in the already-cited correspondence between the Batavia Factorij and the NHM's Amsterdam Head Office.

46 Factorij to Amsterdam 24.6.1850/24 & 24.7.1850/29.

47 The central developments over time in the manufacturing sector of the world sugar economy C.1830-C.1890 were the appearance in the boiling house first of the vacuum pan in the penultimate stages of the manufacturing process, in a varying degree of association with steam-heated, heatexchanging methods of prior clarification and reduction of cane juice (type A) and second of fullyintegrated, “continuous” systems of clarification and reduction, based on related steam-heat/heatexchange principles and usually described as Triple, Quadruple or Multiple Effect apparatus (type B). One of the most widely used, full-fledged varieties of type (A) was manufactured by the European firm of De Rosne & Cail. In 1848, prior to their reconstruction of Wonopringo, the NHM identified nine partial or complete (A) systems operating in Java, including five more or less complete ones in Tegal; see “Opgave wegens de op Java werkende suikerfabrieken (Batavia: 1848)” in NHM no. 9506. Type (B) machinery had been installed at almost all of the colonial sugar factories in Pekalongan prior to the crisis of 1884, with the notable exception of Sragie and Tjomal. The factories concerned and dates of installation were as follows (the source of the information is the Koloniaal Verslag [subsection: Suiker] for the corresponding year, unless otherwise indicated): Sf. Pangka 1877; Sf. Kalimatie 1877; Sf. Adiwerna 1878; Sf. Kemanglen 1879; Sf. Wonopringo 1879 (Dossiers Wonopringo & Kalimatie NHM 3681); Sf. Pagongan 1880; Sf. Djatibarang 1880; Sf. Doekoewringin 1881; Sf. Kemantran 1882 (JFB 57 [1882]: 49 NHM); Sf. Balapoelang c.1883. (Jaarverslag Nederlandsch Indisch Handelsbank 1882: 10 ARA Archief NIHB) Sf. Klidang — on order and due to be installed in 1884 (JFB 58 [1883]: 51–52); Sf. Lemahabang installed sometime prior to the 1884 Campaign (“Vervolg Nota…” Bijl Batavia Factorij to Amsterdam 5.11.1884/224. Ingekomen Brieven Cultuurzaken 1884 NHM 3640); Sf. Tirto 1884 (“Overzicht van de installatie van Sf. Tirto…” c.1905 NHM 3122 file 581). On the technology of sugar worldwide during the “long” nineteenth century, see Galloway, J.H., The Cane Sugar Industry. An Historical Geography to 1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), pp. 120–42Google Scholar. On the situation in the Netherlands Indies in particular, see Leidelmeijer, “Suikermolens”.

48 The majority of mid-nineteenth-century Java's Chinese population were mestizo or peranakan individuals — like many of the colony's “Dutch” — of mixed ethnicity and acculturated to varying degrees. See for example, G.W. Skinner, “Creolized Chinese Societies”.

49 NFB 31.12.1844/669.

50 Factorij to Amsterdam 26.4.1854/284 & 23.5.1854/291. For other contemporary evidence of the continued Chinese presence in the factories in the 1850s and 1860s, see, e.g., Tichelaar, J.J., “De Exploitatie eener Suikerfabriek, Zestig Jaar Geleden”, Archief voor de Suikerindustrie in Nederlandsch-Indie 33, 1–2 (1925): 267Google Scholar; and Jhr MrGevers Deynoot, W.T., Herinneringen eener Reis naar Nederlandsch Indie in 1862 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1864), p. 17Google Scholar.

51 de Nijs, Breton, Tempo Doeloe, p. 61Google Scholar. Breman, Jan, Taming the Coolie Beast. Plantation Society and the Colonial Order in Southeast Asia (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1989), p. 84Google Scholar, quotes an account of East Coast Sumatra plantations toward the end of the nineteenth century which makes reference to the “ridiculous European hat” worn by Chinese supervisors.

52 Factorij to Amsterdam 7.2.1860/814.

53 NFB 20.4.1861/687.

54 JFB 35 (1859–60): 252. In fact, Edwards had been born in Whitchurch (Shropshire?) and would hence have regarded England rather than Scotland as home: See Politiek Verslag Pekalongan 1855. Bijl. A “Staat der Europeesche Bevolking”, AN Arsip Pekalongan.

55 NFB 1.2.1854/109.

56 NFB 1.2.1854/109.

57 Hence in 1861 it was the Java-born W.F. Burer and CD. Hartog who were at the lowest end of a salary scale for the personnel at Wonopingo. Salaries ranged from 75 to 500 guilders per month. Politiek Verslag Pekalongan 1855 Bijl. A, Staat der Europeesche Bevolking. AN Arsip Pekalongan; NFB 18.7.1856/245; NFB 15.11.1861/741.

58 Potentially illuminating snippets of observations, such as that which in the early 1880s ascribed the success of one particular Java sugar factory to the fact that the personnel were entirely “fullbloods” (Lisse, LH., “Een Bezoek aan de Vrije Suikerfabriek Soekodono”, Tijdschrift voor Nijverheid en Landbouw in Nederlandsch Indie 27 [1883]: 123–24Google Scholar) and the remarks of later commentators that Eurasians were unlikely to be found among the key personnel of the big sugar companies of the Java lowlands (van Klaveren, J.J., The Dutch Colonial System in the East Indies [Rotterdam: Nijhoff, 1953], pp. 169–70Google Scholar), would benefit from further investigation.

59 The late colonial era in the Netherlands Indies was characterized by what van Doom, J.J.A. has termed “totofc-isation”, in his A Divided Society. Segmentation and Mediation in Late-Colonial Indonesia (Rotterdam: Erasmus Universiteit, Comparative Asian Studies Programme, 1983)Google Scholar. See also van Doom, J.J.A., De Laaste Eeuw van Indie (Amsterdam: Bakker, 1994)Google Scholar. Totoks — as distinct from Blijvers or long-term, often multi-generational settlers — were those Europeans who, bom and educated in Holland, clung firmly to their expatriate status as strictly temporary sojourners in Indonesia. For an extensive recent discussion of the late colonial mentality, see Gouda, , Dutch Culture Overseas, pp. 10–74Google Scholar.

60 Breman, , Taming the Coolie Beast, p. 194Google Scholar.

61 Gouda, , Dutch Culture Overseas, pp. 5–6Google Scholar.

62 Politiek Verslag Pekalongan 1855. Bijl A: Staat der Europeesche Bevolking. AN Arsip Pekalongan; NFB 22.9.1857/333.

63 On leaving the service of the NHM in 1852, Edwards' predecessor and his family were given free passage to Surabaya on a company ship, and arrangements were made to transfer funds to a European-domiciled child [NFB 9.6.1852/63]. Wonopringo's chief mechanic got married in 1860 while in the service of the NHM [NFB 7.1.1860/549]. In March 1865, Edwards's successor was allowed two weeks leave to visit his family in Japara [NFB 6.3.1865/1042]. There is, however, no mention of a widow or children in the Factorij's (surviving) record at the time of his sudden death in June 1867 [NFB 22.6.1867/1280].

64 On the priyayi and their progressive bureaucratization under the aegis of the Netherlands Indies State, see Sutherland, Heather, “The Priyayi”, Indonesia 19 (1975): 57–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and The Making of a Bureaucratic Elite: The Colonial Transformation of the Javanese Priyayi (Singapore: Heinemann, 1979)Google Scholar.

65 Rapport J.P. Teengs 27.6.1850 in Factorij to Amsterdam 24.7.1850/29.

66 Factorij to Director of Cultivation 31.1.1857/48 in Factorij to Amsterdam 11.3.1857/533.

67 See in particular the entry under “Cooly” in Sir Yule, Henry, Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases by Henry Yule and A.C. Burnell, ed. Crooke, William (London: John Murray, 1903)Google Scholar; Encylopaedie van Nederlandsch Oost-Indië (8 vols., The Hague: Nijhoff, 1917–1939), 2, p. 360Google Scholar. For a more extensive discussion of the evolution of the usage of the term “coolie” in nineteenth-century Java, see my “Coolie or Worker? Crossing the Lines in Colonial Java, 1780–1942” (forthcoming).

68 Yule, , Hobson-Jobson, pp. 249–50Google Scholar; Breman, Jan and Daniel, E.V., “The Making of a Coolie”, Journal of Peasant Studies 19, 3–4 (1992): 281CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

69 Edwards to Factorij 19.3.1859/1348 in Factory to Amsterdam 26.3.1859.

70 The jury is still out in the debate as to whether industrialization “de-skilled” the workforce in general. For an argument that this was indeed the case for sugar (in the Caribbean), see Tomich, D.W., Slavery in the Circuit of Sugar (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), pp. 199–200Google Scholar.

71 Leidelmeijer, “Suikermolens”, pp. 347–49, has comparative data on old-style and new manufacture's employment of skilled workers.

72 Westall, “British Business History”, p. 36.

73 Kocka, Jurgen, “The Rise of Modern Industrial Enterprise in Germany”, in Managerial Hierarchies. Comparative Perspectives on the Rise of the Modern Industrial Enterprise, ed. Chandler, A.D. and Daems, H. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980), p. 97Google Scholar. On some of the more general issues here, see Lindblad, J. Thomas, “Business Strategies in Late Colonial Indonesia”, in The Historical Foundations of a National Economy in Indonesia, ed. Lindblad, J.T. (Amsterdam: North Holland 1996), pp. 175–91Google Scholar.

74 See Sluyterman, K.E. and Winkelman, H.J.M., “The Dutch Family Firm Confronted with Chandler's Dynamics of Industrial Capitalism, 1890–1940”, Business History 35, 35 (1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for evidence of the continuing dominance of the family firm and “family capitalism” in the industrial sector of the Netherlands economy during the first four decades of the twentieth century.

75 Chandler, , Visible Hand, pp. 8–9Google Scholar.

76 The prime example of the persistence of family ownership in Pekalongan-Tegal (though the enterprise had a long-standing relationship with the giant Dutch commercial-financial combine Internatio) was the Tjomal factory mentioned above, owned from the 1870s until its closure in the 1940s, and subsequent nationalization in 1958, by the Netherlands-domiciled Van der Wijck-Teding van Berkhout families (see, e.g., 1938 Shareholder List in ARA Archief Tjomal 66). Nor was Tjomal a “backwoods” operation; quite the contrary, since the factory was totally rebuilt on “state-of-the-art” lines in the 1920s. At Tjomal the family ties extended to management as well as ownership: the factory's long-serving fin-de-siècle administrateur S.C. van Musschenbroek (b. 01st 1857 d. Amsterdam 1914) — a celebrated “pioneering” figure in the industry — was “family” in so far as his mother was a Teding van Berkhout (Nederland's Adelsboek 11 [1920]: 155Google Scholar; Nederland's Adelsboek 79 [1988]: 489Google Scholar).

77 Gerhardus Johannes Netscher, b. The Hague 1822 d. Stuttgart 16.2.1877. In 1845 he was in Java attached to the Indies Government's Hoofdingenieur voor de Stoomwezen (Head Engineer for Steam Technology), and in 1858 was himself acting Hoofdingenieur, based in Surabaya. In between times, he had married Mathilde Theodora Carlotta Lucassen (b. Semarang 1828 d. The Hague 1906) in 1847 and c. 1850, as Theodore Lucassen's gemachtigde (proxy) and Ingenieur blast met de eigenlije fabricatie der suiker (engineer in charge of the manufacture of sugar) at Kemanglen and Doekoewringin, engaged in a celebrated controversy with the Resident of Tegal with respect to his allegations about the distressed condition of the local peasantry. See Fasseur, , Politics of Colonial Power, p. 121Google Scholar; Nederland's Patriciaat 44 (1958): 169–70Google Scholar; Stamboek NI Ambtenaren, Lett H ARA Kolonien 901/114; Gunawan, B. and Valenbreder, D., De Kwestie Netscher. De Verhouding Ambtenaar- Particulier op Java in de Periode 1845–1855 (Anthropologisch — Sociologische Centrum, University of Amsterdam, 1978)Google Scholar.

78 Hubertus Paulus Hoevenaar (b. Amsterdam 1814 d. Geldrop [The Netherlands] 1886). His widow was Anna Marciana Catherina Holmberg de Beckfelt (b. Rembang 1823 d. The Hague 1905). They were married at Tegal in 1844 (Nederland's Adelsboek 12 [1914]: 342-45Google Scholar). Hoevenaar, who was also related to Theodore Lucassen (see above) through the latter's second wife (Susanna Antoinette Pietermaat b. Amsterdam 1814 d. The Hague 1844), had worked in the 1830s for the sugar-manufacturing firm of Trail & Co in western Java, owners of what was then one of the most “advanced” factories in the colony, and had subsequently spent time with the firm of Crespel Dellisse at Arras. See Leidelmeijer, “Suikermolens”, p. 158.

79 NFB 26.9.1860/627.

80 Carefully delineated by an industry insider in Tichelaar, J.J., “De Ge-employeerde in Dienst der Java Suikerindustrie, en hunne Opleiding”, Archief voor de Suikerindustrie in Nederlandsch-Indie 32, 32 (1925)Google Scholar; 33, 1–2 (1926).

81 NFB 12.1.1864/90; NFB 24.9.1853/96& 17.1.1855/141; Factorij to Amsterdam 2.2.1861/926.

82 Compare for example, Chakrabarty, Dipesh's remarks in his Rethinking Working Class History: Bengal 1890–1940 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), pp. 52–53Google Scholar, on the importance of connections rather than expertise in the British-run jute industry of late nineteenth-century Calcutta.

83 In Germany, for example, it appears to have only been in the late nineteenth century that industrial expertise came to be measured in terms of institutional qualifications. Prior to that, “in firms that depended on engineering and related technology, graduates of technical schools and colleges were still in a minority…. Engineers began to replace managers and foremen with experience but no special training in workshops and factories beginning about 1890”. See Kocka, “Industrial Enterprise in Germany”, p. 96.

84 Director of Cultivation's marginal comments on “Rapport over den Toestand van het Suikerfabriekswezen op Java…” J.E. & L. Saportas [nd.].11.1846 in Exh. 24.4.1847/28 ARA Kolonien.

85 Factorij to Amsterdam 26.8.1848/32.

86 Factorij to Amsterdam 26.4.1854/284.

87 NFB 29.6.1854/119.

88 NFB 3.9.1861/721.

89 Wertheim, W.F., “Conditions on Sugar Estates in Colonial Java: Comparisons with Deli”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 24, 2 (1993): 274CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

90 E. Rombouts, “Nota betrekkelijk het rapport over Wonopringo… 14.2.1880”, NHM 3122 File 593.

91 NFB 7.4.1855/153.

92 NFB 10.7.1852/67.

93 “Wel is waar, een Engelschman” (NFB 10.7.52/67). He remained unnaturalised in 1857 (NFB 22.9.1857/33).

94 NFB 10.7.81852/67.

95 Teengs to Factorij 27.6.1850, in Factorij to Amsterdam 24.7.1850/29.

96 NFB 1.2.1854/109.

97 Vitalis to Director of Cultivation 10.3.1834/25, in Exh. 13.3.1834/761 AN Arsip Cultures 333.

98 ”Taxatie Staat der Fabriek Wonopringo 30.6.1845”, enclosure in Factorij to Amsterdam 30.9.1845/237.

99 “Nota betreffende …Wonopringo door… C.A. Granpre Moliere”, in NFB 31.12.1844/669.

100 NFB 17.1.1860/549.

101 This is not to claim, of course, that all the structural characteristics of the Visible Hand were identifiable in the late colonial Java sugar industry — nor is it within the scope of the present discussion to evaluate their ostensible commercial implications, viz. the “greater productivity, lower costs and higher profits” achieved through “the internalization of business activities within the multi-unit firm” (Chandler, , Visible Hand, pp. 6–7Google Scholar).

102 Lindblad, “Business Strategies in Late Colonial Indonesia”, p. 211.

103 Chandler, , Visible Hand, p. 7Google Scholar.

104 For parallel tensions — at a somewhat later date — in the Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij, see a Campo, J.N.F.M., Koninklijke Paketvaart Maatschappij: Stoomvaart en Staatsvorming in de Indonesische Archipel 1888–1914 (Hilversum: Verloren, 1992), pp. 480, 492Google Scholar.

105 Register [of Mortgages & Consignment Contracts etc.] ARA NHM 7800 folios 52–53.

106 JFB 55 (1880): 70.

107 Factorij to Amsterdam 13.10.1860/889.

108 The NHM had auctioned off the Wonopringo factory in 1868. The fabriek's operations, however, remained heavily dependent on credit from the Factorij, and in 1881 Wonopringo was brought under the “particular supervision of the Hoofdadminstrateur” of the other NHM factories in the area (JFB 56 [1881] 57–7).

109 The NHM Factorij's sugar interests in Pekalongan-Tegal c. 1877 were as follows. Ownership: Kemantran, Maribaija, Tirto (part), Klidang (part); Mortgages (in Guilders — outstanding sums): Lemahabang/Ketanggoengan-West 200,000; Doekoewringin 159,056; Kalimatie 182,000; Wonopringo 560,000; Klidang 69,424; Tirto 232,041; Consignment Contracts (verleede voorschotten — in guilders): Doekoewringin 591,208; Kemanglen 476,615; Kemantran 360,603; Tjomal 466,410; Kalimatie 30,000; Wonopringo 524,700; Klidang 124,632; Tirto 294,196 [JFB 52 (1877): Bijl. Landelijk Ondernemingen].

110 NFB 12.12.1863/889; Register [of Mortgages & Consignment Contracts etc.] ARA NHM 7799 folios 12 & 36; JFB 56 (1881): 71–73. This last details the history of NHM Inspector Jeet's visit to the Lemahabang factory in Brebes kabupaten.

111 Factorij to Everts 4.12.1880/447–525 and 19.12.1890/226 in “Dossiers…Superintendentie Suikerondernemingen”, NHM 3700. Everts's predecessor, E. Rombouts (previously Manager of the N.I. Railway Company's workshops) had been “newly appointed as Inspector of the NHM sugar enterprises” in 1877. See Register [of Mortgages & Consignment Contracts etc.] ARA NHM 7800 folios 8 & 28. In 1890 Everts' position was made into that of Superintendent, at 1,500 guilders per month.

112 Chandler, , Visible Hand, p. 3Google Scholar.

113 JFB 55B (1880): 22; Register [of Mortgages & Consignment Contracts etc.] ARA NHM 7801 folios 50–51.