As far as circulation goes, _Het Nieuws van den Dag_ can boast to be the
leading journal, its edition running to nearly 40,000 copies a day. Up to
the present its editors have been advanced, or 'Modern,' Protestant
clergymen, in the persons of Simon Gorter, H. de Veer, and P.H. Ritter.
Although not taking a strong line in politics, its inclinations are
decidedly towards moderate Liberalism, and, thanks to its cheap
price--14s. 6d. per annum--its extensive, prudently and carefully selected
and worded supply of news, and its sagacious management, it became the
family paper of the Dutch, excellently suiting the quiet taste of the
middle class of the nation. It is found everywhere save in those few
places where the Roman Catholic Church has sufficient influence to get it
boycotted. The _Nieuws_, as it is generally called, gives from
twenty-four to thirty-two, and even more, pages of closely printed matter,
of which the advertisements occupy rather over than under half. One does
not see it read in public more than any other Dutch paper, and two reasons
account for this. One is the fact that, as has been said, a Dutchman
prefers to do his reading at home--'met een boekje, in een hoekje' ('with
my book in a quiet corner') is the Dutchman's ideal of cosy literary
enjoyment. Then, too, Dutch newspaper publishers prefer a system of safe
quarterly subscriptions to the chance of selling one day a few thousand
copies less than the other, since even the largest circulation in Holland
is too limited for risky commercial vicissitudes. Hence they make the
price for single numbers so high that only the prospect of long hours in a
railway-carriage frightens a Dutchman into buying one or more newspapers.
The _Nieuwe Rotterdamsche Courant_ is another typical Dutch newspaper, but
appealing to quite other instincts than the _Nieuws._ In their quiet way
the Dutch are rather proud of their _Nieuwe Kotterdammer_, which inspires
something like awe for its undeniable, but slightly ponderous, virtues.
The _Nieuwe Rotterdammer_ is absolutely Liberal, and stands no Radical or
Social Democratic nonsense; its leading articles are lucid, cool, logical,
and to the point; it has correspondents everywhere, at home and abroad;
and all staunch Liberals of a clear-cut, even dogmatic type, who love Free
Trade and look upon municipal and State intervention as pernicious, swear
by it. The present chief editor is Dr. Zaayer, formerly a Liberal member
of the Second Chamber of the States-General, a shrewd, well-read Dutchman,
with a splendid University education; and the manager, J.C. Nijgh, is as
clever a man of business as Rotterdam can produce. As far as it is
possible to lead Dutchmen by printed matter, the _Nieuwe Rotterdammer_
does it. Its supply of news is so fresh and so reliable that everybody
reads it, even the Roman Catholics in North Brabant and Limburg, Holland's
two Catholic counties.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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