From Anatolia to Indonesia: Opium Trade and the Dutch Community of Izmir, 1820-1940. (Review)

The Journal of the American Oriental Society; 10/1/2000; Floor, Willem

From Anatolia to Indonesia: Opium Trade and the Dutch Community of Izmir, 1820-1940. By JAN SCHMIDT. Istanbul: NEDERLANDS HISTORISCH-ARCHAEOLOGISCH INSTITUUT, 1998. Pp. 222. HFl 72.

This book is about a neglected aspect of the opium problem, i.e., its production and trade and, in particular, the Dutch opium trade and the role of Dutch Levantine traders in it. After a summary presentation of the growth of opium consumption in the West and the East, a second short chapter analyzes the development of the international opium trade. From this we learn that Dutch participation in it was marginal (restricted to the East Indies market), and that the participation of Dutch Levantine traders was itself marginal in Dutch trade. On the Dutch side the new NHM (Nederlandsche Handels Maatschappij or Dutch Trading Company, a government-created enterprise aimed at developing Dutch trade) was the buyer of the opium. In Indonesia, the Dutch government had established an opium monopoly to rake in the fiscal revenues. This led to smuggling activities, some of which were rather inventive and for which the author provides the details.

Having established both his international-export, and his Indonesian-import contexts, the author analyzes the production and trade of Anatolian opium, although the chapter title here suggests the Levant. He discusses its production zones, cultivation and processing methods, and its transportation, as well as factors affecting its volume and quality. In particular, this third chapter provides an analysis of the opium trade of Izmir, which was the most important port for the export of Anatolian opium, and of the factors that influenced its development, both nationally and internationally. A significant national policy measure was the creation of the short-lived Opium Monopoly (1830- 38); important international ones included wars (the Crimean war) and economic ups and downs. A separate section deals with these economic trends and the financing of the Izmir opium trade. A rather lengthy and very detailed segment covers the Dutch share in the Izmir opium trade-the Dutch were the third-ranking exporter of opium f rom Izmir-as well as Dutch navigation. It also discusses the role of piracy, the advent of steam and the disappearance of sailing ships, and the impact of the Suez Canal (after 1856). Opium represented half of Izmir's export to the Netherlands, but Dutch trade with Izmir, and the number of Dutch ships involved, was relatively insignificant.

In chapter four, the reader is introduced to the Dutch opium traders in Izmir. The focus is on four families, van Lennep, Dutilh, Wissing, and Lavino, who handled practically all opium exports to the Netherlands (or sometimes directly to Indonesia) for the NHM. From this discussion it is clear that these traders dealt in more than opium, and when possible, sold opium also to others than the NHM. In fact, opium was not even the most important part of their business. They were bill brokers and importers and exporters of whatever was profitable. The vicissitudes of the four families are detailed: those of their family life, and others unrelated to the opium trade; as well as their other commercial activities. In this chapter the relationship of these families to the NHM is also described, in particular with regard to the quality of the opium, which had been deteriorating. The NHM stopped ordering opium through the four Dutch firms as of 1874, when it ceased trading in this commodity.

Prior to abandoning the opium trade, the NHM tried on many occasions to induce the four trading companies to export better-quality opium. When its efforts remained without result, it also tried other suppliers, including dealers in Persian opium. The new system meant that the Dutch Izmir firms no longer had a privileged position and were therefore losing out on the opium business. But it did not mean that the quality of opium that was imported into the Netherlands improved. Moreover the Dutch firms in Izmir did not accept the change in procedure without protest and they wrote to the minister concerned. Nevertheless, the Dutch government refused thereafter to privilege some Dutch companies over others. This change of policy not only impacted the Dutch firms engaged in the opium trade, but also Dutch trade with Thrkey in general, which was thus reduced considerably.

Although this development meant the end of the Dutch Izmir opium trade, the author felt that he should finish the story of opium, because trade continued internationally and in Indonesia. In part two of the book, he discusses therefore the growing anti-opium movement in the West, and the subsequent regulation and suppression of opium consumption and trade in Indonesia and China, in particular. In Indonesia these new developments led to the creation of the Opium Regie, based on the French Indo-China model. Its purpose was to reduce opium consumption by raising prices, launching information campaigns, and other regulatory activities. The development of opium consumption in Indonesia and elsewhere in the pre-1940 years is discussed next. In the final chapter of the book, the author covers the last years of opium exporting from the Levant and Persia to Indonesia. Here he also focuses again on the role of Dutch trade and Dutch traders.

This book contains a good deal of interesting information, but it has a problem in presenting its data. A substantial amount of statistical data is presented in the text, but not in tabular form. The use of relevant tables (there are three tables as an annex) would have helped the author make his points at a glance. As it is, the reader has to develop his own tables to make sense of some of the statistics, which are offered as strings of numbers in the text. With a little extra effort the author might have made it easier for the reader to understand their importance.

It would also seem that the book's content is driven more by the availability of the archival sources than by a particular point that the author wants to make. This is not only suggested by the sometimes excruciating details about some of the Dutch merchant families in Izmir, but also by the inclusion of part two of the book, which deals with the post-1874 Izmir opium trade, relations with China, and the brief Dutch interest in Persian opium. The vicissitudes of the four Dutch trading families are certainly of interest, but would have acquired more depth if that discussion had been a comparative one. For example, in what way did business practices of Dutch Izmir trading families differ from those of other non-Turkish Levantine trading families? In what way, did Dutch government trade policy differ from that of other European governments vis-a-vis their nationals based in Izmir? In short, how was the context for Dutch Levantine traders different?

The author is wrong when he states that Persian opium was a rather late comer to Indonesia. Apart from the occasional export of small quantities of Persian opium in the eighteenth century, there was export of Persian opium to Indonesia in the nineteenth century. For example, the first Dutch ship that made a voyage to the Persian Gulf in the nineteenth century (in 1824) took among its return cargo 300 kg of opium. It is true that later Dutch voyages to the Gulf (which stopped again in 1831) did not carry opium among their return cargo (De Economist, pt. 1 [1871]: 26). However, what the Dutch themselves did not do was taken care of by, amongst others, Persian Armenians residing in Java. For example, in 1865, as much as 8,000 Tabriz mann (approx. 2.400 kg) of opium was exported from Bushire to Java, according to the official statistics (Transactions of the Bombay Geographical Society 17 [1865]: 92; see also Manfred Schneider, Beitrdge zur Wirtschaftsstruktur und Wirtschaftsentwicklung Persiens 1850-1900 [Stuttg art, 1990], 213, for the year 1859). Also another fact not mentioned by the author is that in 1904 it was suggested that the Dutch government should both try to import Persian as well as Anatolian opium, the latter possibly via the Dutch consulates, such as was done in Calcutta. The presence of a career consul in Izmir was believed to be a sufficient guarantee of avoiding the quality problems that had bedeviled export from Izmir before Dutch sales were discontinued there (De Economist, Pt, 2 [1904]: 819). Also, already in 1906, Persian opium was exported to the Netherlands. In 1913, some fourteen tons of Persian opium was exported to Indonesia (Great-Britain, Diplomatic and Consular Reports, no. 3951: Report on the Trade of the District of Bushire 1906-07, 45; Report on the Trade of the District of Bushire for the Year 1913, 20).

Although there are also some minor translation errors in the book, such as zeer klein licht, which is translated as “unenlightened” but should be “dense, dumb” (p. 117), and opperhoofd, which appears as “chieftain” but should be “chief”, or “director”, this book will be useful to those who study trading communities in the Levant as welt as more general economic issues in the Levant and Turkey during the nineteenth century, including, of course, the opium trade.

American Oriental Society 2000