Vrijheidsstreven in Verdrukking : Liberale partijpolitiek in Nederland
1901-1940
Schie, P.C.G. van
Citation
Schie, P. C. G. van. (2005, September 27). Vrijheidsstreven in Verdrukking : Liberale
partijpolitiek in Nederland 1901-1940. Uitgeverij Boom. Retrieved from
https://hdl.handle.net/1887/3737
Version:
Corrected Publisher’s Version
License:
Licence agreement concerning inclusion of doctoral thesis in the
Institutional Repository of the University of Leiden
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https://hdl.handle.net/1887/3737
The heyday of liberalism in a great part of Europe was in the late thc entury.
D uring the first four dec ades of the th c entury this politic al mov ement was
(getting) in dec line ev erywhere. The dec line was many-hued: the liberal princ iple of plac ing the indiv idual and his walk of life into the c ore of politic s bec ame more and more c ontrov ersial; the indiv idual trust in representativ es was superseded by party politic s; and the support by the c onstituents to the liberals was dwindling – in any c ase in ratio of number. The N etherlands was no ex c eption to this general trend.
Vrijheidsstreven in verdrukking. Liberale partijpolitiek in Nederland - (The pursuit of liberty under strain. L iberal party politic s in the N etherlands - ) is a book ex amining how the D utc h liberals stood up in an era of inc reasing mass-organiz ation and c ollec tiv ist politic s. H ow did the liberals appraise these phenomena? To what ex tent and how did they adapt themselv es to the new env ironment, as regards c ontent and in their public appearanc e? A nd what c an their dec line be attributed to?
The elec tions at onc e set the fashion for the nex t four dec ades. The liberals were fierc ely c ontested not only by their traditional opponents, the denominatio-nals and the soc ialists, but just as muc h by the Vrijz innig-D em ocratische B ond ( ). That new alignment c onsisted of radic als who had sec eded from mainly the Liberale U nie (L iberal U nion; ), then the only national liberal party. In the liberals – and those un-organiz ed to the right of them – lost % of their seats in P arliament. The loss benefited espec ially the denominationals, who rose to power now. U ntil denominational and liberal C abinets would alternate regularly.
The managed to surv iv e pretty well from the blow in its organiz ation. Its membership figures grew steadily and (almost) eq ualled those of its opponents. B eing prac tic ally-minded, B orgesius was the proper man in c harge of this party, whic h at first func tioned without any definite princ iples but from with a princ iple that c ould be interpreted freely towards indiv idualism or with more emphasis on env ironmental fac tors. The un-organiz ed free-liberals to the right of the sought c lose c ollaboration in . They presented themselv es to the elec torate with a manifesto of their own. A year later they founded the B ond van
Summary
T h e p urs uit o f lib e rty un d e r s train .
L ib e ral p arty p o litic s in th e N e th e rlan d s -
Vrije Liberalen (Alliance of Free Liberals; ), a party with relatively few members. They were headstrong characters, among whom Tydeman did radiate authority as a leader. The plainly opted for a society of individuals who are free to make their own choices and whose understanding and good will could achieve a harmony with the general interest. In these days, when people were in search of a religious foundation for society, and remained loyal to the rationalist conditions that liberals had been giving to politics.
As from the election campaigns of the vrijzinnigen – then the common name for liberals and vrijzinnig-democraten – were supported by a relatively strong league of youth, called the Bond van Vrijzinnige P ropagandaverenigingen. But the campaigns were poorly influenced by the free-liberals and vrijzinnig-democraten invariably coming to blows in the first decade of the th century. Y et the
vrijzinnigen were successful twice, or at least they prevented the denominationals from getting a majority: in when and entered the elections with a joint programme; and in when , and acted in concert as Vrijzinnige C oncentratie with candidates representing the whole group and with a common manifesto. Just as often, however, the vrijzinnigen didn’t succeed in regaining the absolute majority in Parliament, which they were holding in the late thcentury.
They needed the small socialist squadron to provide them with a majority. In , and went on separately. That year the results of the election were even more disastrous than in .
The free-liberals kept aloof from the collaboration between and in , objecting to the issue of a constitutional revision that was limited to removing the obstacles for the introduction of universal manhood suffrage (the so-called ‘blanco artikel ’). Y et after the elections the free-liberal Parliamentarians gave their support to the De M eester cabinet of union-liberals and vrijzinnig-democraten, formed by Borgesius. It wasn’t discord over suffrage but over the defence problem that caused the Cabinet to fall. Behind the common vrijzinnige ideal of a citizen army were hidden differences of opinion about the desirability of retrenchment and a shorter training for conscripts. A clumsy handling by the M inister of W ar on the one hand and the vrijzinnig-democratische Parliamentary club being so poorly involved in the Cabinet on the other hand, triggered the downfall.
O n social security the differences between the liberals turned out to be less great than people often thought. For instance, and were united in their resistance to the compulsory old age insurance, proposed by the denominationals. The union-liberal preference for a S tate pension (after the example of their British sympathizers, who introduced an Act on S tate pension in ) and the free-liberal preference for a voluntary insurance with S tate support (after the Belgian model), finally grew to a common conviction that a ‘mixed’ system was to be preferred.
Proposals by the denominational Cabinet, which had been in power from , for – to name a few – the introduction of a protectionist system of import duties, a labour ban for the wedded wife and the promotion of special (religious) education, fostered the desire for a vrijzinnige collaboration even more, especially among the
grass-roots. In the cleared away an obstacle to collaboration when an acceptance of universal manhood suffrage was no longer made subject to a consolidation of the First Chamber. The then refused to assist the in its attempt to exclude the from participation. Negotiations in the summer of shaped the formation of the Vrijzinnige Concentratie in the autumn. In a joint manifesto the three parties defined their position towards the denominatio-nals and the socialists. They emphasized during the campaign that they wanted to govern, provided they could count on an independent majority in the Second Chamber.
When there was no majority after the election, the vrijzinnigen nevertheless headed directly for a Cabinet with the socialists. But the socialist didn’t comply. Subsequently most of the union-liberals wanted to extract a minority Cabinet from the Vrijzinnige Concentratie. However, the free-liberals and the vrijzinnig-democratische leaders didn’t feel like making themselves vulnerable to the support of the socialists, if the latter were not prepared to bear any responsibility. Finally the liberal Cort van der Linden, not being committed to party politics, formed a Cabinet that formally was independent of all parties but actually was a Concentratie-Cabinet in disguise.
At the outbreak of World War I the political struggle at home was suspended, except for one debate on how to cover the cost of war: by a State loan or by raising capital levy on higher incomes. A year later the political truce was violated when the government introduced proposals for a constitutional revision. Many vrijzin-nigen were ill-pleased that Cort van der Linden sought ‘satisfaction’ from the denominationals in education: especially the liberal circles feared lest ‘pacification’ wouldn’t bring about peace, but instead would enable the denominationals to oust non-denominational education and lay down special (religious) education as the standard. That was difficult to digest for the liberals, who had expected education to teach children the public spirit and to prepare them for an independent way of making decisions.
In exchange for their concessions with education the liberals (and socialists) were given the universal manhood suffrage, whose necessity they now all recognized – with varying enthusiasm. To the dismay of the majority of them women were debarred from active suffrage for some time to come. Nearly all liberals supported the constitutional revision and its attendant proportional representation, despite the foreseeable objection, that the political power would then lie with the party-bosses. All but one liberal Parliamentarians voted for the constitutional revision, even though a realisation of a truly liberal society got more blurred by this. For, instead of individual freedom sectional rights would come into the limelight.
Disappointments about the constitutional revision of and discord over the aftermath of World War (food scarcity and distribution, the increasing influence of the State and its bureaucracy, the continued mobilisation, etc.) promoted the growth of new protest parties. The E conomische Bond (Economic Alliance; ) was leading the way here, which claimed that the age of running
politics was over, because a businesslike approach was needed to strengthen the national economy. Formally speaking the Bond was politically neutral, but its tenor was progressive-liberal in many respects, making remarkable reservations in the economic field (socialization, protectionism). Its leader was Treub, Minister of Finance. This resulted in the curious phenomenon of an opposition being directed from behind the government table. The A lgemeene S taatspartij (G eneral State Party; ), too, was formally neutral, but it did have some liberal traits. This protest party was very anti-G erman and strongly focused on tradespeople.
Such parties were competitors for the liberals, who, when running up to the election, went on separately after the had blown up the Vrijzinnige Concentratie. Both and succeeded in boosting membership figures: together they outdid the . On the deaths of the familiar leaders, there was, however, some organizational confusion, especially within the . Unfortunately, the liberals meanwhile came to be associated with the unpopular measures taken by the Cabinet, so kindred to them, whereas, due to the war and its aftermath, they had not been able to show what liberalism could mean for the population of so many new voters. The liberals made allowances for some loss, but the blow of was a dazzling strike: the lost % in Parliament, the % . They had become irrelevant in the display of power.
For years the liberals busied themselves with most of all recovery. At the time the made eyes at the , hoping for a fusion but in vain. In the summer of Treub called on all vrijzinnigen to get a closer collaboration or amalgamation. The declined, but the other parties started negotiations. On April this gave birth to the Vrijheidsbond (Freedom Alliance), which was an amalgama-tion of , , , and splinter groups. Under the influence of the the word ‘liberal’ was dropped out of the name of the new party. The Vrijheidsbond then started with a practical programme without a statement of principles. Here the had most of its way. The free-liberals were most of all dissatisfied with the social welfare section and with the fact that the expenditure on the military force was mainly employed to comply with the membership requirements of the League of Nations.
R unning up to the elections of , in which now women were also allowed to take part, there arose again a discrepancy between the hope-giving growth of membership – up to . – and the outcome of the election: only out of seats in Parliament. A separate Vrouw engroep (Women’s G roup; ) took charge of the new female voters. This subsidiary organization was given scope to champion the equal treatment of the sexes, as defined in the party programme. But the leadership didn’t accept the to act independently for the nomination of women for the Second Chamber.
From the very outset the Vrijheidsbond was trapped in the political arena. The Bond was not needed by the denominationals for a majority and it felt ill at ease with the socialists. Its members regularly had sudden bursts of unease about the pacification of . In protest against the slackening of a direct bond between
the electorate and individual Parliamentarians and social politics, a liberal right-wing faction even came into being, which won seat in but which fell prey to disagreement on a list of priorities in the programme. Meanwhile the Vrijheids-bond offered no perspective for new political initiatives, because in the twenties everything was made subject to economizing on national finances. From the Vrijheidsbond looked liberal again by adding Liberale Staatspartij (Liberal State Party; ) to its name, but as regards content, however, the profile was still vague. Partly to cope with the competition of the denominationals, the party even laid more and more emphasis on the importance of religion for both society and state. Nevertheless, the party gradually lost the favour of the electorate, most of all in rural districts.
As far back as the twenties the farmers were groaning under a social-economic crisis that grew even worse after the crash. Even in liberal circles people pressed for protective measures. The resistance to this was overcome in when price relief and protection for agriculture were ‘temporarily’ accepted. The new course of action was maintained when in the Vrijheidsbond was rather eager to join the crisis-Cabinet of Colijn: now the support to agriculture got a structural outline. Within the party there arose opposition, headed by some prominent economists, the Rotterdam branch and by the Bond van Jonge Liberalen (Alliance of Young Liberals), which was growing fast in the early thirties. A Centrale Liberale K ring (Central Liberal Circle; ) demanded that the party leaders would urge the government to resume its free-trade policy; if this failed to come about, support to the government should be withdrawn. But the didn’t obtain a firm footing for this.
The Vrijheidsbond got into a worse position. Its membership during the mid-thirties was only half the size of its peak in . The favour of its electorate sank even more: to a historic low of out of seats in Parliament in . In spite of itself the party was removed from the government. There continued to be a difference of opinion between those who advocated a more classic approach towards economy and those who supported certain forms of social organization. The former could draw hope from the election of the young Telders as chairman in , the latter from the fact that in the successive programmes the individual was more and more wrapped in its environment.
The decline of liberalism in the Netherlands between and cannot be attributed to one single factor. In any case the idea that the extension of the suffrage as such must have undermined the electoral strength of the liberals must be renounced: before World War the liberals had shown to be quite capable of attracting those in small circumstances. Neither can organizational weakness serve to account for this: the liberal parties were not nearly so weak as is generally supposed. On the other hand, World War had a major, often underestimated negative impact on the position of the liberals, even in the Netherlands, neutral as it was. Besides, the liberals were not able to take an unequivocal stand on the
collectivist approach to politics getting more and more popular. For a long time they didn’t even accept, that the decline could somehow bear on their world of ideas. In spite of all this, in general the Liberals never quite lost courage. Some day a change was bound to take place and more Dutchmen would embrace liberalism again. It became apparent, however, that this would tax people’s patience. (Translation: Joost and Helma van de Wiel)
