Kuyper, Boissevain and Schaepman are, indeed, three journalists of whom any country might be proud. Their style, their individuality, and their mental power are equally remarkable, and though living and working in different grooves of life, using different modes of thought, and cherishing different ideals, they powerfully impress and influence their readers by the purity of their aims, the honesty of their convictions, and the chivalry of their controversial methods. But of the three Boissevain is the only one who is a journalist for the sake of journalism. Yet neither Calvinist nor Catholic journal tries to compete with the _Nieuwe Rotterdammer_ or the _Handelsblad_ in the publication of original and high-class information. They aim rather at providing their readers with the necessary party arguments, and the news is a matter of secondary importance. As to the provinces in general, of the 1300 towns and villages of Holland, nearly 300 are the happy possessors of a local newspaper of some description, and altogether 1700 daily and weekly journals, devoted variously to the representation of political, clerical, mercantile, scientific, and other interests, are published in the whole country. The Dutch like to see more than one newspaper, but the majority of people cannot afford to be dual subscribers, and a great many cannot even afford to buy a single news-sheet regularly. Hence agencies exist for circulating the papers from one reader to another. Those who receive them straight from the publisher pay most, and those who are contented to enjoy their news when one, two, or three days old pay but a small fee. The newspaper circulating agency is very general in Holland, and in centres of restricted domestic resources it plays a very useful place in social and political life. Chapter XVII Political Life and Thought