THE NETHERLANDS: Again Slump

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"Never before," said gloomy J. de Fesche of the Société Céramique last week. "in the history of the Dutch ceramic industry was the situation as catastrophic as now." Other Dutch potters sadly nodded their heads. The fall of the pound has enabled British potmakers to dump their receptacles in Holland.

All the Netherlands sank to a new low last week. Japan's abandonment of the gold standard threatened the Dutch textile trade in the East. Eighteen thousand spinners and weavers walked out of 31 factories rather than accept a new wage cut. In Amsterdam Communists and police set to with brickbats and revolvers over a new regulation forcing all unemployed men on the dole to show their cards twice a day to prevent fraud. In the midst of these alarums, rumors started in Britain and Germany that Holland too would go off the gold standard. The Netherlands Bank quickly spiked these with an announcement that Holland still had a gold coverage of 91.9% for gold circulation.

There was one other cheerful report. Minister of Public Works Dr. P. J. Reymer reported last week that work on the draining of the Zuider Zee was progressing ahead of schedule. In one section, the Wieringen polder. 25,000 acres have already been drained, and about 8,000 acres were sown for crops by the end of October.