Dutch Social Democrats, Unions Push Boycott

The Dutch Social Democratic party and the Trade Union Center in Holland have set up a central boycott committee and local committees for boycotting goods made in Hitler Germany, according to the press reports of the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU). The aim of the committee is to engage young people principally in the propaganda action required. The Dutch labor movement is spending large sums of money to make the boycott as effective and fruitful as possible.

Since the boycott is based on individual, personal activity, the labor movement lays stress on influencing the Dutch consumer, the reports state. Articles and illustrations on the boycott are printed in the trade union press. All publications affiliated with the movement refuse German advertisements. No references are made in the trade union press to articles and reviews published in the German press. The union press continually publishes lists of German goods and the substitutes for them. And also mass meetings are arranged and boycott agitation is carried on there.

The Dutch boycott committee maintains close connections with the so-called “General Committee of Action for Defense Against Terrorism and Persecution in Germany.” This committee includes representatives of the various political parties. The secretary of this committee is N. Nathans of the International Transport Workers’ Federation. The general committee has recognized that, if action on a really broad basis is to be carried on, the middle classes must also be influenced, the reports state. The general committee has set up sub-committees, each of which has to deal with a separate branch of commerce. For each of these branches a complete list of German goods and their substitutes has been worked out. The committee also energetically circularizes merchants and retail traders obtaining satisfactory results.