SITUATION IN HOLLAND.

Taihape Daily Times, 8 May 1918, Page 3

SITUATION IN HOLLAND.

O A letter addressed to the “Times” by the London editor of the Amsterdam “Telegraaf’ ’towards the end of February, throws some light on the situation which has arisen in Holland. Everyone will admit that between the menaces of Germany and the firm pressure of the Allies, the Dutch are now in a very difficult dilemma. Never, thcless this is largely due to the selfish action of at any rate a section of the Dutch population, and that selfishiness has re-acted On the rank and file of the Dutch people. The Amsterdam journalist in question, Mr. John C. van der Veer, states that foodstuffs which should have been kept to nourish the people of Holland have been exported to Germany. Fat is to-day, he says, one of the scarcest articles in Holland while fat pigs were exported because they realised highest prices, lean pigs were left for the Dutch people. At a meeting of dairy farmers of the province of South Holland, held dh February 6th, at The Hague, the president declared that “the lack of milk had this winter carred many Dutch babies and young children to the grave.” Yet a report of the official German Gentral Export Bureau at The Hague says that from one corner of the agricultural province of Gelderland not less than 33,450 quarts of fresh milk were daily sent to Germany. The president of the Dairy Society, referring to the lack of cattle-food in Holland, declared that there would have been plenty “had no mangel wurzel and no carrots been exported. The best milk of Friesland is used for making butter for Germany; Holland gets from Germany coal and iron in exchange for dairy produce, but, says Mr. van der Veer:

“We know who fares best by that exchange. . It is to many of my countrymen terribly painful to think that our own people go short for what is sent to the very country which ruthlessly sank more than forty Dutch mercantile ships. Our national interests would have been served better by a larger production of foodstuffs, for which our soil is so suitable. This would have avoided tire necessity to let 70,000 Dutch workers go to work in Germany. That country, the only one of all the belligerents which has threatened the independence of our dear little Holland, has been helped in every respect. Our' profiteers carried Germany through a bad time. The money which that brought to Holland carried with it German influence and a longing for German peace. It further created, in Holland a shortage of food, which made out needy people naturally cry for peace at any price.” 'A point has now been reached when this one-sided arrangement can no longer be tolerated, and the Allies have had to take some steps for their own protection. The Netherlands Go. vernment is not'only between the upper and the nether millstone of the belligerents, but it has to contend with discontent among its own people. It knows that if Germany conquers in this war, the independence of Holland will not he worth a year’s purchase. It may come to the conclusion that it had, better throw in its lot with the Allies rather than submit to the brutalities of the Germans. It need hardly be added that the entrance of Holland on our side would alter the strategical position very much to cur advantage.