In the 1930s Dutch agriculture suffered severely from the international depression and agrarian protectionism in Europe. Germany, the most important market for Dutch dairy products and vegetables closed its market by protectionism and bilateral clearing agreements, while the British market, the second in importance, gave preference to the products of its dominions. To safe it Dutch agriculture
... [Show full abstract] could only be protected by high internal prices and subsidies. From 1931 on, Dutch government tried to protect the farmers by such a policy, that resulted in high food prices and prevented the costs of living from falling. From 1933 on this policy was strongly stimulated by the new prime minister, Hendrik Colijn, who feared right wing extremism under the farmers. His orthodox Calvinist party got an important part of its votes from the countryside, just as the Catholic party and the more liberal Calvinist party, who where also members of Colijns governmental coalition. The 1934 victory in local election for the Nationaal Socialistische Beweging (National Socialist Movement) especially in the countryside (actually this party only got 8% of the votes, a result it never had again) was a shock to these parties. The Roman Catholic bishops threatened Catholics who had relations with this movement with excommunication and the Christian-Democratic Parties intensified their policy to protect agriculture. However, high officials made clear that without important foreign markets, specialised Dutch agriculture could never survive, unless the government wanted to subsidies it for ever after. By doing so the government kept the Dutch price level high. Because it was the time of the gold standard policy and The Hague tried to keep the guilder on the 1925 gold level by a deflation policy, this agricultural policy was contradictory to its own monetary targets. However, this was not the only problem these high ranked civil servants found in the governmental policy.
After the First World War the birth rate in the country grew, and especially in the 1920s it was extremely high. According to some historians this was the result of universal suffrage. All religious-political pillars of society (culturally, politically and socially isolated fragments of society, that only had contacts on the top level where compromises were made) tried not to fall back as a percentage of the population by stimulating big families. Having small families, while other pillars had big would result in fading political influence. Especially the Catholic pillar was very successful in this population policy. The Dutch birth rate was second in Europe after the Portuguese. Population grew from some more the 5 million in 1900 to almost 9 million in 1940, and after the war went on growing until 16 million nowadays. It was therefore extremely important to create jobs. Only by stimulating industrial development this was possible. In the 1920s nothing was done to realise this, but Dutch industry was strong enough to compete on international markets and create a growing number of jobs. However, in the 1930s it was not this dynamic part of the economy that got the protection needed in these severe times, nor was this the branch which markets were defended by the Dutch trade policy. The government gave also in its export policy strong support to agriculture. Dumping butter and other dairy products on the British and Belgian markets was the only way to get rid of these foodstuffs, which were only produced because the government supported the farmers who made these. Because it was impossible to support the exports of every branch, industry was left alone. In the German-Dutch clearing 40% was earmarked for agriculture, 28% for Indonesian (Dutch Indian) products like tobacco, coffee and tea, production that could not survive without governmental support, and the rest the Germans could spend freely on Dutch industrial products, services (the Rotterdam port and Rhine traffic) and Indonesian raw materials (oil and tin). Industry only suffered from agrarian protectionism, the high food prices that resulted from it and the support the government gave to its exports. High wages were only one of the consequences of it. The government of a country with a fast growing population supported a branch that already since the 19th century only lost jobs, while she put the burden of this policy on the shoulder of the branch that proved to be strong enough to create new employmment.
The fact that industry hardy got any support resulted from the specific political situation in these days. The big international and often colonial oriented industry in Holland supported the liberal parties, that did not want any protectionism. The orthodox Protestant prime minister and former Royal Dutch Shell director Colijn supported the farmers as an orthodox Protestant politician, but as a former soldier in colonial wars and director of the Shell he was typical a man of this part of the country, and as such opposed to protectionism. For the big international oriented industry of Holland protection was not interesting. The Dutch market was too small for them.
Industrial workers often voted Social Democratic or Catholic. The Social Democratic party, however was a political outlaw since its half-hearted 1918 attempt to a revolution. That made the Catholic party the only influential party with important support from industrial circles, especially from workers and employers in the southern and eastern parts of the country. However, the Catholics were also rather isolated, and however they were almost a third of the population, were still emancipating from the long standing idea in the traditional centre of the country, Holland, that a real Dutch was at least a nominal member of a Protestant church.. Only in the 1930s the self-awareness of some Catholic politicians became strong enough to stand up to this idea, and defend their interests not only in cultural or social, but also in economic matters. In 1935 the textile mill employer from the south, and minister of economics Steenberghe, was the first politician that openly attacked Colijns gold standard policy. At that time it seemed the end of its political career. In 1937, however, after the 1936 depreciation, he came back as minister in anew Colijn government, with a program that should result in limiting of agricultural protectionism and industrialisation. According to Steenberghe it was necessary to create jobs, and the only branch where that was possible was industry. In North-Brabant, the part of the country where he came from, the birth rate was more than 25 per thousand, i.e. much higher than in the rest of the country. Colijn, openly opposed Steenberghe’s policy. Only in 1939, when the first Dutch government with social-democrats and the first without Colijn as prime minister since 1933 was formed, Steenberghe get rid of this opponent, but than the war made the realisation of his ideas impossible. After the war other Catholic and Social-Democratic minister realised that industrialisation was the only solution for a country with a so fast growing population. http://books.google.nl/books?id=zdXTV8xO3xQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=Pathbreakers+:+small+European+countries+responding+to+globalisation+and+deglobalisation&hl=nl&sa=X&ei=2upeUdvKMvTy0gWjioGoCA&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Pathbreakers%20%3A%20small%20European%20countries%20responding%20to%20globalisation%20and%20deglobalisation&f=false
