The Republican journal., 1918-10-10
HOLLAND.

When one speaks of Holland he usually
means the Netherlands, which word OF
itself means the lowlands. The Neither
lands is made up of II provinces of which
North Holland is one and South Holland
is another. The capital of the former is
Amsterdam and the capital of the other
is The Hague The two Hollands have
an area little less than three times that
of Waldo County and population little
more than twice that of the State of
Maine. The Netherlands in Europe as
whole has an area lutte more than
third of that of our State and has about
eight times as many Inhabitants The
Netherlands has as colonies, 3orneo, the
Celebes, Java, the Moluccas, New Guinea
and Sumatra, all islands, located east OF
the Indian ocean and from 1000 to 1000
miles southerly from the Philippines.
These islands have an area II times as
large as that of the State of Maine and
population one-third that of the United
States In addition to this, the Neither
lands has Surinam. formerly known as
Dutch Guiana winch is in the northeast
part of South America, and is consider
ably larger than the State of Maine, and
has 10, 600 people. Thus it will be seen
that the Netherlands, taken as whole,
has dominion over a territory one-fifth as
large as the United States, and over a
population of more than Al, 600, 900 people.
These statistics show that commercially
at least the Netherlands is a country of
considerable Importance especially in the
tropical productions of her vast East In
dian possessions. The production of cane
sugar in Java is one-fifth that of all the
cane sugar producing countries of the
world The people of the Netherlands in
Europe are commonly spoken of as the
Dutch because they speak the Dutch
language, which is very ancient, and in a
large degree they have preserved and fol-
lowed Dutch habits and traditions. The
colonies of the Netherlands add little to
her military strength and she hasno war
navy worth mentioning. The army which
she could put into the field would avail
little in the present world war. Never !
theless this little country has played an
important part in the struggle now going
on. At the beginning of the war the
Netherlands had merchant marine of
about /, 100, 900 tons. Her farmers are an
industrious people and her merchants are
Tho
part of the food resources of both con-
tlnental and colonial Netherlands was
poured into the lap Of Germany. The
Holland provinces were especially active
largely in the United States and sold to
Germany. Dutch ships sailed on the seas
of all the world without being torpedoed,
carrying the sineWs OF war to the Huns. |
After we entered the war we placed an
embargo on shipment to the Netherlands
and about that time the Dutch discovered |
that they had over sold their food sup
plies To make the situation worse, the
Germans, not being able to use the Meth
erlands any longer to their advantage,
cut of the coal supply of that country.
Germany was no longer their professed
friend She shook her mailed fist and all
Netherlands trembled. Hunger and cold
threatened on one hand and invasion on
the other. A glance at the map of Europe
will show that in a geographical and in
military sense the Netherlands are under
thc thumb of Germany. All that has
prevented the application of force by
that thumb has been the dykes, the open
ing of which would prevent land attack
by flooding the country. Had Germany
CONQUERED France and England the Meth
lands would not have waited long before
their turn would have come. AS we have
said, the Dutch wanted food and had ships.
We wanted ships and had food. We offered
to exchange provided the food which we
supplied should not 60 to our enemies.
Germany said: 1--WE will sink both ships
and cargoes." The Netherlands stand
hesitant between hunger, and fear of
Germany. She has interned some AGO.