The Position of Women

The Dutch woman, generally speaking, is not the 'new woman' in the sense of taking any very definite part in the politics of the country. Neither does she interest herself, or interfere, in ecclesiastical matters. Dutchmen have not a very high opinion of the mental and administrative qualities of their womenfolk outside of what is considered their sphere, but for all that the women of the upper class are certainly more clever than the men, but as they do not take any practical part in the questions which are 'burning,' as far as any question does burn in this land of dampness, their interest is academic rather than real. The wives of the small shopkeeper, the artisan, and the peasant take much the same place as women of these classes in other European countries. They are kind mothers, thrifty housewives, very fond of their 'man,' not averse to the fascinations of dress, and in their persons and houses extremely trim and tidy, while the poorest quarters of the large towns are, compared with the slums of London, Manchester, and Liverpool, pictures of neatness. It is true that windows are seldom opened, for no Dutch window opens at the top, and so in passing by an open door in the poor quarters of a town one gets a whiff of an inside atmosphere which baffles description; but the inside of the house is 'tidy,' and one can see the gleam of polished things, telling of repeated rubbings, scrubbings, and scourings. In fact, cleanliness in Holland has become almost a disease, and scrubbing and banging go on from morning until night both outside and inside a house.

Probably the abundant supply of water accounts for the universal washing, for, not content with washing everything inside a house, they wash the outside too, and even the bark of any trees which happen to lie within the zone of operations. The plinths and bricks of the houses are scrubbed as far as the arms can reach or a little hand-squirt can carry water. In cottages both in town and country there is the same cleanliness, but the people stop short of washing themselves, and the bath among the poorer classes is practically unknown. People of this kind may not have had one for thirty or forty years, and will receive the idea with derision and look on the practice as a 'fad,' while the case of many animals is seriously cited as an argument that it is quite unnecessary. A doctor told me once of a rich old patient of the farming class near Utrecht who, on being ordered a bath, said, 'Any amount of physic, but a bath--never!' On the principle that you cannot do everything, personal cleanliness is apt to go to the wall, and the energies of the Dutchwomen of the lower middle and the poorer classes are concentrated on washing everything inanimate, even the brick footpath before the houses, which accounts for the clean appearance of the Dutch streets in town and country. Even a heavy downpour of rain does not interfere with the housewife's or servant's weekly practice, and you will see servants holding up umbrellas while they wash the fronts of the houses. This excessive cleanliness, together with the other household duties of mother and wife, fills up the ordinary day, and a newspaper or book is seldom seen in their hands.

Passing on to the middle class, we find the mistress's time largely taken up with directing the servants and bargaining with the tradesmen, who in many cases bring their goods round from house to house. The lady of the house takes care to lock up everything after the supplies for the day have been given out, and the little basket full of keys which she carries about with her is a study in itself. Even in the upper class this locking up is a general practice, for very few people keep a housekeeper. The mistress also takes care of the 'pot.' This is an ingenious but objectionable device to make a guest pay for his dinner. On leaving a house after dining you give one of the servants a florin, and all the money so collected is put into a box, and at certain times is divided between the servants, so that a servant on applying for a situation asks what is the value of the 'pot' in the year. There are signs of this practice of feeing servants after a dinner being done away with, for it spoils the idea of hospitality, and one's host on bidding you 'Good-bye' resorts to many little artifices in order not to see that you do fee his servant, added to which you are very likely to shake hands with him with the florin in your hand, which you have been furtively trying to transfer to the left hand from the right, and very often the guest drops the wretched coin in his efforts to give it unseen. It is to be hoped that the ladies of Holland will succeed in abolishing a custom which is disagreeable alike to entertainer and entertained.

The women of the upper middle class are certainly much better educated than their English sisters. They always can speak another language than their own, and very often two, French and English now being common, while a few add German and a little Italian, but most of them read German, if they do not speak it. French is universal, however, for the French novel is far more to the taste than the more sober English book. The number and quality of these French books read by the Dutch young lady are enough to astonish and probably shock an English girl, who reads often with difficulty the safe 'Daudet' ('Sapho' excepted), but the young Dutchwoman knows of no Index Expurgatorius, and reads what she likes. At the same time the classics of England and Germany are very generally read and valued, and many a Dutchwoman could pass a better examination on the text and meaning of Shakespeare than the English-woman, whose knowledge is too often limited to memories of the Cambridge texts of the great poets used in schools.

But, well educated as the Dutchwoman undoubtedly is, there is nothing about her of the 'blue-stocking,' and she does not impress you as being clever until a long acquaintance has brought out her many-sided knowledge. The great pity is that her education leads to so little, for there are very few channels into which a Dutchwoman can direct her knowledge. Politics turn for the most part on differences in religions questions, which are abstruse and dry to the feminine mind, and of practical political life she sees nothing. There is no 'terrace,' no Primrose League, no canvassing, no political salon, no excitement about elections; and added to these negatives, women get snubbed if they venture opinions on political matters, and young people generally look upon politics et hoc genus omne as a bore, and the names of the great statesmen at the helm of affairs are frequently not even known by the younger generation. Little interest is also taken in the army and navy, owing to the fact that there is so little active service in the former and to the smallness of the latter; and woman does not care much about orders, regulations, manoeuvres and comparative strengths--she wants 'heroes,' and to know what they have done, and does not consider what the 'services' might, could, or should do. The officers who have served in India and have seen active service rank high in her estimation, but as these are few, beyond the affection bestowed upon soldier husband, brother, or lover, which is chiefly displayed in anxiety lest they should be sent to do garrison duty in some town where social advantages are small or nil, there is no great interest taken in army affairs by the Dutchwoman. As to the navy, they philosophically acquiesce in the fact that as a ship must sail on the water they must patiently bear the necessary separation from their sailor friends.

When we come to things ecclesiastical there is still less interest taken in the Church. The Roman Catholic Church is outside the question, for the position of the laity there has been well described as 'kneeling in front of the altar, sitting under the pulpit, and putting one's hand in one's pocket without demur when money is required.' The Protestant laity, however, do not take any great interest in the National Church, and while there are deaconesses devoted to nursing and all good works, as there are soeurs de charité in the Roman communion, yet the rank and file of Dutchwomen do not trouble about their church beyond attending it occasionally--one may say, very occasionally. There is but little brightness in the services of the Reformed Church, no ritual, no scope for artistic work, no curates, and above and beyond ail, no career in the Church for the clergy. At the best they may get sent to one of the large towns, but the life is the same as in the village for the wife of the 'domine,' as the Dutch pastor is called. And if the domines move about in fear and trembling because of the argus-eyes and often Midas-like ears of the deacons, their wives must be still more discreet. One 'domine' has been known to brave public opinion and ride a bicycle, but for a mother in Israel to do the like would scandalize all good members of the Reformed Church. The wives of the clergy, however, do good and useful work, and probably are more real helpmeets to their husbands than women in any other class of what may be called official life, but they take no sort of lead in parochial or ecclesiastical matters. They do not direct the feminine influences which do work in the parish, but rather take their place as one of them. If, therefore, a woman marries a clergyman, she does so for love of the man and his work's sake; there cannot be a tinge of ambition as to the career of her husband, for there are no such things as comfortable rectories and prospective deaneries or bishoprics, with their consequent influence and power. Nothing but love of the man brings the 'domine' a wife, and she knows that there will be inquisitorial eyes and not too kind speeches about her behaviour from the 'faithful,' while the great people, to their loss, will ignore her socially in much the same way as Queen Elizabeth did the wives of the bishops in her day.

Passing to lighter subjects, Dutch girls are now breaking loose from the stiffness and espionage in which their mothers were brought up, and this is without doubt in a large measure due to the introduction of sport. Tennis, hockey, golf, and more especially bicycling have conferred, by the force of circumstances, a freedom which strength of argument, entreaty, and tears failed to effect. Mothers and and chaperons do not, as a rule, bicycle, and play tennis and golf; they cannot always go to club meetings, even to yawn through the sets, and so the young people play by themselves, and there are fast growing a lack of restraint and a healthy freedom of intercourse which are gravely deprecated by grand-mammas, winked at by mothers, but enjoyed to the full by daughters. But quidnuncs prophesy, however, that people will not marry as early as of yore, for young people get to know one another too well by unrestricted intercourse, and the halo with which each sex surrounds the other is dispelled. Be this as it may, no Dutch girl wishes to go back to the old days when she could go nowhere alone.

Yet, however much men like to have women as companions in games, they are not so willing to allow them much to say in matters which the masculine mind considers its own province; for the fact is that most Dutchmen consider women inferiors, and when there is a question of admittance into literary or artistic circles and clubs, women's work has to be of an undeniably high order. There are one or two ladies' clubs, but they do not at present flourish, there being so few public platforms on which women can meet, and so the 'social grade' determines women's relative position by women's votes, and there is small chance of crossing the Rubicon then. There is no doubt, however, that women in Holland are slowly winning their way to greater independence of life. They are filling posts in public offices; they are going to the universities; they are studying medicine and qualifying as doctors; and no doubt they will in time compel men to acknowledge their claims to live an independent life rather than a dependent one. Besides, in Holland, as in other countries, the proportion between the sexes is unequal, and so necessity will force open doors of usefulness hitherto closed to women.

The Dutchwoman dresses expensively in all the towns, and generally well. The toilettes are mostly of a German model, which suits the build of the Dutchwoman better than the fashions of Paris. Rarely, however, do women dress in that simple style in vogue in English morning dress, and a Dutch town or seaside resort is filled in the mornings with gay toilettes more fitted for the Row or the Boulevard. Even when bicycling the majority do not dress very simply.

The Workman of the Towns

The condition of the Dutch urban working classes is by no means an enviable one. Granting that wages are much higher than half a century ago, when bread cost fivepence-halfpenny the loaf as against three halfpence to-day, and when clothes and furniture cost fifty per cent. more than now, the average working-man cannot be otherwise described than as distinctly poor when compared with his English colleague. Yet it would be misleading to judge exclusively by the scale of wages, and against making comparisons of the kind the reader should at once be warned. The fact is that there are very wide divergences of condition amongst the working classes of Holland. A carpenter or a blacksmith earning from £1 to £1 10s. in weekly wages all the year round will rank, if sober and well-behaved, as a comparatively well-to-do workman. On the other hand, a bricklayer or a painter, whose work in winter is very uncertain, and who earns, maybe, a bare £1 a week during the nine months of the year wherein he can find work, is a poor workman at the best, and his condition is greatly to be deplored. More pitiable still, however, is the case of working-class families in some of the manufacturing towns, where wages are still lower, and where an even tolerable standard of life cannot be maintained unless mother and children take their place in the factory side by side with the head of the household as regular wage-earners.

For, as labour is cheap and families are numerous in Holland, as soon as the boys and girls have reached the sacramental age of twelve, at which Dutch law allows them to work twelve hours a day, they leave school, and enter the factory and workshop.

It is no joke for these children, who have to leave their little beds, frequently under the tiles, at 5 or 6 a.m., or earlier, summer and winter, to gulp down some hot coffee, or what is conveniently called so, to swallow a huge piece of the well-known Dutch 'Roggebrood,' or rye-bread, and then to hurry, in their wooden shoes, through the quiet streets of the town to their place of work.

Sometimes they have time to return home at 8 or 8.30 a.m. for a second hurried 'breakfast,' which as often as not is their first, for many of them start the day's work on an empty stomach. Those who cannot run home and back in the half-hour usually allowed for the first 'Schaft,' or meal-time, take their bread-and-butter with them in a cotton or linen bag, and their milk-and-water or coffee in a tin, and so shift as well as they can. Dinner-time, as a rule, finds the whole family united from about twelve until one o'clock or half-past in the kitchen at home. This kitchen is, of course, used for cooking, washing, dwelling, and sleeping purposes. The walls are whitewashed, and the floor consists of flag-stones. Of luxury there is none, of comfort little. Generally the fare of the day is potatoes, with some vegetable, carrots, turnips, cabbage, or beans. A piece of bacon, rarely some beef, is sometimes added; while mutton is hardly ever eaten in Holland, unless by very poor people. Fish is too expensive for most of them, except fried kippers or bloaters. If there is time over, and the house has a little garden attached to it, the children help by watering the vegetables growing there, should it be summer-time, or by making themselves generally useful. But at 1 or 1.30 they have to be back at the workshop, and until 7 p.m. the drudgery goes on again. On Saturday evening the boy brings his sixpence, or whatever his trifling wages may be, to his mother. Rent and the club-money for illness and funeral expenses must be at hand when the collectors call either on Sunday or Monday morning. As a rule, though the exceptions are numerous enough, the father also brings his whole pay with him; but drink is the curse--a decreasing curse, it may be, but still a curse--of many a workman's family, and in such cases the inroads it makes in the domestic budget are very serious.

So the boys grow up, in a busy, monotonous life, until they are called upon to subject themselves to compulsory military service. Before they become recruits they have usually joined various societies--debating, theatrical, social, political, or other. Arnold Toynbee has a good many admirers and followers in Holland, who do yeoman's work after his spirit, and bring bright, healthy pleasure into the lives of these youthful toilers. Divines of all denominations, Protestant and Catholic, have also their 'At homes' and their 'Congregations,' and innocent amusement is not unseldom mixed with religious teaching at their meetings. In this way, too, a helpful, restraining influence is exerted upon youth. And gradually the boy becomes a young man, associating with other young men, and, like his wealthier neighbours, discussing the world's affairs, dreaming of drastic reforms, and thinking less and less of the dreary home, where father and mother, grown old before their time, are little more than the people with whom he boards, and who take the whole or part of his wages, allowing him some modest pocket-money for himself.

In the meantime his sisters have been living with some middle-class family, starting as errand-girls, being afterwards promoted to the important position of 'kindermeid' or children's maid, though all the time sleeping out, which means that before and after having toiled a whole day for strangers, they do part of the housework for their mothers at home. After some time, however, they find employment as housemaids, or in other domestic positions. If they have the good fortune to find considerate yet strict and conscientious mistresses, the best time of their life now begins; there is no exhaustion from work, yet good food, good lodging, and kind treatment. Should they care to cultivate the fine art of cooking, they get instruction in that line, and are in most cases allowed to work independently, and even, when reliable and trustworthy, to do the buying of vegetables, etc., by themselves in the market-places, which all Dutch towns boast of, and in which the produce of the land is offered for sale in abundance and appetizing freshness. All this tends to teach a servant-girl how to use alike her eyes, hands, and brain, and to educate her into a thrifty, industrious, and tidy workman's wife, who will know how to make both ends meet, however short her resources may be. This is one of the reasons why so many Dutch workmen's homes, notwithstanding the low wages, have an appearance of snug prosperity--the women there have learned how to make a little go a long way.

And how about their future husbands? Have they, too, learned their trade? Perhaps; if they are particularly strong, shrewd, industrious, and persevering, though technical education ('ambachtsonderwys') is much a thing of the future in Holland.

In the general course of life a boy goes to a trade which offers him the highest wages. If he can begin by earning eightpence a week, he will not go elsewhere to earn sixpence if the wear and tear of shoes and clothes is the same in both cases, although the sixpenny occupation may perhaps be better suited to his tastes, ability, and general aptitude. To his mother the extra two pence are a consideration; they may cover some weekly contribution to a necessary fund. Running errands is his first work, until accidentally some workman or some apprentice leaves the shop, in which case he is moved up, and a new boy has the errands to do. But now he must look out for himself; his master is not over-anxious to let him learn all the ins and outs of the work, for as soon as his competitors hear that he has a very clever boy in his shop, he is sure to lose that boy, who is tempted away by the offer of better pay. Nor are the workmen greatly inclined to impart their little secrets, to explain this thing and that, and so help the young fellow on. Why should they? Nobody did it for them; they got their qualifications by their own unaided exertions--let the boy do the same. Moreover, the 'baas,' or chief, does not like them to 'waste their time' in that manner, and the 'baas' is the dispenser of their bread-and-butter; so the boy is, as a rule, regarded merely as a nuisance.

There are workshops, first-class workshops, too, where no apprentices have been admitted for dozens of years, simply because the employers do not see their way to make an efficient agreement with the boys or their parents which would prevent them from letting a competitor enjoy the results of their technical instruction. One would not be astonished that in these circumstances all over Holland the want of technical schools is badly felt, and that agitation for their provision is active. Only some twenty-four such schools exist at present; the oldest, that at Amsterdam, dates from 1861, and the youngest, that of Nymegen, was established in 1900. Partly municipal schools, partly schools built by the private effort of citizens, they all do their work well. It is only during the last few years that the nation has begun to ask whether technical education ought not to be taken up by the State. The Dutch like private enterprise in everything, and are always inclined to prefer it to State or municipal action; but they have come to recognize that technical schools may be good schools, and may do good work on behalf of the much-needed improvement of handicraft, even though not private ventures, and that so far this branch of national education has not kept up with the times.

The idea which will probably in the end gain the day, is that the Technical Schools should be managed by the town councils and subsidized by the State, who in return would receive the right of supervision and inspection, and of laying down general rules for their curricula. For the present, however, there is no law settling the question, and the apprentices are the sufferers by the lack, since the employers shrink from employing their means, time, and knowledge on behalf of unscrupulous competitors.

In general the life of an urban working-man is a constant struggle against poverty and sickness. Children come plentifully, rather too much so for the unelastic possibilities of their parents' wages. The young wife does not get stronger by frequent confinements; and the fare is bound to get less nourishing as the mouths round the domestic board increase--always simple, it often becomes insufficient. The mother, working hard already, has to work harder still and to do laundry work at home or go out as a charwoman, in order to increase the modest income. In industrial centres women frequently work in the factories as well, though the law does at least protect them against too long hours and premature work after confinement.

Thanks to the Dutch thrift, burial funds and sickness funds come promptly to the rescue when death lays his iron grip on the wasted form of the poor town-bred babies, when illness saps the man's power to earn his usual wages, and the family's income is for the time cut off. Of these benefit funds there are about 450 in Holland, distributed amongst some 150 towns. Half of them are burial funds, and half mixed burial and sickness funds; their members number about two millions; yet, although they certainly do much to prevent extreme poverty, they do it in a manner which in many cases is little short of a scandal. Their legal status is rather uncertain, and in consequence many managers do as they like, and make a good thing for themselves out of their duty to the poor. Too often these managers are supreme controllers of the funds, and the members have no influence whatever. In many cases the only official the latter know is the collector, who calls at their houses for the weekly contributions. This official frequently resorts to questionable tricks for extorting money from the poor helpless members, who simply and confidently pay what they are told to pay--small sums, of course, a few cents or pence, it may be, but still 'adding up' in the long run--and when sorrow and death enter their humble dwellings they are easily imposed upon by cool scoundrels, who trade on their disinclination to quarrel about money when there is a corpse in the house.

Another danger of the irregular condition of these funds lies in the fact that outsiders may take out policies on the lives of certain families. A few years ago the country was shocked by the alarming story of a woman who had poisoned a series of persons merely to be able to get the funeral expenses paid to herself, while many a wretched little baby has in this manner been the horrible investment of heartless neighbours, who, knowing the poor thing was dying, took out policies for its funeral. For medical examination is not required for these beautifully managed associations. Their premiums are, however, so high that this detail does not materially affect their sound financial position; and this being the case, it cannot be denied that the absence of such examinations considerably increases their general utility for the labouring classes.

The Canals and Their Population

When Drusus a few years before the commencement of our era excavated the Yssel canal, and thus gave a new arm to the Rhine, he began a process of canalization in the Frisian and Batavian provinces which has been going on more or less ever since. To the foreigner Holland or the Northern Netherlands must always appear a land of dykes and canals, the one not more important for protection than the other as an artery of communication; spreading commerce and supporting national life. Napoleon, with naïve comprehensiveness, called Holland the alluvion of French rivers. Dutch patriots declare with legitimate pride, 'God gave us the sea, but we made the shore,' and no one who has seen the artificial barrier that guards the mainland from the Hook to the Texel will disparage their achievement or scoff at their pretensions.