THE NETHERLANDS: In Rotterdam

Vividly last week the crew of the Holland America liner Rotterdam, homeward bound from New York, displayed their national temperament. No disturbance broke the calm of the first nine days of the crossing except in the smoking room, where the Dutch Olympic team was enthusiastically breaking training. Rotterdam, the Dutch home port, was paralyzed by a seamen’s strike. As the 21-year-old Rotterdam pushed her high prow past England’s Bishop Rock, Rotterdam’s strikers sent wireless messages to Rotterdam’s crew. They were never delivered. Apparently acting under orders from the main office, Captain Van Dulken privately told his passengers that they would have to disembark either at Boulogne or Southampton. The news was quietly received by all but the returning athletes who were looking forward to a Jimmy Walker welcome at the quayside.

Only after the Rotterdam had left Boulogne, where all passengers but one got off, and was steaming toward Southampton did the crew learn that they were not headed for home. They mutinied, in a thoroughly Dutch manner. There was no shouting, no shooting. The Black Gang (engine room crew) just let the fires out. On the bridge Captain Van Dulken jangled telegraph handles, shouted down speaking tubes, stumped about like a bipedal Stuyvesant. The crew stayed stubborn and the Rotterdam drifted uncomfortably close to the coast of France. Finally Captain Van Dulken capitulated, but he still had a retort. Off the Hook of Holland a company of 30 Dutch Marines clambered aboard. Escorted by the minelayer Van Meerlant, the Rotterdam put into her home port where four indomitable policemen waited on the quay. Nine foreign members of the crew and one Dutch sailor were arrested as agitators. The rest of the 200 crewmembers went to their homes, faced with prosecution later for disobeying orders at sea.

Meanwhile the Rotterdam strike left Dutch shipping completely constricted. Despite brave announcements from the New York office that the strike would not affect sailings of the Holland America Line, neither the Rotterdam nor the Volendam was able to leave her home port last week. A government commission announced that it could settle the strike if owners agreed to maintain the present wage scale until March. Only five companies agreed.

In New York, dignified officials of the Holland America Line piled into a launch, chugged out to the Narrows, and yelled themselves hoarse cheering for the life boat crew of the Statendam racing for the international trophy of the Neptune Association which a Norwegian America liner (the Bergensfjord) won for the third time, thereby making it the permanent possession of Norway. However, the Statendam crew, gratified by the attention of the Line’s officials, promised loyalty and their boat sailed on schedule for Rotterdam.