5. In the Shackles of the Landscape
Winterswijk farmers perpetual victims of elites
In 1983 Winterswijk was startled by hard actions of
farmers against plans to protect the beautiful "landscape of wings" that already
enticed many people from the ring city of Holland to this region. The roots of
this conflict date back to the first decades of the 20th century when the local
elite of semi-feudal landowners successfully prevented adverse effects to the
old wooded landscape - and at the same time sabotaged the modernization of the
farming industry of their tenants. Afterwards the role of this elite was taken
over by nature conservationists and the government, and again it looked like the
Winterwijk farmers missed the boat.
In 1983 Winterwijk could be glad about a short-lived but
intense interest from the national media. Someone from the ring city of Holland
- from which the Achterhoek most of the time evokes associations of an oasis
occupied with kind-hearted country men and is a nice place to be for hastened
types from the west - was confronted with violent protesting farmers.
Molestation, uncontrolled outbreaks of fury, and threats of violence and arson
were entries in the commentaries by which many a journalist from behind the
river IJssel turned homeward. The local council of Winterswijk was the target of
the farmers resistence. It looked like the council would accept a plan in which
the Winterswijk countryside (more than 13,000 hectares) from then on should be
known as "Test area National Landscape", with all the consequences to farming
that many farmers feared - adapted farming business, management agreements,
slowing down of the preparations for the legal re-division and re-allotment of
land. All of these things would occur in order to conserve the beautiful
landscape.
The local council yielded to the actions of the farmers
which were labeled as fascist by a deputy of the County Council and adjourned
its decision. The pressure was off for a moment and the issue again disappeared
from the national news. Meanwhile, in Winterswijk advocates and opponents were
diametrically opposed to each other. (lit. "stand in hedgehog position against
each other"). Judicial investigation of threats towards members of the local
council of Winterswijk, consternation about the unexpected suspension of the
same investigation and the possibility - suggested from the side of the County
Council of the province of Gelderland - to impose unilateral zoning plans with
severe restrictions for farming only strengthened the animosity.
The situation recalls someone of the seventies when the
first act of the landscape drama was played. The then minister of Culture,
Recreation and Social Welfare Wim Meijer of the Labour party, and the
ex-minister of Agriculture of the Christian Democratic Party Van der Stee both
came to explain the "Winterswijk Landscape Park" as it was called in those days.
They were almost molested by furious agrarians. For the first time the
Winterswijk landscape problems caught the national front pages. Since that time
this question remained smouldering until it came to a new outburst in 1983. An
acceptable solution for all parties involved was hampered by many other meanings
that this landscape battle had become for the farmers: it is a battle against
"The Hague"; it represents antipathy between native inhabitants; newcomers now
play a part; it played left wingers against right wingers and farmers against
citizens; and, finally, the old farmers' adagium "being one's own boss at one's
own yard" was at stake. In addition, the advocates of the landscape plans
readily admitted that this proposal required better information about and
presentation of the plans by the state, province and municipality. Some
agrarian-sociological and historical appreciation of the Winterswijk countryside
is of importance in this matter - until now not the strongest point of the plan
makers. This perspective assumes a certain distance from the turmoil and
certainly better phrasing of the issues than had thus far been put forth.
The reasoning used by the governmental and nature
conservation organizations for designating the Winterswijk countryside as Test
Area National Landscape, roughly speaking, is as follows: Winterswijk has a
beautiful old man-made landscape which is, however, affected in ever increasing
speed by modern agriculture. A series of examples are given that show that
adverse effects and enumeration can definitely put a sad atmosphere over the
situation because it strongly suggests that, in fact, there is no longer a
beautiful landscape at all! To shift the tide a bit toward the better, an order
pointing to "National Landscape" is necessary. Unfortunately, through this
method, the agrarian interests are second-rated. This argumentation is
understandable from the point of view of conservation of nature and landscape,
but is an obstacle when asking the historically interesting question "What is
the reason that the Winterswijk countryside can sustain a valuable landscape but
that the farmers' interests become minor to this situation.
Why is it Winterswijk of all places that landscape and
agriculture come into conflict with each other where as at other places in the
Netherlands - the last but some enclaves - the landscape almost quietly got the
worst of it? What apart from modern development did the Winterswijk countryside
go through? Forgotten questions form the red thread of this article.
In the search for an answer, the investigator quickly
comes across a special aspect in Winterswijk's recent countryside history. The
troubles of 1983 turn out to fit in a series of passive and active protest
manifestations of the Winterswijk farmers. Protest of farmers in Winterswijk in
the second half of the twentieth century is a regularly returning phenome-non,
it seems.
Farmers Party and National-Socialist Movement
In the sixties and seventies the radical right-wing
Farmers Party had a relative large following among Winterswijk farmers. In this
way this party got 8.2 percent (1212 votes absolute) at the 1967 elections,
while in the adjacent Aalten only 4.7 percent of the voters voted for the
Farmers Party. Categorized according to village and countryside then one comes
out at an ever higher percentage for the countryside - most of the votes came
from farmers who only formed one-fifth of the total population. The considerable
number of followers of the Farmers' party perhaps had to do not with economical
problems but rather with the excitement about the so-called "brooks plan" in the
fifties and sixties. This plan provided for canalization, but also for
conservation of certain parts of the extended Winterswijk brooks system, which,
of course, created similar agitation among the farmers as did the "landscape
park" in 1983.
The thirties belong without any doubt to the most
turbulent in the history of Winterswijk. Unrest of the countryside manifested
itself first in a large number of followers for the radical farmers protest
movement "Agriculture and Society" and - in a later phase - in an exceptional
popularity of the National-Socialist Movement among the farming population.
In the beginning of 1933, Winterswijk's section of
"Agriculture and Society" consisted of 235 members, at the end of 1933 the total
was already 300. About 25 percent of the rural population then was a member of
this alliance. The alliance strived for the economical and cultural rise of the
small farmer oppressed by crisis and big business, but got more and more into
fascist - read NSM - influence as successes failed to occur. The Winterswijk
section therefore was, outside the province of Drenthe, far and away the biggest
supporter of the alliances. (The whole province of Gelderland consisted at the
end of 1933 of only 616 mombers). The NSM could even be glad about a still
larger interest. At the Provincial States elections of 1935 this party gained in
the countryside more than 30 percent of the total votes (total Winterswijk: 20.3
percent, total Holland: 7.94 percent). Analysis of this emerging farmers'
protest, separately and together, show us - not very surprisingly - that they
would not convert to a single cause. Cultural and social factors turn out to be
closely interwoven with local circumstances and are a product of the age. In all
troubles, however, tangible material-economic backgrounds form an important
constant. The Winterswijk farmers periodically feel threate-ned in its existence
and they clearly show this as farmers.
What in this region is so problematical in practising the
oldest profession in the world but one? An agricultural excursion through the
little backyard of Gelderland may help with this question.
Crofters
In 1932 the agricultural engineer De Hoogh from the
University of Wageningen published a thesis about reclamations of sandy soils in
which he also gives a brief summary of the region around Winterswijk. The
Winterswijk countryside in the first decades of the twentieth century turns up
to be overpopulated and characterized - even for that time - by small farms. In
absolute terms the population of the countryside increased from 5,477 persons in
1859, via 6,828 in 1910, to almost 8,000 in 1921. The agrarian labour force in
1910 consisted of 3,250 persons; in 1920 that number had increased to more than
4,390 persons. It is no wonder that the number of farms grew explosively: from
840 in 1859 to approximately 1,400 around the beginning of the 20th century. The
average surface area in Winterswijk dominating lease farms - almost two-third of
all farms were leased - was small in keeping with this population number: In
1924 4.73 hectares. The own-inherited farms on average were a little larger.
How much pressure the population exerted was illustrated
by a newspaper advertisement in the Nieuwe Winterswijkse Courant of 1917 in
which the Section Winterswijk of the Gelderland-Overijssel Society of
Agriculture exhorted sons of farmers to report for reclamation farms in the
provinces Brabant and Drenthe in order to avoid the harrowing shortage of land.
At other sandy soil places, fertilizer, new markets, and breeding techniques
made large-scale reclamations both possible and profitable. But this happened in
Winterswijk only in an unobtrusive small-scale way, although the municipalty had
considerable patches of waste-land. In 1828 the surface soil of heather and
non-cultivated land measured 7,649 hectares. Around 1920 Winterswijk still had
5,000 hectares of waste-land on a total of more than 13,000 hectares. Besides
that the difference of more than 2,500 hectares was only partially converted
into cultivated land considering the increase of the wooded area) (1828: 1,051
ha; 1910: 2,129 ha).
In the course of the twenties and thirties little changed
for the small-scaled infrastructure of the Winterswijk agricultural community as
indicated by the Agricultural count of 1930. More than 32 percent of the farms
was smaller than 5 hectares, 82 percent smaller than 10 hectares, 17 percent was
between 10 and 20 hectares and only 3 percent was larger than 20 hectares. When
after the relatively fat twenties there followed the crisis and misery of the
thirties, the endurance of the Winterswijk crofters is scanty. In the meantime
they indeed are completely taken into impersonal market connections. The weak
economical position, the demagogy of an astute farmer's leader, and some issues
reducing the world crisis to local proportions - therein lies the foundation for
rural unrest in the countryside in the thirties.
Elimination race
Anyone who superficially looks at agriculture in post-war
Winterswijk would likely think that after 1945 the lags in agricultural
development would diminish quickly. The number of farms decreased at last and
the agrarian working population dropped from 2,161 to 1947, via 1,685 in 1960,
to 1,282 in 1972. Consequently there was room for the remaining people to
enlarge the industrial area. In 1963 the average industrial area was 9,6
hectares; about 1980 circa 12 hectares. The explosive growth of dairy cattle
breeding and the "improving agriculture" (the "bio-industry") - so
characteristic for agriculture at the sandy soils after 1945 - didn't pass by
Winterswijk. Whatever comparison one may make, between 1950/1960; 1975/1978,
again and again it turns out that ever more was produced by ever fewer farms.
But if one views the apparently flourishing absolute
production and infrastructur figures in the light of the elimination race that
agriculture especially has become since the establishment of the European
Community, than another picture is formed.
Relatively low prices of agriculture, a policy already
explicitely aimed to give large advantages to farms before the legendary
Mansholt-plan, bring about a continuous process of increasing the distance
between large and small, profitable and unprofitable, and between a fair income
and concealed poverty. This scale ever again slides upwards with advantage going
to the large farms.
The number of farmers that are either above or under the
fatal borderline differs per area. Even a layman in the field of agriculture can
read out which prosperous bungalow farms in the new polders - in the former
Zuiderzee, now the province of Flevoland - have a more than average income
through farming. A good agrarian infrastructure and little legal limitations
provide an easy way to keep up with necessary adaptations and enlargements, and
it is here that the leaders in the agrarian process of scale enlargement can be
found. But also on the "old land" farms, rationalization of the landscape which
started well before the second World War, and had its final days in the
re-allotment of lands during the sixties and seventies, made for a suitable
environment for an advanced agriculture. The most success-ful stories are the
sandy soils of the province of Brabant circa 1900, but still it was a poor
agricultural area. Nowadays one comes across the most modern hog farms of Europe
while at the same time dairy cattle breeding reaches a productivity which
overshadows the pastures areas of the provinces of Holland and Friesland.
This result is different in Winterswijk where, judged on
its own merits, considerable increases of production cannot be seen and where
many farms, in spite of brave efforts of modernization, belong to the losers in
the race to increase farm productivity. Some quantitative and qualitative
indications.
In spite of the increased average surface of the farming
soil in general, the relative small surface of the soil of individual farms
remains an important obstacle for agriculture in Winterswijk. About 1960, 56
percent of the farming enterprises fell in the category of the size of 5 to 10
hectares (The Netherlands: 33 percent, sandy soils: 40 percent) while Kooy found
for the same time that only 25 percent of the farms was larger than ten
hectares. The decline of the number of farms since the sixties enlarged the
average surface of the soil of the farms substantially, but in 1978 about 70
percent of the farms was still smaller than fifteen hectares, which meant by the
standards of that time that two-thirds of the farms had hardly outgrown the
phase of crofters farms. Of course surface of the soil does not mean everything:
by means of the scarsely surface bound "agriculture of improving" (bio-industry)
a small farm qua surface of soil nevertheless can be "large" in productivity.
Data however indicate that about 1980 only eleven percent of the farms belong to
the pure "enterprises of improved agriculture". For the others the strongly
surface bound cattle breeding was the main direction of production. For a dairy
cattle breeding farm at the end of the seventies circa forty cows applied in
force as a minimum claim for a reasonable income. In 1978 only twenty percent of
the farms in the re-allotment of land area of Winterswijk West met these needs
and the number of 25-cow farms in the first half of the seventies was the usual
limit because of the acquisition of the milk-tank system was not obtained by
more than 400 of the 645 dairy cattle breeding farms in Winterswijk. In short,
many Winterswijk farms are too small for the only profitable method in Dutch
dairy cattle breeding since the seventies: the milktank with adjoining berth
system. An even bigger obstacle is formed by the bad re-allotment of land
(average more than four lots per farm with small, irregular parcels) which by
far does not meet the needs of the standard for profitable application of the
system mentioned before (one or two lots per farm, sixty percent of the surface
of the soil situated around the farm). Also the bad unlocking - circa fifty
percent of the sandy roads impassable in wintertime, many farms situated along
unhardened roads - and the bad control of water make modern dairy cattle
breeding difficult.
The post war agrarian developments make it understandable
that the eagerness for taking over the elderly farm is not so very strong among
the younger generations - especially not at the smallest farms. And it is
understandable as well that the applications for "farm finishing" in Winterswijk
(by way of the Development and Reorganization Fund) for a long time were the
highest in the whole of Gelderland both in number and in surface of the soil.
Economical problems, periodically discharging into
farmers' unrest, characterize the Winterswijk agriculture during the second half
of the twentieth century. The region of Winterswijk was and still is in
different respects a marginal agricultural area. The economical question at hand
turns out to be closely interwoven with structural obstacles which were and
still are inflicted at agriculture by the physical environment. Structural
obstacles in the form of too small farms, shortage of cultivated land, bad
re-allotment of land, drainage and opening up, always sentences the farmers of
Winterswijk to the rear guard of Dutch agriculture. Why didn't these farmers
succeed in getting rid of the shackles of the landscape?
Elite
In the defense plea of the Winterswijk farmers against the
landscape plans, a person could often hear: "We made the landscape as beautiful
as it is." This statement is correct as far as it refers to the fact that the
Winterswijk countryside is a beautiful example of an - old - cultural landscape,
shaped as it is by a harmonious combination of physical, biotic, and
anthropogenous elements. However there is something to knock-down at the word
"we" or "us", and many Winterswijk farmers know this very well. This landscape,
as it unfolds before the eyes of the contemporary observer, is, in the extreme,
the physical result of power held by the elite and semi-feudal landowners in the
Winterswijk countryside during a long period.
The history of this remarkable agrarian elite (about 20
families) - called the "Scholten" - is rather special and dates back into the
Middle Ages. In the early Middle Ages the title of "Scholte" (Schulte, Schultze,
Schultheisz) was used to desig-nate the rulers of large "feudal" manors in East-Gelderland
and Westfalia. In a later period in the eastern Achterhoek (region Winterswijk)
this name transferred to a category of serfs appointed by the regional noble and
spiritual rulers to manage their estates which had increased in number - about
twenty - but a bit smaller in area. This category gradually designated as
Scholten or Scholten farmers succeeded in strengthening its position, especially
after 1600. Acquisition of new lands and secondary activities of production
(trade of grain and linen) were factors responsible for the Scholten's power
structure and influence in local society in place of the mostly absent landlord
who was, as of October 1612, the Prince of Orange. This upward development was
formally settled by the abolition of serfdom at the time of the Batavian
Republic (1795 -1806) in which the Scholten obtained the old estates de jure as
their personal properties. In the first half of the nineteenth century the
Scholten reached the height of their power. During the partition of the common
grounds they carried off the biggest part of the waste-lands which were commonly
managed in former days. Some twenty Scholten families then owned thousands of
hectares and hundreds of tenants were, bound hand and foot, figuratively
speaking, to this untitled landed gentry.
After 1850 the Scholten moved toward a social and cultural
isolation through several developments, such as being left out of trade
activities. This isolation was a nineteenth century initiative for the
"disappearance" of the Scholten in the twentieth century. Parallel to this event
the rank of the Scholten developed itself from an "open" enterprising category
into a parochialistic, endogene clan with a lifestyle vaguely referring to noble
traditions.
Conspicious consumption, pursuit of social status, a
luxurious pattern of life, being attached to wooded property, and hunting
coincided in this lifestyle with an increasing conservatism in the agrarian
field. Examples of this binding power are the maintaining of feudal relations
with the tenants, the little need of cleaning up the small tenant farms, the
reluctance to reclamations, and the conservative reaction to the start of
agrarian commercialisation. Existing patterns of the landscape were conserved
and new elements of landscaping were introduced. Of the latter, increasing
forestation was the most striking. Therefore the historic roots of the
Winterswijk landscape ought to be sought in the second half of the nineteenth
century. More striking than its origin, however, is the fact that this
nineteenth century landscape has endured relatively intact compared to the
commercial and political metamorphosis of the Dutch sandy soils, as well as the
metamorphosis of the Dutch landscape in general.
After the Great Crisis in Agriculture
In the years after the Great Crisis in Agriculture of
1875-1890, the sand-agriculture changed from self- supplying into
market-directed. Modernization and admission into national and international
markets changed the sand-farmer into a modern agrarian entrepreneur.
Industrialization was closely linked to this movement. Besides market extending
consequences, a migration from the countryside to towns was triggered. The
far-reaching social and political consequences - together with the increasing
interferences by the authorities - which were caused by processes at local and
regional levels have been fully described in recent anthropological and
historical research.
In the countryside, modern agrarian entrepreneurs, united
in cooperatives and farming unions, predominated more and more but in addition a
swing of power took place. The countryside lost power to the centres of urban
growth where labourers, shopkeepers, tradesmen, retailers or industrialists
claimed an ever more prominent position. The classic notables of the countryside
- vicar, reverend, teacher or public notary - were the "losers" for the
long-term, noticing their traditional influence crumble off. For places of large
scale land owning the same change was in force for the noble or semi-noble
"seigneurs". (In the Netherlands their position for that matter had been
relatively weak already and also subject to erosion much longer.) Country
estates were sold or partitioned. Tenants got almost full authority to modernize
the farms as a result of a more commercial and modern management by the new
"lords", and later, as a result of legal protec-tion. The former "many stringed"
relationship to the lord snapped and became instead a straightfor-ward,
commercial relationship between tenant and landowner. Parallel to these
developments, here as well as at other sandy soil locations, scale enlargement,
reclamations, and "rationalization" of the natural environment took place.
The metamorphosis of the sandy soils between about 1890 -
1930 occupied social-economic, political, environmental, and landscape concerns
and was brought about late and incompletely at the Winterswijk country side. The
most important reason for this fact was that the Winterswijk landed gentry, the
Scholten, even in the times of big changes, persis-ted in a conservative
activity toward farming. As far as the Scholten anticipated the new times, that
happened without loss of the archaic structure of production, in which services
of labour, lease "in natura", little mechanization, emotional bonds with the
ancestrial ground, high appreciation of wooded property, and symbolic marks of
honour were rigorously maintained. In the long term this anachronistic way of
produc-tion ushered in the actual economic downfall of the Scholten; a fall that
already unmistakably announced itself before the Second World War. However for
this history, the fact that at short term the Scholten put a claim on the
possibilities of modernization for local farmers. The Scholten were able to do
this because they still held the power based on the property of land. With a
sense of understatement an observer about 1930 established: "The small tenant
farms of the "under occupants" already look dilapidated and paintless".
That the Scholten reacted in the way they did is an
exceptional example of "group destruc-tion". An explanation for this behaviour
is not to come off here. Only mentioned here is the already quoted isolation
that made it possible for an eccentric style of living to maintain itself for a
long time. This isolation in the end strengthened itself because of the ever
increasing endogamy and the slightly arising gap between the "traditional"
countryside and the "modern" village. That the Scholten really were able to
react the way they did, had to do - seen from a wider perspective - with the
specific municipal balances of power and connecting political intrigues and
strategies. In spite of the available means of power, the new Winterswijk elites
for a long time left intact the land ownership, the very source of power of the
Scholten. This fact would have considerable consequences for the agrarian
development of the Winterswijk countryside.
Enlightened Manufacturers
Pre-war Winterswijk was in many respects a society that
rapidly modernized and changed. Since 1870 the quickly growing textile industry
in the centre of the village served as a flywheel. This village centre developed
within a few decades into one of the most important centres of industry and
main-tenance in the Achterhoek. The growth of population in the village was in
keeping with this development: from about five thousand inhabitants in 1900 to
eleven thousand in 1930 (the municipality as a whole: 17,000). A large,
politically aware category of workers and an extensive middle class developed,
and from previous linen traders, there developed a rank of modern textile
manufacturers. Together with three rural categories - the old Scholten, the
tenants and the "self-inherited" (= independent) farmers - this collective gave
the Winterswijk of the first decades after the turn of the century a mixed
character.
Political life was of a vitality absolutely unknown to
Achterhoek standards. The leading people in the pre-war Winterswijk political
scene were the socialist-orientated workers, the Scholten as the traditional men
in power in the countryside, and the textile manufacturers. The labourers were
organized in the Social-Democrat Labour party and unions; the Scholten and the
textile manufacturers constituted the top of the liberal parties -
Liberal-Democratic Alliance and the Liberal State Party and the farmers and
members of the middle classes were the rank and file. Since Winterswijk was
secularized early, the religious parties could boast of only some support among
the groups last mentioned. The course of the power struggle between these three
categories had considerable consequences for the agrarian future of the
Winterswijk countryside. One of the most important pre war political issues was
the reclamation of wasteland for agrarian use.
The prelude of the reclamation issue was played out in the
ninteenth century. After the example of their companions in Twente the rising
Winterswijk textile manufacturers too had "lifting and modernization of the
countryside" recorded in their political programme. A remarkable cocktail of
philanthropy, enlightened ideology and, especially later, political
considerations were the underlying conditions. One expedient was the foundation
of the department Winterswijk of the Geldersch-Overijsselsche Society of
Agriculture (GOMvL) in 1864. Rather quickly in this organization, room was made
for the Scholten. After all, for reaching the simple farmer it was necessary to
come to an understanding with these influential landowners. However by doing so
and for a long time, the course was set out for the Winterswijk GOMvL. The
Scholten had joined particularly for motives of prestige and at the very most
they wished to shoulder the co-responsibilility for marginal agrarian changes.
Their lifestyle as landed gentry with conservative agricultural views and their
relations with their tenants, based on honour and paternalism, did not allow for
structural changes as the textile manufacturers encouraged. One advocated
structural change was a large-scale approach of land reclamations, at which new
cultivated land would benefit the land hungry small holders. The Scholten,
however, delayed proposals in that direction. In the beginning with much
success. The special relation to the Scholten held back the nouveau riches of
the village from a frontal confrontation on this point. In the Winterswijk
society the Scholten were more their equals than others; they got on with each
other in several contexts in spite of an increasing disdain for each other's
job. The resulting stalemate culminated in the already quoted advertisement in
the Nieuwe Winterswijkse Courant in which the GOMvL exhorted sons of farmers to
migrate to another place.
In about 1920 a break-through was dawning. In 1920 the
"State Committee of Advise with regard to reclamation of Wastelands" was brought
about. This committee was set out to "promote the coming into being of small
farms on waste-lands". The state provided for this effort. Further initiatives
were left to the municipal authorities which were also responsible for the
implementation: they had to send an application to the Committee, draw up a
plan, mediate by finding suitable candidates, and stand surety for the repayment
of the credits supplied per farm. Another important development was the
expansion in 1917 of the right to vote. This meant for Winterswijk that the
growth and radicalization of the working class at long last was suddenly
translated into a strong position of the Social-Democrat Labour party in the
local council. Perhaps this success made the party reckless because the Labour
party started to manifest itself also in the countryside. The land hungry rural
population gained a nice foothold. The eloquent Winterswijk SDAP-leader Aäron
van Dam directly set himself up as the great champion of reclamations, astutely
anticipated the smouldering differences of opinion within the political alliance
of the Scholten-textile notables. This course of events induced to action the
textile barons who didn't want to risk a strong SDAP in the countryside too, a
real danger in those days. Pointing out the credits of the government and
supported by a propaganda visit of the State Committee members Lovink and Van
Lonkhuyzen at last the energetic GOMvL president and textile manufacturer W.A.
Willink succeeded in carrying through with his intentions. In spite of intense
resistance of the Scholten, the GOMvL presented a plan concerning the
reclamation of one hundred hectares waste-land - land that was for most part
property of the Scholten. The scene of battle transported itself to the local
council, which had to decide about additional subsidies. Without these subsidies
the plan could not go on.
Dawdle
Although the pro-reclamation attitude of the SDAP, the
public character of the arena, and the possible state credits formed new
elements, the battle inside the local council was in many respects a spitting
image of the discussion in the GOMvL. The Scholten persevered in their
recalcitrant attitude, but also the textile barons maintained their ambivalent
position. This effort is remarkable at first sight because with the support of
the SDAP-opposition, since the twenties the biggest party in the council, the
reclamations could have been realized easily. The fierce oppositional politics
of the socialists in other fields however - we are in the era of the famous
textile strikes - made such an unnatural alliance still impossible.
In addition it would have been a must to let down their
own coalition partners . On the other hand the red leaders like Van Dam and
Eijkmans stayed more often in kitchens of farmers than they cared for. In short,
there were signs that the SDAP actually obtained a foothold on countryside
territory. The textile manufacturers tried to avoid a choice between the Scylla
of a broken coalition and the Charybdis of socialism by bringing soft pressure
to bear on the Scholten in order to induce them as yet to agree with the plan.
The representatives of the Scholten in the local council anticipated this with
dexterity by wrapping up their flat refusal in public as much as possible with
references to supposed slight viability of reclamation farms.
Not until far in the twenties did this trench war come to
an end. The government stepped in with more subsidies but threatened at the same
time with a general withdrawal of the state contribution if the plan, which
meanwhile was amended substantially, would not get municipal approval rapidly.
Following this a proposal was put to the vote in the local council. This
proposal contained acquisition and if necessary expropriation of the required
lands. The textile barons finally made their choice: the proposal was accepted
and only the Scholten patriarch Tenkink voted against it.
There are classic rural subjects to distinguish the
Winterswijk reclamation problems, such as an oppressed agrarian elite,
penetrating agrarian modernization, a powerless cluster of farmers who only hope
for help of influentual outsiders, and outsiders themselves who flirt with the
interests of farmers but who have in mind only their own interests.
Acceptance of the plan had strong symbolic significance
for Winterswijk. It meant a definitive encroachment upon the centuries old
Scholten-monopoly on landownership and at the same time a further degradation of
their position of power in the countryside. It marked a separation, already
presenting itself for a time, between the nouveau riches of the village and the
old rural patriarchs. It meant also, with the various lease laws in the
offering, a swing of power in favour of tenants and independent farmers ("own
herited"). The political haggling about the plan gave the farmers a Pyrrhic
victory. In material respect, the plan didn't mean too much any longer.
Ultimately six farms at fifty hectares of land saw the light of day. Still more
important was the fact that as a result of dawdling over the plan for years, the
twenties, a period of agrarian boom and years favourable for reclamations were
nearly over. Meanwhile the Scholten did continue - almost undisturbed - with
afforesting the waste-lands and with "pampering" wooded wind girdles and wooded
banks and by doing so reduced the territory of direct reclaimable land. It is
correct that nowadays in nature-historic circles the name "young Scholten estate
landscape" or "youngest Scholten landscape" is set aside for the only recently
planted areas.
Of course, the new period of agriculture and the
favourable economic situation (also) didn't pass by the Winterswijk farmer
unnoticed. Where possible one took the spade in hand, reclaimed a small piece of
heath, or put the axe in a tree, especially at the northeastern edge of the
Winterswijk sand plateau, where the Scholten were less dominant. However the
favourable tide for massive reclamations and rationalisation of the landscape
fitted with every modern convenience because agriculture was over. Where
elsewhere at the sandy soils one forest after another became a prey to (the)
agrarian improvement, in Winterswijk the chance was lost to level the wooded
banks to the ground, not to mention that there wasn't any possibility at
clearing the newly planted pine forests at the heather fields. The crisis of the
thirties and the Second World War followed. It was a period in which the
activities of reclamation , except for some unemployment relief workprojects,
laid idle.
In retrospect the conclusion can be made that the
consequences to the environment and the landscape from the incomplete
modernization of the countryside between 1920 and 1930 weighed heavily upon the
Winterswijk farmers - even when the conservative Scholten were deprived of their
position of power so long ago. The direct line to the landscape problems of the
eighties can be pulled via several tracks.
Nature Conservation Lobby
Legal and other obstructions for the reformation of the
landscape to an agrarian model were little until the thirties. Conservation of
nature was at the utmost a hobby of a few individuals or a hobby of elderly
(getting on in years) associations, whereas the few government laws
(Natural/scenic beauty Act 1928, Forest Act 1917, 1922)1922) had a limited
range. This changed after the Second World War. The proceeding urbanization and
the increasingly manifest intolerance between modern agriculture and nature
conservation formed the breeding ground for a well organized nature and
landscape lobby supported by subsidies provided by private persons and
government. In its wake nature conservation got a higher priority from the
authorities. On the one hand this recognition expressed itself in a number of
specific laws and Orders in Council (revised Forest Act 1961, Nature
Conservation Act 1967, ending of government subsidies for reclamations etc.) and
on the other hand explicit attention to landscape and nature in the conglomerate
of district plans, zoning schemes and other regional planning that since the
sixties floods the Dutch countryside.
Apotheosis: the three green notes published in 1975 - note
National Parks, the interim note National Landscape Parks and the so-called
Relation note concerning the relationship between agriculture, nature and
landscape - as a new element - gave protection to completely cultivated
landscapes.
It may be clear, however, that all these activities were
particularly effective at places where something was still present that could be
protected. On balance the arranging of land for agrarian purposes could continue
almost undisturbed in areas where already before the war a rather good start was
made. All-powerful agrarian interest groups combined with weak resistance of
organized nature conservation did the rest of the job. The fate allotted to the
Winterswijk countryside was different. Before the war only an accidental
passerby had an eye for the wonderful brook valleys or the charming wooded banks
but since that time the region could be glad about the nature conserving
interest of numerous semi-private associations and government bodies. Locally
supported by a rising stream of newcomers - the wealthiest among them liked to
settle down in a comfy little Saxon farm - these organizations discovered
separate wildlife areas as well as a perfect old "landscape of wings" (coulisse)
which in a miraculous way had survived the agrarian revolution. The parts that
were most interesting in nature scientific sense were declared nature reserve or
nature monument; the substantial Foundation Het Gelders Landschap bought up
several old Scholten estates; the more politically committed Foundation Nature
and Landscape opposed, and with success, complete canalization of main brooks
and side brooks the district water board "Berkel" had in mind. At the same time
local organizations for nature conservation, with the law in their hands,
disturbed agriculture greatly by declaring every cut down tree to be an
environmental disaster.
Taking off 'overlord', i.e. dominating shackles, striving
after modernization, and organizing into cooperatives and farmers unions - now
with leaders out of its own circle - the farmers were far from docile
co-workers. Their resistance expressed itself among others in a lot of bickering
within the lobby of nature conservation. Perhaps this came forward most sharply
in the commotion about the mentioned canalization of brooks (the 'bekenplan')
Its unsatisfying turn for the farmers contributed to the later anti-landscape
frame of mind. The relative success, however, of the nature protectors indicates
a qualitative change. The most important production means of the farmers, the
Winterswijk soil, was more and more as public, yes national, property with
father state as protector-in-chief. In the far away Hague, the nature conservers
of the government worked on the idea of the Winterswijk park landscape to
conserve as a whole. The green notes supplied them with the scope of the work.
The circle almost closed: the state in the conserving role which was fulfilled
in former times at the local level by the Scholten.
Re-allotment of Land
Perhaps the line between the past and now can be drawn
still more directly by stating uncategorically yet simply that nature
conservation and landscape protection seriously affects agriculture. The
acceptance of the Re-allotment of Land Act in 1954 did great damage to our local
farmers. Large parts of the Netherlands changed permanently into instantly made
"nature" with "well-designed" cycle- and foot-paths for the needs of day
visitors into this otherwise treasured agricultural landscape.
The re-allotment of land, an euphemism for total
culture-technical rearrangement of the countryside has since the fifties been
one of the most important instruments of policy. Its goal is shaping favourable
conditions for modern large-scale agriculture. Applied for many years now about
40,000 hectares per year are affected, and the price tag for the government is
450 million hard-earned guilders.
It could be expected now that the instrument of
re-allotment of land, being in complete agreement with the official ideology,
was used particularly in the so-called 'agricultural problematical areas', areas
characterized by an inefficient fitting up of land for agriculture. A number of
mechanisms however has caused a gap between theory (doctrine) and practice,
ideology and reality. The influential organizations of agriculture especially
insisted on reaching the policy goal of 40,000 hectares per year in execution
or, if possible, even more. Everything here is in agreement with the motto
"catch-as-catch-can". Something influenced ranking the re-allotment blocks on
the national scheme and in this way the choice of the blocks which were to be
taken into execution. After all, given the budget, many too expensive blocks
(blocks with a bad agrarian infrastructure) would either exceed the budget or
frustrate the norm of 40,000 hectares. Also the factor "political ripeness"
played a role: an area got a low priority if for the time being the chance was
estimated little that a proposal for re-allotment of land would survive if it
was brought to the vote, considering resistances by farmers or by the
organizations to protect nature. Particularly at places where these
organizations were locally influential it very often took a long time before a
systematic modus-vivendi between interests of nature and agriculture could be
formulated which had a chance to be successful. And then there still was the
remarkable EC-guideline '72/159'. Based upon this guideline those blocks got
priority if it was expected that after the execu-tion of the re-allotment of
land about fourty percent of the land could be farmed by enterprises with an
approved plan of development or seventy percent by farms with a 'development
goal'. No matter how vague and arbitrary it might be, as well on account of this
guideline exactly the agrarian weaker areas came in last in the ranking scheme.
The cumulative effect of this all is (1984) rather
tarnishing, thirty years after the Re-allotment Act of 1954. Via intransparant
weighs in official bureaucratic bodies like the Culture-technical Service or the
Culture-technical Committee and escaped from the hold of the locals involved,
the re-allotments of land in fact only strengthened in particular the already
favourable position of the better areas of agriculture. Some of these areas have
been able to profit from landscape management fitted to agriculture for more
than a decade. On the other hand are agrarian areas of problem directed to the
waiting room, like the western border of the Veluwe or like Achtkarspelen. The
same happened to the Winterswijk countryside. Local organizations of farmers
argued in favor of re-allotments of land for many years. Still always the rank
of farmers must try to survive in a landscape of Charles Dickens. Now at last
only Winterswijk-West has a vague insight in the execution of re-allotment
activities. That can at least be called a succes on paper for the farmers, in
view of the frantic attempts to thwart by the local lobby of nature
protectionists. Also for Winterswijk-East, which is the most valuable part from
the point of view of landscape, an application has been submitted. Whether it
will ever be taken into execution in considering savings and landscape plans is
an open question. A cycle of re-allotment of land takes fifteen to twenty years
from application to execution. If in Winterswijk actual re-allotments of land
will be executed, much more than with earlier re-allotments of land ten or
twenty years ago, interests of landscape and nature have to be considered. Once
more it looks like "timing" of crucial events puts the Winterswijk farmers in
arrears and to again save the landscape. Looking at the postwar developments in
relative connection, than the one, nature-loving arm of government filled up
smoothly the space left by the other specific agrarian arm of government. In
unanimous cooperation with organized protection of nature they immortalized the
missed chances in the field of agriculture from the time before the Second World
War; unanimous too they embroidered on the landscape conserving Scholten
traditions. The result of this unmeant symbiosis: a rational plan in which (the)
surviving old patterns of nature and landscape are no longer left to the
capricious course of history and interests of farmers are sacrificed
intentionally. The historical conflict between agriculture and landscape in
Winterswijk has entered (with this) a second, and perhaps decisive round.
This chapter, placing the situation of the Winterswijk
farmers in a clear historical perspective, was adapted integrally out of "Intermediair"
from 17 February 1984. It was written by Dr. G.W.F. Wildebeest, originating from
Aalten. He studied agriculture and cultural anthroplogy.
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