The Dutch as Readers
Although printing was not invented in Holland, the nation would not have been unworthy of that honour, for there is a widespread culture of the book among all classes of the population, and the newspaper and periodical press makes further a very large contribution to its intellectual food. Nearly two thousand booksellers and publishers are engaged in the task of bringing within easy reach of their customers everything they wish to read. It is no unusual thing to find a decently equipped retail bookshop in quite unimportant townlets, and even in villages. By an admirable arrangement every publisher sends parcels of books for the various retailers all over the country to one central house in Amsterdam--'het Bestelhuis voor den Boekhandel' (the Booksellers' Collecting and Distributing Office). In this establishment the publishers' parcels are opened, and all books sent by the various publishers for one retailer are packed together and forwarded to him, by rail, steamer, or other cheap mode of conveyance. In consequence, any doctor, clergyman, or schoolmaster can receive a penny or twopenny pamphlet in his out-of-the-way home, as well as any book or periodical from London, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, etc., within a remarkably short time, without trouble, and without extra expense in postage, by simply applying to the local bookseller.
The Dutch are very cosmopolitan in their reading. Many children of the superior working classes learn French at the primary schools; most children of the middle class pick up English and German as well at the secondary schools, and a large proportion of them are able to talk in these three foreign languages; and as opportunities for intercourse are not over-abundant in the smaller towns, they keep up their knowledge of these languages by reading. Indeed, the five millions of Dutchmen are, relatively, the largest buyers of foreign literature in Europe. The translator, however, comes to the rescue of those who succeed in forgetting so much of their foreign languages that they find reading them a very mitigated enjoyment. This question of translation is rather a sore point in the relations between Dutch and foreign authors and publishers. The pecuniary injury done to foreign authors, however, is very slight, while in reputation they have benefited; for if Dutch private libraries are not without their Shakespeare, Motley, Macaulay, Dickens, Thackeray, Kingsley, Browning, not to mention French and German classics, this is mainly due to the fact that the parents of the present generation had the opportunity of buying Dutch translations, and explained to their children the value and the beauty of these works.
Moreover, most authors and publishers in foreign countries, using languages with world-wide circulation, are apt to miscalculate the profits made by Dutch publishers, with their very limited market and limited sale. A royalty of £5 for the right of translating some novel would be regarded as a contemptibly small sum in the English book world, but £5 in Dutch currency presses heavily on the budget of a Dutch translation, of which only some hundred or so copies can be sold at a retail price of not quite five shillings, and is an almost prohibitive price to pay for the copyright of a novel which is only used as the feuilleton of a local paper with an edition of under a thousand copies a week. As a fact, many Dutch publishers pay royalties to their foreign colleagues as soon as the publication is important enough to bear the expense; but the majority clearly will only give up their ancient 'right' of free translation, and agree to join the Berne Convention, if a practicable way can be found out of the financial difficulty. For the present, then, the Dutch are cosmopolitan readers, direct or indirect. In the average bookseller's shop one finds, of course, a majority of novels--novels of all sorts and conditions--supplemented by literary essays and poems. In a number of cases the bookseller is not merely a shopkeeper who deals in printed matter, and supplies just what his customers ask for, but a man of education and judgment, who is well able to give his opinion on books and authors. Often he has read them, though oftener, of course, he is guided by the leading monthly and weekly magazines and reviews, and by the publishers' columns of the leading daily newspapers. The bookseller is thus in many cases the trusted manager and guiding spirit of one or more 'Leesgezelschappen,' or 'Reading Societies.' These societies have a history. At the end of the eighteenth century they were often political and even revolutionary bodies. The members or subscribers met to discuss books, pamphlets, and periodicals, but frequently they discussed by preference the passages in the books bearing upon political conditions, and argued improvements which they considered desirable or necessary. As time passed by, and free institutions became the possession of the Dutch, the political mission of the Reading Society became exhausted, but the institution itself survived, and continues to the present day.
The 'Leesgezelschap' owes its special form to another peculiarity of the Dutch--their intensely domesticated, home-loving character. Family life, with its fine and delicate intimacies between husband and wife, between parent and children, is the most attractive feature of national existence in the Netherlands. Family life is, indeed, the centre from which the national virtues emanate, because there the individual members educate each other in the practice of personal virtues. The Dutchman is not constitutionally reserved and shy; he knows how to live a full, strong, public life; he never shrinks from civic duties and social intercourse; but his love of home life takes the first place after his passion for liberty and independence. Club life in Holland is insignificant, and few clubs even attempt to create a substitute for home life; they are merely used for friendly intercourse for an hour or so every day, and as better-class restaurants. A Dutchman prefers to do his reading at home, in the domestic circle, with the members of his family, or in his study if he follows some scientific occupation, and his 'Leesgezelschap' affords him the opportunity of doing this. There are military, theological, educational, philological, and all sorts of scientific reading societies, besides those for general literature. They work on the co-operative System. The manager is in many cases a local bookseller, buying Dutch and foreign books, magazines, reviews, illustrated weeklies and pamphlets in one or more copies, according to the number, the tastes, and the wants of the members. Most societies take in books and periodicals in four languages--Dutch, French, German, English--and so their members keep themselves well acquainted with the world's opinion. And all this, be it added, costs the subscriber vastly less than the fees of English circulating libraries, with their restricted advantages and heavy expenses of delivery. Between the book and the newspaper lies a form of literature which is specifically Dutch--the 'Vlugschrift,' brochure, or pamphlet. The brochure is an old historical institution. In the eighteenth century it was very popular as a vehicle for the zeal of fiery reformers who thus vented their opinions on burning political questions of the day. There is no necessity nowadays for these small booklets, so easily hidden from suspicions eyes, though the brochure is still used whenever, in stirring speech or impassioned sermon, Holland's leading men address themselves to the emotions of the hour. These brochures, as a rule, cost no more than sixpence, yet, none the less, the thrifty Dutch have 'Leesgezelschappen' which buy and circulate them among their subscribers; they take everything from everybody, never caring whose opinions they read upon the various subjects of current interest, a trait which evidences a very praiseworthy lack of bias.
This lack of bias is not so obvions so far as newspaper reading is concerned. Like other people, the Dutch take such newspapers as defend or represent their own political opinions, and often affect towards journals on the other side a contemptuous indifference which is only half real.
Political parties in Holland differ slightly from those of Great Britain, except that in the former country politics and religion go together. Thus in Holland a Liberal who at the same time is not advanced in religious thought hardly exists, and would scarcely be trusted. In consequence the Liberals were not defeated at the last general elections because they were Liberals, but because their opponents (the Anti-Revolutionists and Roman Catholics) denounced them as irreligious and atheistical. In political strife the religious controversy takes the form of an argument for and against the influence of religious dogma upon politics and education.
Now, as far as journalism goes, the Liberal and Radical newspapers unquestionably take the lead. The Roman Catholics are like the Anti-Revolutionists, very anxious to provide their readers with wholesome news, but this anxiety is not successfully backed up by care that this wholesome news shall be early as well; hence their journalism is somewhat behind the times. Of most of the progressive newspapers it may be said that the whole of the contents are interesting; as to the rest, they are only interesting because of the leading articles, which are sometimes written by eminent men.
As far as circulation goes, Het Nieuws van den Dag can boast to be the leading journal, its edition running to nearly 40,000 copies a day. Up to the present its editors have been advanced, or 'Modern,' Protestant clergymen, in the persons of Simon Gorter, H. de Veer, and P.H. Ritter. Although not taking a strong line in politics, its inclinations are decidedly towards moderate Liberalism, and, thanks to its cheap price--14s. 6d. per annum--its extensive, prudently and carefully selected and worded supply of news, and its sagacious management, it became the family paper of the Dutch, excellently suiting the quiet taste of the middle class of the nation. It is found everywhere save in those few places where the Roman Catholic Church has sufficient influence to get it boycotted. The Nieuws, as it is generally called, gives from twenty-four to thirty-two, and even more, pages of closely printed matter, of which the advertisements occupy rather over than under half. One does not see it read in public more than any other Dutch paper, and two reasons account for this. One is the fact that, as has been said, a Dutchman prefers to do his reading at home--'met een boekje, in een hoekje' ('with my book in a quiet corner') is the Dutchman's ideal of cosy literary enjoyment. Then, too, Dutch newspaper publishers prefer a system of safe quarterly subscriptions to the chance of selling one day a few thousand copies less than the other, since even the largest circulation in Holland is too limited for risky commercial vicissitudes. Hence they make the price for single numbers so high that only the prospect of long hours in a railway-carriage frightens a Dutchman into buying one or more newspapers.
The Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant is another typical Dutch newspaper, but appealing to quite other instincts than the Nieuws. In their quiet way the Dutch are rather proud of their Nieuwe Kotterdammer, which inspires something like awe for its undeniable, but slightly ponderous, virtues. The Nieuwe Rotterdammer is absolutely Liberal, and stands no Radical or Social Democratic nonsense; its leading articles are lucid, cool, logical, and to the point; it has correspondents everywhere, at home and abroad; and all staunch Liberals of a clear-cut, even dogmatic type, who love Free Trade and look upon municipal and State intervention as pernicious, swear by it. The present chief editor is Dr. Zaayer, formerly a Liberal member of the Second Chamber of the States-General, a shrewd, well-read Dutchman, with a splendid University education; and the manager, J.C. Nijgh, is as clever a man of business as Rotterdam can produce. As far as it is possible to lead Dutchmen by printed matter, the Nieuwe Rotterdammer does it. Its supply of news is so fresh and so reliable that everybody reads it, even the Roman Catholics in North Brabant and Limburg, Holland's two Catholic counties.