De adoptie van de telegrafie in Nederland en Nederlands-Indië, 1845-1914: politieke sturing en economische betekenis

Abstract

The dissertation addresses the topical theme of the interrelation and interaction between technology, politics, and economics by examining the adoption of telegraphy in the Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies between 1845 and 1914. To this end, data series on usage were reconstructed in order to gain insight into the scale and speed of adoption. The data were spatially disaggregated into five geographic zones: intra-Netherlands, intra-Europe, intercontinental, intra-Dutch East Indies, and intra-Asia. Periodization was based on four phases, initiation, growth, saturation, and decline. Analysis of the spatial and temporal patterns reveals that usage was highly concentrated within Europe (87% of total ‘domestic’ traffic), to a lesser extent within Asia (11%), and only marginally intercontinental (2%). The initiation phase lasted from 1845 to 1867, followed by a growth phase from 1868 to 1914, though the extent and speed of adoption varied considerably across the geographic zones. Accessibility, in the form of local telegraph offices, and affordability, in the form of transmission costs, proved to be crucial explanatory variables in the initiation phase, both closely tied to political intervention. During the period under study, telegraphy became a political instrument of nation- and state-building. It became part of parliamentary debate. Liberal politicians in particular deployed telegraphy in the service of the public good and the development of domestic, European, and colonial ‘communities’, that is, new electronic and virtual public spaces. The Dutch Rijkstelegraaf and the Gouvernementstelegraaf in the Dutch East Indies represented modern institutional innovations. Until 1866, this took place in the context of the Europeanization of telegraphy, and after the opening of the transatlantic submarine cable in 1866, in the context of the globalization of the world telegraph network. The Dutch government sought a balance between international cooperation, through the German-led DÖTV, the French-led WETU, and the multilateral ITU on the one hand, and maintaining neutrality and strengthening Dutch sovereignty in Europe and Asia on the other. After 1870/’71, rising international geopolitical tensions increasingly undermined efforts to maintain neutrality and sovereignty. For the Dutch government, as for the British Empire, telegraphy became a ‘tool of empire’, albeit with mixed results. This was linked to the growing economic significance of telegraphy for both the Dutch and the Dutch East Indies economies. Its use not only brought a revolutionary acceleration in the exchange of information but also a fundamental transformation of the information regime, consisting of actors, electronic connections, and flows of telegrams. Functionally, telegraphy was employed to promote the national and international integration of markets and to develop new forms of corporate organization, the so-called network enterprises. Direct expenditure on telegraphy in 1913 is estimated at 0,4% of GDP for the Netherlands and 0,2% for the Dutch East Indies, yet its broader economic impact was far greater. By around 1913, telegraphy had become a necessary precondition for approximately 20- 25% of Dutch GDP and 30-35% of GDP in the Dutch East Indies. This significance is illustrated through four business cases.: HIJSM, P.W. Jansen, Van Eeghen en Deli Maatschappij.