Mutual Aid · Chapter
Mutual-Aid Arrangements in the Villages of Netherlands at the Present Day explained
This chapter examines contemporary mutual-aid practices in Dutch villages, drawing on the Agricultural Commission's report.
What happens
This chapter examines contemporary mutual-aid practices in Dutch villages, drawing on the Agricultural Commission's report. It highlights communal use of machinery, shared livestock, collective labor for building or moving, and the rise of farmers' unions and guilds in both the Netherlands and Belgium.
Themes in this chapter
Resilience of Mutual Aid Institutions
The persistence and spread of communal thrashing-machines, shared oxen, and 'bede' customs illustrate the enduring nature of mutual-aid arrangements in rural Netherlands.
Individualism vs. Cooperation
The chapter contrasts individual farming limitations with cooperative solutions like borrowing horses, communal renting of meadows, and farmers' unions for buying seed and exporting produce.
Key passages
“The habit of having one thrashing-machine, which makes the round of many farms, hiring it in turn, is very widely spread, as it is by this time in nearly every other country.”
The practice of sharing a single thrashing-machine among multiple farms, each taking turns to hire it, has become common not only in the Netherlands but also in many other countries.
Illustrates the widespread adoption of cooperative use of machinery.
“When the village has to raise the ground (in the low districts) in order to build a communal school, or for one of the peasants in order to build a new house, a bede is usually convoked. The same is done for those farmers who have to move.”
In low-lying areas, a 'bede' (a communal work gathering) is called whenever the village needs to raise land for a school or when a peasant needs help building a house or moving.
Describes the traditional custom of collective labor for community and individual needs.
“In 1896, seven years after peasants’ guilds had been started, first in the Flemish part of the country, and four years only after they were introduced in the Walloon portion of Belgium, there were already 207 such guilds, with a membership of 10,000.”
By 1896, just seven years after their founding in Flanders and four years after their introduction in Wallonia, Belgium had 207 peasant guilds with 10,000 members.
Highlights the rapid growth of cooperative organizations among Belgian peasants.