The farmer is always the man who suffers the blows. And that especially goes for the democratic times in which we live.
The farmer class [boerenstand] is being sacrificed to the democratic politics of the big capitalists and the party politics of irresponsible demagogues. But men cannot go on disrupting the nature of things with impunity. When the ground shakes, everything threatens to fall apart.
In the Netherlands, [waanzinnege] rulers have abandoned the right order, the farmer class [boerenstand] is torn apart and city dwellers suffer poverty along with the farmer class.
The workers see their labor power paralyzed, [hun rechtspositie tot
een paskwil gemaakt].
The middle class finds no purchasing power with the population, and behind the outward appearance of prosperity, suffers very bitter prosperity.
The idea of the all-good Mother Earth exists no more. The soil yields fruits in abundance, but millions suffer want from the lush excess of Mother Earth.
The farmer sees, with his sound insight, how the land's rulers maintain an irresponsible agricultural policy. He cannot reason as learnedly as these honorable gentlemen, who are supposed to be his representatives, but he feels that he is being deceived.
The farmer is called stubborn. But he has a reason to be stubborn. Too often under fine excuses, under hypocritical talk, he becomes the child of the bill. And so the farmer of our time braces himself across from the government.
He lets himself get fooled no more by the looks of the so-called support laws, which are hatched from self interest out of the Hague.
All those support laws must give the impression that the farmer is helped and that it is therefore a duty to fall on one's knees in rapture before its representatives.
If men were to rely on words spoken on behalf of the farmer in the Second Chamber [Tweede Kamer, or the House of Representatives], men will rush to believe that that 90 of the 100 members [today, the Second Chamber has 150 seats in total] feel called upon to protect and defend nothing more than the interests of the farmers.
However, all of this is only motivated by fear in voters, not because people are convinced with their heart and soul that the farmer class [boerenstand] is the backbone of society.
But, members of Parliament, you will not be able to play your inferior game permanently. The farmers do not want temporary solutions, half measures, economically unsustainable policies, which will ultimately bring our country to complete ruin.
The farmer is loyal to the fatherland. But Your Most Honorable Gentlemen of the House of Representatives, the farmer is beginning to understand that you no longer serve the fatherland, but the party interests and your personal self-interest.
The farmer obeys easily, but on the other hand the farmer goes to extremes when he finds himself being deceived again and again. Then the farmer becomes rebellious, revolutionary. And that is his right. You have to look after the country's interests. If you don't, then you have to go. If you don't go willingly, we will kick you away. Under the etiquette of agricultural policy, a series of experiments, local laws, have been prepared for us by Mister Bureau, which are not based on any well-defined principle.
[Translation of the remainder is a very slow work in progress.]
[Translation of the remainder is a very slow work in progress.]
