NKTI1 ill! LANDS, TIIK. 



Tin- Dutch ll.-et, which since the failure of 

 Ma- tir-t i-\p.-<liti..ii had hlockoded the count of 

 Ache-en innl thus cut otl'iM trade witli I'enang, 

 in the British Strait, Settlements, tin- chief 

 market ut' Aclu-on, had in the mean while pun- 

 ish. <) IVdir, one of the vassal states of Acheen, 

 the Rajah of which woa the father-in-law of 

 tin- Sultan of Acheen, and supported the latter 

 by hit* whole army. Several places on the 

 of 1'edir were bombarded, and a Pedir- 

 ese powder-magazine was blown up; on the 

 other hand, a projected expedition into the in- 

 terior bad to be abandoned by the marine 

 troops. Most of the coast states recognized, 

 after the fall of the Kraton, in rapid succession 

 the sovereignty of the Netherlands. On Janu- 

 ary 81, 1874, General Van Swieten addressed 

 a proclamation to all the vassal states of 

 Acheen, in which he notified them that the 

 Sultan had died of cholera, that the Kraton 

 had been occupied by Dutch troops, and that 

 the country, by right of conquest, had become 

 a possession of the Netherlands. They were 

 therefore called upon to declare their submis- 

 sion, in which cose the blockade of their coasts 

 would be raised and they would be left in 

 possession of their territories. On February 

 18th three men-of-war were dispatched to visit 

 the eastern, northern, and western coasts of 

 Sumatra, to make the proclamation generally 

 known. Some of the rajahs at once declared 

 their submission ; others hesitated ; but the 

 number of those who recognized the sovereign- 

 ty of the Netherlands steadily increased. From 

 the interior it was reported that the grand- 

 nephew of the Sultan had been elected ruler 

 of Acheen, that this new ruler was only nine 

 years of age, and that a regency, consisting of 

 four members, had been appointed to carry on 

 his government during his minority. 



The conquest of the Kraton radically changed 

 the designs of the Netherlandish Government 

 with regard to Acheen. The Governor-Gen- 

 eral of the Netherlandish possessions in India, 

 in a telegram to the Government at the Hague, 

 expressed his decided conviction that the con- 

 clusion of another treaty with Acheen would 

 be useless, as it would never be observed, and 

 the best policy would be to annex Acheen to 

 the Netherlandish possessions. The Govern- 

 ment of the Netherlands sanctioned the policy 

 proposed by the Governor-General, and ac- 

 cordingly the proclamation taken out by the 

 three war-steamers demanded from the rajahs 

 submission to the rule of the Netherlands. In 

 the interior of the country the fanatical Pan- 

 glima Polira, and the influential Imam Long- 

 battah, organized a combined resistance to a 

 further advance of the Dutch; but General 

 Van Swieten had no intention whatever of 

 continuing an aggressive war. His plan, on 

 the contrary, was to defend the territory con- 

 quered, to encourage the commerce of the 

 natives with the Dutch, and to coerce the 

 native chiefs into submission by enforcing the 

 blockade, which deprived them of the pepper- 



trade of Penang, their principal source of in- 



Cnllle. 



General Van Swioten regarded the second 

 expedition to Acheen as successfully finished 

 by the occupation of the Kraton, and he accord- 

 ingly proposed to the Governor-General to 

 leave in Acheen a military force sufficient to 

 protect the new conquests and to recall the 

 remainder of the army to Java. The plan was 

 approved, and General Van Swieten, on April 

 25th and 26th, embarked for Java, while Col- 

 onel Pel, with 2,800 men, remained in Acheen. 



Public opinion in the Netherlands as well as 

 in the colonies was, however, greatly divided 

 in regard to the policy pursued by General Van 

 Swieten and the Governor-General of Nether- 

 landish India, and with regard to the perma- 

 nent results to be expected from it. The most 

 violent attacks were made by a number of pa- 

 pers belonging to the Conservative party upon 

 General Van Swieten, and some went so far 

 as to represent his expedition as a failure. In 

 reply to these attacks, General Van Swieten, 

 in an elaborate letter addressed to General 

 Knoof, one of the most prominent military au- 

 thorities of the Netherlands, reviewed the 

 whole history of the expedition, and showed 

 that the results already attained exceeded the 

 original expectations, and the success of the 

 second expedition would stand a comparison 

 with almost any war in the Asiatic colonies of 

 the European powers. 



According to an official report published by 

 the Dutch Government in November, 1874, the 

 loss of the first expedition against Acheen was 

 seventy-five wounded and seven dead ; that of 

 the second, 2,042 dead, of whom 607 died of 

 the cholera. The number of wounded is not 

 stated. The total amount of war expendi- 

 tures was up to that time 23,614,000 fiorins. 



The Dutch Chambers reassembled on Feb- 

 ruary 29th. Among the laws adopted was one 

 on the fortification of the country, which aims 

 at concentrating all the works of defense 

 around Amsterdam and the neighboring dis- 

 tricts, leaving seven of the eleven provinces, 

 in case of war, without any defense. Another 

 law forbids the employment of children of less 

 than twelve years for hired labor. On June 

 22d the Minister of the Interior notified the Sec- 

 ond Chamber that the cabinet had tendered 

 its resignation, because the Second Chamber, 

 by 89 against 82 votes, had rejected the first 

 article of the bill on lowering the electoral 

 census. 



On May 12th the Netherlands celebrated the 

 25th anniversary of the King's accession to the 

 throne. Several foreign princes, among them 

 the Emperor of Russia, personally visited the 

 King on the occasion. The Burgomaster of 

 Amsterdam, in the name of the country, pre- 

 sented the King with the amount of a national 

 subscription, which the King announced would 

 be devoted to a fund for invalids, and for the 

 veterans of the army and navy. 



The ministerial crisis, which began in June 



