DUTCH RECOVERY

Chronicle (Levin), 6 July 1946, Page 5

DUTCH RECOVERY

(Special Correspondent.)

— -r- — New Zealand Farmers Impressed VISIT MADE T0 H0LLAND '

Reeeived Friday, t p.m. LONDOX, July 5. To arrive in Holland from Gerniau \ is to excliange glooni for c.li.eerfulness. acute depression for incipient prosperitv, bleeding wounds for liealing. The party of Xew Zealand farmers who vjsited Holland wliile returning to Britain from Germany, could not fail to observe tlie dift'erence. They landed ai Eindhoven and their lirst visit was to t}ie battielield at Overloon wrhere the bloodie>st lighting eomparable witli Caen occurred during the liberation. There they founa the Dutch liad already liuilt a museum to eouimemorate those who liad fallen. 'This rebuiiding was typical throughout Holland. It was jiarticulai'ly noticealile on the island of Walcheren where 40,000 acres were inundated when the Allies broke the dykes to ilood the island and wipe out tlie Gerinan defences to tlie Schelde ~and Antwerp. Half of that area is already _ under crops. The dykes had been relniilt and every efl'ort was being made to get tlie remainder of tlie land under culti vation. It is a gigantic tasK for the tiltli had lieen washed awav. >Saiul swamped Ihe land and iilled tlu dilches. All the trees had been killed by Siil t water and niussel sliells clacked 011 theni drearily when stirred by the wjiul. It is costing the Dutch Govern ment £200 per acre to restore the land and replace tlie farmers who receiye cattle aiul horses bac'k without chargt and receive com^ensation for buildings' and machinery, at Xlay, 1940, rates. The Xew Zdalandors also visite.l thc

experiment al farm — Wilhelmina J'older — as well as tlie tulip nursery and pedigree Friesiau liehl who ro they were impressed with the champion buli valued at £2000 and champion cow giving 7t galfons of milk daijy. They were interested (o observe that tlie eows in Holland, as in (iermany, were handmilked in -the field and to learn that there was little merhanisation, horses costing up to £150. The pastures' had not been ploughed for 300 years. The Dutch, they found, were on slightly better food rationing than the British but were eoneerned about their lack of foreign excliange and tlie position in Tpdonesia, the loss of whose trade, if it occurred, would mean ruin for IJolland. Tliey also learned tliat tlie Dutch were worried about their los> of Gernian niarkets for their primary produce whicli, thougli now 30 to 85 per cent. below the jirewar level, is

gradually mounting. Thougli tlie Dutch lost 400,000 men during the war out of a population of 9,000.000, some 50,000 farmers desire to emigrate to tlie Domiiiions to acquire land there. Tlie visitors met oue young Dutchman who liad already sent his c-asli to XTew Zealand -amlMvns now vvaiting a passage for himself, wife and five children, and another who was making plans to go to Canada. It was explained tliat there was not enotigh land in Holland today for the farming comiuunitv aiul that on every 250 aeres there were 274 people. Dutchnien frankly admitted that thougli the country was recovering, the people were still sufTering from war weariness. "Lazy" was tlie description used by oue Dutchman who declared there was an overreadiness to make money in the thriving lilackmarket which, thougli mueh worse than in Britain, was not as bad as in Germany and Franee. As against this self criticism the fact re niained that Holland was on the upgrade and in areas like XValchei'an the people were working in summer from 4 a.m. to 11 p.m. to get their land in good heart once again.