No Zuider Zee
By JOHN USBORNE ICONFESS with shame that till about' two years ago I had not realised that there was no longer a Zuider Zee. I forget how I came to hear about it; well-founded rumour had it that there was dry land up there, that there was farming up there to beat all others. Someone had coined a phrase, " The Future Corn Belt of Europe." I pulled strings, and it was not long before I was invited by the Burgemeester of the new " polder " of Wieringermeer to be his guest for as long as I needed to convince myself—and others—it was all true.
It is all true. There is no Zuider Zee. They dropped clay and brushwood and German granite blocks into the North Sea for nineteen miles and joined the province of 'North , Holland to Friesland. The salt Zuider Zee became the fresh: ' water Ijssel Lake, and two pumping ,stations began pumping from the new lake into the old sea. That was in 1930. Before the end of that year 50,000 acres of land appeared from the old sea bottom near the former island of Wieringen. The salt seeped away: binding crops of rape, rye and clover came next. By 1933 big crops of wheat, potatoes, flax and sugar beet were sailing down the three new canals to the big cities and the ports. Three new villages were emerging from the old mud, huge barns went up fast; design of all buildings was in the hands of 'one man, an inspired Government architect called Van Eck. Last in priority were the farmhouses. Men came from the old lands early in the morning and left late. Some slept in the new barns.
My host was thirty-two when he was appointed Burgemeester of the new polder in 1933. He was well above the average age for the polder. The government had acquired ownership of the land they had reclaimed. They selected about 470 from about 8,000 applicants to., farm the land. They had to be young, fit, college-trained and able to invest £15 in each acre they wished to farm. The land was divided into 511 holdings, ranging in acreage from 20 to 200.
The war caught them on the last lap. Building slowed to a trickle. The Germans took most of the harvests; many of the farmers joined the resistance movement. By the spring of 1945 they believed the next harvest would surely be all their own. But on April 17th, eighteen days before capitu- lation, the Germans blew the dyke which had protected the new polder from the old Zuider Zee. Four hundred and eleven farms were destroyed; all three villages were wiped out.
And yet, to bypass a story of superb skill and endurance, there was a good harvest in the Wieringermeer in 1946.
" Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise." I had never known how ant-like. man could be till I saw the new lands and heard from the first settlers how it had come about. One shuts one's eyes, puts the Time- machine into gear, slips the clutch and there . . , little bodies fuss away at a huge stretch of salt sea. And here it is— fifty thousand acres of dry land, with canals, ditches, roads, barns, villages, trees and farmhouses.
Consider the way they farm. The New Land is good, though there are many sorts of soil. Output per acre is higher than in the rest of Holland and a great deal higher than in Britain. They average two tons per acre of wheat, where ours is hardly over one ton. They are mechanised to the hilt, their profits are high. Most farmers on the arable with more than 100 acres net between £1,500 and £2,000 in a year. I visited many farms, both leasehold and state-managed, and I talked to many farmers. All were confident of the future. Though the only fixed price is for wheat and they were a little troubled about the prospects of selling their potatoes, oats and sugar beet for as good a price as they had got for last year's big crops, they had had enough experience of the state to know they would be maintained as privileged wards. Rents were adjustable according to profits made on comparable state farms; all repairs to farm buildings were undertaken by the State. For a while it seemed too good to be. true. Here was Town and Country Planning par excellence, here was demo- cratic agrarian socialism proceeding from strength to strength.
Where was the snag ?
It becomes painfully clear as one leaves the farms for the villages, the markets, the schools and the churches. It is the old, old Dutch story.
Settlers came to Wieringermeer from all over Holland: from Catholic strongholds, from Anti-Revolutionary Calvinist strongholds, from liberal Calvinist strongholds. The politico- religious complexion of the new colony was planned to be as near an approximation to that of the over-all national complexion as possible. There was a great chance to reconcile the hitherto unreconciled. • It is fair to say that the clergy of all sects with whom I discussed this were hopeful. But no one else. A. new village is built: three new churches, of course. Three new schools: Catholic, Gereformeerde Kerk and Heruornide Kerk.* The Anti-Revolution'ary Calvinist pastcir of Slootdorp insisted with vehemence that it was demoralising for a child of his church to learn natural history from a teacher not of his church. I visited a farmers' Co-operative in Middenmeer and saw hundreds of tons of highly priced seed potatoes stored in automatically cooled and ventilated chambers, and I watched there a wonderful cut of lucerne being dried and stored. Every- thing was up-to-date and efficient but one thing. It was a Calvinist Co-operative.. The Catholics had theirs elsewhere.
For the whole of Wieringermeer's 7,000-8,000 population there is as yet no swimming bath. A proposal was recently put before the Council. The estimated cost and the charge on the rates had been published. Because the Calvinists refused to support it if bathing was allowed on Sundays and the Catholics if bathirm was to be mixed, the plans are in abeyance.
The rivalry of principles and respectability touches the very. quick. They are proud in. Wieringermeer that there is no serious crime, that, in spite of the existence of one beer parlour, there has been no case of drunkenness. They are proud that there is only one dentist, one vet. and no optician and no medical practitioner. Ill-health is rare in man and beast. This is indeed a wonderful record. But are they proud of having but one teacher of the piano, no instrumentalist, no teacher of art ? A young school-teacher told me that he and his wife produced amateur theatricals every year, but that many of the best plays had to be neglected as being not respectable.
The Dutch have proved that great art runs .in their blood, that prosperity and-culture need not be incompatible, that genius can come from high-principled boers. From all this new efficiency and tidy flatness rebellion must surely emerge and poetry burst forth.
One morning the Burgemeester was motoring me from Middenmeer to Wieringerwerf, the administrative centre of the polder, where I was to meet the Supervisor of State Farms. Suddenly he stopped the car by a farmhousb. A bulldozer was moving earth from one end .of the garden to the other. The Burgemeester in his curiosity got out of his car and greeted a little man in clogs and overalls. He smiled as the little man explained. " What's he up to ? " I asked as he got back into 'the car. " He's making himself a miniature lake which he Wants to stock with fish. And then he'll buy two swans. He likes swans." I was on the point of asking if they would be Calvinist or Catholic swans, but I behaved myself. I am all for that little man.
* The Gereformeerde Kerk is orthodox Calvinist and has its own political party. The Heroormde Kerk, to which the Queen and most Dutch protestants belong, is liberal Calvinist.
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