Richard Griffiths

There is relatively little information on The Netherlands written in the English language which is easily accessible to social science students and even less which is systematically assembled between the covers of a single book. This is unfortunate not only because The Netherlands is an important part of Western Europe but because the experience of The Netherlands in the way in which it has attempted to resolve the economic and political problems confronting it may help to shed valuable light on similar issues facing other European countries. The contributions for this volume were chosen with these considerations in mind. On the one hand the selection of topics was intended to provide an overall impression of the political and economic development of The Netherlands since the Second World War. Thus separate chapters are devoted to an examination of economic develop­ ment; counter-inflation, energy, regional and planning policies; pressure groups, electoral performance, cabinet formation and colonial and Euro­ pean policies. On the other hand, these areas for investigation were chosen to invite specific contrast with the experience of other European nations or to illustrate certain problems of political or economic theory. It is my pleasure to thank, first of all, the contributors themselves for the conscientious way in which they prepared their drafts which made my task as editor so much easier. Secondly, it will be apparent to even the most casual observer that I have contributed two chapters.

Much modern (Le. post-17S0) economic history is concerned with success in that a vast body of literature focuses its attention upon the experience of industrialisation and economic growth or upon relative differences in performance once the growth process is underway. The explanations advanced frequently hinge on those supply and demand factors, perceptible during the growth period itself, which may have helped or hindered economic progress. The problem which arises with this approach is whether those forces attributed with having pulled a country forward were the same as those which, in their absence, had held it back. For example, the growth of'inter­ national demand may be seen as a major stimulus in the economic development of a particular country, but its effectiveness as a stimu­ lant may have been contingent upon the prior removal of quite diffe­ rent obstacles to growth. In these circumstances it would be quite wrong to attribute lack of earlier development to the absence of international demand. Thus the study of a period preceeding discer­ nible growth in a sector of the economy may tell historians as much about the reasons for subsequent growth as a study of the growth period itself. This was my initial reason for choosing to research into the industrial development in the Netherlands in the first half of the nineteenth century: that it was an interval in economic history usually interpreted as one of stagnation, of missed opportunities and even of economic decline.