ABSTRACT
NorthBrabant, one of the largest provinces in the Netherlands, occupies the corridor of territory between the River Maas and the Belgian border. With an abundant population and a relatively poor agricultural economy, the area known as North Brabant was in need of supplementary employment and this was provided, chiefly on a domestic basis, by the advent of the textile, leather and cigar industries. The rapid spread of the railway network after 1865 greatly assisted North Brabant's basic industries by easing both the import of raw materials and the export of finished products. Early in the 1950s the textile industries accounted for a fifth of the manufacturing labour force of North Brabant, a proportion that for three reasons was too high. Approximately a fifth of North Brabant's industrial employees work in the Breda-Bergen op Zoom sub-region which displays, despite specialisations such as vegetable canning and a substantial brick industry, an essentially broad manufacturing economy.
