COMMERCE. The Dutch trade embraces every continent, and is therefore first and chiefly mari time. Most exports of home products go to the neighboring countries, of Europe. England, Ger many. and Belgium are the largest buyers of the live animals, butter, cheese, and oleomargarine which the country exports. In 1900 the leading exports to neighboring countries of home products were: 49.000 cattle. 6000 calves, 49.000 sheep, 4000 swine• 51,000.000 pounds of butter. 120.000. 000 pounds of oleomargarine, 102.1(00,000 pounds of cheese, and 336.000,000 pounds of sugar, be sides eggs. vegetables. flax, and fish.
The exports of colonial products are sold all over the world, and the chief trade of the Netherlands is in the import and re-export of these colonial commodities. The Dutch colonial possessions in the East Indies. extending from Sumatra to New Guinea, are about sixty times as large as the mother country, and have seven times the population. Most of the tea• sugar, coffee, quinine, tin, tobacco. indigo, dyewoods, spices, and gums they export are sent to the Neth erlands, chiefly to llotterdam and also to Amster danm. Palm oil, rubber. and ivory from the Congo State, and guano and nitrates from South Ameri ca are also imported. Some of these articles are greatly enhanced in value by manufacture in the Netherlands. Quinine. for example, is prepared for the market in the Netherla nds. where also Java raw sugar is refined and Sumatra tobacco is made into cigars. The colonies, on the other hand, buy from the mother country great quanti ties of cottons and of other goods manufactured for them at home or purchased in other lands and sold by Dutch merchants in the colonies at a large profit. The colonies are the best cus tomers of the Netherlands, excepting Europe.
Most of the imports for home consumption come from Northern Europe and the United States. The United States contributes about
eighth of these imports, on an average. chiefly wheat, flour, maize, rye, petroleum, tallow, bacon, leaf tobacco, and lumber. Great Britain. Ger many, Russia, and Belgium supply nearly all the other imports, consisting chiefly of coal• thither, metals, and manufactures. Most of the home trade, as distinguished from the colonial trade, is with these countries. The rapid growth of the imports for home consumption and the exports of home products may be seen from the follow ing table, which shows the average annual trade: . _ The Dutch derive large profit from the for warding, trade. They find the business of carry ing freight for other nations a very profitable branch of commerce, and their position at the mouth of the Rhine gives them unsurpassed op portunities to pursue this branch of business. A great deal of the trade of Germany and also of Austria and Switzerland with other countries passes through the Netherlands. and most of it is tributary to Rotterdam, the port of the Rhine mouth and one of the greatest forwarding ports of the world. Amsterdam's connection by river and canal with time Rhine enables that city to take a large though inferior part in the transit trade. The value of the goods carried in this transit business in 19110 w•as $243,930,000.
Free trade is the Government policy. duties being levied on a ft•w articles only for purposes of revenue. \o article pays inure than 5 per cent, duty, and grain. iron, wool, cotton, coal, and many other commodities are On the free list. The chief centres of dompstie trade are Rotten 111, Flushing, Dord•eclht (timber)• 1\liddelburg, Leyden, Utrecht. Alkmaar, and lloorn (c•heese).