Production and Industry.—Cattle rearing, butter and cheese making, are the most general industries of the country, for the grazing meadows are far more extensive than the corn lands. In the latter, rye, barley, wheat, and potatoes, are the chief crops. Flax, and beet-root for sugar, chicory, and tobacco, are grown also to a considerable extent.
The principal manufactures are shipping, bricks, margarine, cocoa, chocolate, linen, rich damasks, cottons, woolens, cigars and other manufactured tobacco, candles, confectionery, earthenware and pottery, glass bottles and ware, chemical and pharmaceutical products, matches, perfumery, sugar, bicycles and automobiles, boots and shoes, starch, potato flour, engines, metal substances, works of art in gold and silver, incandescent lamps, machinery, motors, paper, printing, oils, beer, “geneva” and other liqueurs. Diamond cutting employs numerous hands in Amsterdam.
People.—Of the population, the greater part (seventy per cent) is formed by the Dutch or Batavians, the descendants of the Germanic tribe of the Batavi who occupied the delta of the Rhine in the time of the Roman conquest of the land. Frieslanders (fourteen per cent), descendants of the ancient Frisii, occupy the northern borders of the country, where the peasantry still speak a language closely allied to Anglo-Saxon; the Flemings (thirteen per cent) occupy the southeastern borders of the country. Their language differs little from the Dutch; but the dialects throughout the country are very numerous.
The majority, about three-fifths, belong to the several Reformed Churches; and the remainder are Roman Catholics, with about one hundred and seven thousand Jews.
Private state-aided primary instruction is encouraged rather than public, though the latter is provided, if required, by local taxation. Secondary schools for working classes are numerous, well equipped and attended. The principal universities are at Amsterdam, Groningen, Leiden, Utrecht.
Government.—The government of Holland is a limited constitutional monarchy. The crown is the executive power; legislation is vested in the States-general of two chambers, called the [557] First Chamber and the Second Chamber. A State Council of fourteen members appointed by the Sovereign is consulted on all legislative and on most executive matters.
There is no state religion, but the state gives financial support to the different churches.
Cities.—The capital is The Hague with a population of 300,000; other cities exceeding 50,000 in 1913 were as follows: Amsterdam, 591,053; Rotterdam, 454,135; Utrecht, 123,457; Groningen, 78,670; Haarlem, 70,907; Arnhem, 64,760; Leiden, 59,297; Nymegen, 58,679; Tilburg, 54,216.
The Hague (Dutch Gravenhagen, “the count’s hedge”), the capital of the Netherlands is two miles from the North Sea and fifteen miles northwest of Rotterdam. It is intersected by canals and shady avenues of lime-trees, and has many fine public buildings and private houses.
In the center of it is the Vijver, or Fish-pond, to the south of which stands the old castle of the Counts of Holland, where the Dutch parliament sits. In its gatetower the brothers De Witt were confined till dragged thence and torn to pieces by the populace (1672). The picture-gallery has a splendid collection of works by native painters (Paul Potter’s “Bull” and Rembrandt’s “Lesson in Anatomy”); and there are the royal library with five hundred thousand volumes; the municipal and other museums; the Town-House, and the royal palaces.