Evening star., 1923-01-28

THOUSANDS OF FISHERMEN IL
The Hague. Leiden and HARLEM on
our left as We flew. The air trip from
London to Amsterdam takes three
and one-half hours and that from
Paris takes four. We can fly from
here on TO Denmark in eighty min
utes, and. as we have chartered the
plane, shall keep on our way through
the skies. moving this way and that
10 get i bird's-eye view OF the coun-
try
1t is big job, this cramminS a
kingdom in the eye Of your mind in
time that might be numbered by min
utes. But one can fly across Holland
from the North sea to Germany in a
little more than an hour and from
Denmark to Belgium in less than two.
The longest distance across Holland
from east to west is only a little
farther than from Philadelphia to
Washington, and from northeast to
southwest the distance is not much
greater than from Baltimore TO New
York.
All Holland. including the fresh Wa
ters inside it's borders, is only about
ss large as Massachusetts and New
Jersey combined. 1t is equal to one
third OF Pennsylvania or one-half or
South Carolina, and II you could cut
California into ten equal parts each
would be only a little larger than the
great fiat land below US. NeVerthe-
less, this country supports as many
people as we have in New England.
and next to Belgium il Is the most
thiclfly populated part Of the world.
II has 542 persons per square mile, SO
many that if the United States had
this same for every inch of it's terri
tory between the two oceans we
should have more than 1900 millions
or almost as many as all the people
on earth.
+ * Z; X
As we have come north We have
"A fown over all the big cities. Rot
terdam on the wide River Mas, which
forms one of the mouths of the Rhine,
is about as big as Buffalo, San Fran
cisco or Washington. The Hague is
in the same class as Cincinnati, Kan
sas City or New Orleans. and Amster-
dam is nearly equal to Pittsburgh or
Los Angeles. We shall see many
small cities as We fly over the coun-
try. Two out of every five Dutchnen
live in big towns, and the homes of
the others are IN villages, in farm
houses or in houseboats and barges on
the canals. Holland is like Bangkok,
Siam, in that it has tens Of thousands
who spend their lives on the water.
The boats are frozen tight during the
winter, but in summer they move
about through the canals, carrying
freight far up the Rhine and other
rivers. The cargo is loaded in the
front of the boat. while the owner and
his family live near the stern and
dry their laundry on the roof.
We now take our field glasses and
look far and wide over the country.
We can see the waves of the North
sea rolling IN against The sand dunes
and dykes at the west, and on the east
pick out villages which we know be-
long to the Germans. Almost every
where between there Is water. Those
three great rivers at the south filled
with shipping are the Rhine, the
Mas and the Scheldt. We spy lakes
here and, there and look down upon
great sheets of silver such as the
zuider-zee. where the ocean runs in
at the north.
AS we look we are reminded Of the
expression that Holland is kingdom
afoat, yet at anchor. In the time oi
Julius Caesar 1t was swamp, and to-
Gay one-third Of the whole Is so low
that, II il were not for the ernhank-
ments and dykes, it would again be-
long to tho ocean. The fight with the
sea continues day and night and every
day throughout the year. The annual
cost of patching the dykes is six o,
seven million dollars. The govern.
ment has a department known as the
Waterstaat devoted to the care Of the
dykes, and a corps Of engineers IL
kept busy experimenting them. The
Dutch say, God made the sea- We
made the shore"
This statement Is physically true
More than one-half Of Holland has
been reclaimed from the rivers anG
ocean by entertainments and work OF
one kind or another. The Dutch be.
gan to build dykes more than ter
centuries ago and they are still
building them today. All along the
North sea the sand hills have beer
connected by walls of earth tina,
keep old Neptune out, and the gov.
ernment is now planning great
wall with gates across the Zuider.
Zee. The Dutch were short of food
in the world war and this new work
will make 100000 acres of arabic
land. The bills for the reclamation
came before the senate and chamber