Between the devil and the deep blue sea - University of Canterbury

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Industry Commission and CVMD provided invaluable information and advice to the
numerous crisis departments. 96 A centralised supervisory body (Central Administration
Office for the Distribution of Provisions (Centraal Admin istratiekan toor voor
Levensmiddelen), later the State Distribution Bureau (Rijksdistributiekantoor)) ensured
consistency in policy and distribution. 97 It also worked closely with the Royal Support
Committee's two branches, the Netherlands Export Company and NOT.
The Distribution Law created a systematic nationwide rationing regime, although
there were some differences in rationing quotas between rural and urban areas. Initially, the
government only rationed bread, but soon printed rationing cards for milk, butter and meat
as well. Other goods followed in quick succession, including soap, coffee, vegetables,
potatoes and cheese. By mid-1918, one had to hand over a ration card for almost anything
on sale. The Minister of Agriculture, Trade and Industry, F. E. Posthuma, consistently cut
the size and quantity of rations. While in February 1917, adults received 400 grammes of
bread per day and whatever meat, milk and potatoes were available, by the last weeks of the
war, food rations had decreased to four kilogrammes of potatoes and two pounds of meat
per week (mainly eenheidsworst), and 200 grammes of bread and 100 millilitres of milk per
day.98 The bread ration was lower than that of British and French citizens although
somewhat higher than in Gennany.99 Dutch tea consumption declined from nearly a
kilogramme per person a year in 1914 and 1915 to less than 70 grammes in 1918. 100 At the
same time, the government increased its supervision of how much shopkeepers bought and
sold. In some centres, supervision came in the fonn of a complicated coupon system, in
which the number of coupons grocers retrieved from customers affected their future
Bil1nenlandse Zaken en het ontstaan van de moderne bllreallcratie in Nederland 1813 - 1940. [Internal Affairs and
the origins of the modern bureaucracy in the Netherlands 1813 - 1940] Kampen: J. H. Kok, 1988.
95 Jong, Het Koninkrijk del' Nederlanden in de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Deel1 p. 58; Ijsselmuiden, Binl1enlandse
Zakenpp.184-186.
96 Treub, Oorlogstijd pp. 268 - 269.
97 Posthuma, "Food Supply and Agriculture" pp. 211 - 212; Broekema, "Landbouw" p. 292; Ritter, De Donkere
Poort Volume 1, pp. 366 - 367.
98 Ibid. p. 64; Klein, "Krasse tijden" p. 1812.
99 Moore, Economic Aspects p. 55. In June 1918, the German bread ration dropped from 200 grammes a day to 160
grammes (Hagenlucke, "The home front in Germany" p. 65).
100 H. W. Methorst, "The cost of living, prices and wages" in Greven (ed.), The Netherlands and the World War
Volume II, p. 314.