Leidsch Dagblad
- CHRISTIAN FEDERATION OF UNION BOARDS.
- THE KATWIJK DISASTER.
- FREE INOCULATION.
The Leidsch Dagblad's front page of 23 October 1926 carried a report from a meeting of the Christian Besturenbond. There a speaker compared membership in 1919 and six and a half years later to argue that the Protestant CNV had more reason for optimism than the socialist NVV. He put growth at 1.2 per cent for the NVV, 5.5 per cent for the Catholic federation and 6.6 per cent for the CNV, and his audience applauded. The paper also began a list of further gifts for stricken families in Katwijk-aan-Zee. A notice told parents that children could be inoculated free against diphtheria at the same time as smallpox vaccination and urged all parents to take part. This reading does not include the list of gifts itself or the name of the body that issued the notice.
Translation
CHRISTIAN FEDERATION OF UNION BOARDS.
He wanted to show in figures that the C.N.V. has more reason for optimism than the N.V.V. In 1919 the N.V.V. had 190,950 members, the R.-K.V.-V. 91,800 and the C.N.V. 46,330. After six and a half years these figures were 193,286, 96,870 and 51,680. Expressed in percentages, the growth was thus 1.2 pct., 5.5 pct. and 6.6 pct., surely proof that we may have more reason for optimism than Mr. Stenhuis, the speaker believed. (Applause.)
THE KATWIJK DISASTER.
The following further gifts for the benefit of the sorely stricken families in Katwijk-aan-Zee came into our possession today
FREE INOCULATION.
… draws attention to the fact that, simultaneously with the vaccination against smallpox, there is an opportunity to be vaccinated free of charge against diphtheria. The inoculations are completely harmless, so that all parents can be advised without reservation to have their children treated.”
Context
Why the Netherlands had three rival labour federations
The Leiden speaker set three national federations side by side: the N.V.V., the R.-K.V.-V. and the C.N.V. The socialist Dutch Confederation of Trade Unions, the NVV, had been founded in 1906. The Christian National Trade Union Federation, the CNV, was founded in Arnhem on 13 May 1909 as a federation of several Christian unions, explicitly in reaction to the NVV. It opposed the idea of class struggle and oriented itself towards a corporatist model of the economy. It was first meant to unite Protestant and Catholic workers, but in 1912 the Roman Catholic bishops spoke out against interconfessional unions, and Catholics left to found their own Roman Catholic Workers' Union, the RKWV. The three numbers in the speech therefore measure the socialist, Catholic and Protestant camps of organised labour. The speaker's 'we' is the Protestant Christian movement, and his foil is a Mr. Stenhuis, whose position the report does not spell out.
How the 1919 figures compare with the pre-war unions
Historian Leo Michielsen describes pillarisation as having kept a considerable part of the Dutch working class within church ideology, and he gives membership for 1914: about 11,000 for the Protestant CNV, 29,000 for the Catholic federation (which had been reorganised as a union federation in 1908), and over 84,000 for the NVV, which then held 38 per cent of all organised workers. Set against the speaker's 1919 figures of 46,330, 91,800 and 190,950, all three federations had multiplied their membership during the First World War and its immediate aftermath, although the two sets of figures come from different counts. By the speaker's own numbers, the years after 1919 brought only modest additions. His argument was therefore about relative momentum after the boom had ended, not about overtaking the socialists, who in 1919 were still roughly four times the CNV's size.
Checking the speaker's percentages
Two of the three percentages printed in the report follow from its own figures. The NVV's rise from 190,950 to 193,286 is 2,336 members, about 1.2 per cent, and the Catholic federation's rise from 91,800 to 96,870 is 5,070, about 5.5 per cent. The CNV's rise from 46,330 to 51,680, however, is 5,350 members, about 11.5 per cent, not 6.6 per cent; growth of 6.6 per cent would have produced only about 49,400 members. Either a membership figure or the percentage was misprinted, misreported or garbled in the scanned text. Whichever is correct, the ranking the speaker used stands, because the CNV still grew fastest in relative terms. In absolute terms, though, the CNV added only about 5,350 members over six and a half years, and the NVV remained nearly four times larger.
Katwijk's disaster year of 1926
The Leidsch Dagblad notice opens a running list of donations for 'sorely stricken families' in Katwijk-aan-Zee, the fishing village on the coast near Leiden, but the excerpt breaks off before the list and does not name a vessel. Katwijk still remembers 1926 as a disaster year: the town's annual commemoration of men lost at sea marks it as the year in which several Katwijk ships were lost and many sons did not come home. Since 2005 a steel monument on the Noord Boulevard has carried nearly 300 names of men who did not return from the sea over the past hundred years. A collection gathered through the regional newspaper, as this notice shows, was one way the families of drowned fishermen were supported.
Original
CHRISTELIJKE BESTURENBOND.
Hij wilde in cijfers aantoonen dat het C. N. V. meer reden tot optimisme heeft dan het N. V. V. In 1919 telde het N. V. V. 190950 leden, het R. - K. V. - V. 91800 en het C. N. V. 46330. Na zes en een half jaar waren deze cijfers 193. 286, 96870 en 51680. In procenten uitgedrukt was de groei dus 1. 2 pCt. 5. 5 pCt. en 6. 6 pCt., wel een bewijs dat wij meer reden tot optimisme mogen hebben, dan de heer Stenhuis, meende spr. (Applaus).
DE RAMP TE KATWIJK.
De volgende giften ten bate van de zw getroffen gezinnen in Katwijk-aan-Zee k men heden nog in ons bezit
KOSTELOOZE INENTING.
vestigt er de aandacht op dat, gelijktijdig met de enting tegen pokken, gelegenheid bestaat kosteloos tegen diphtherie gevaccineerd te worden. De inentingen zijn volkomen onschadelijk. zoodat zonder voorbehoud aan alle ouders kan worden aangeraden hunne kinderen te laten behandelen. "
Source: Source: Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken (leiden.courant.nu)