King Leopold's Conscience
There is only one question worth asking about the possible return of King Leopold to Belgium, or about last Sunday's referendum in which the Belgian people expressed their views on the subject, and that is whether it will do Belgium any good. Presumably King Leopold thinks Belgium would be better off if he came back, though he is also very deeply concerned about his own personal rehabilitation as a man of honour. Whether he thinks the referendum is a helpful device, or shares the opinion of many Belgians that it could only draw needless attention to the country's internal divisions, he has at least shown some willingness to entrust his fate to it, for he made it quite clear that unless 55 per cent. or more of the votes were cast for him he would
abdicate at once. But none of this is really helpful. Last Sunday's vote of 57.7 per cent. for the King's return could neither make up his mind nor help the Belgian Parliament—with which the final decision still rests—to come to a confident conclusion. In the meantime the Flemings are lined up on one side, with 72 per cent. for the King, the Walloons on the other, with 68 per cent. against the King, and the Brussels district almost equally divided, with a slight majority against. The occasional outbursts of bad temper which accompanied the referendum have done no good. They cannot even be regarded as a healthy release of pent-up feeling. The most convincing sign of approval for the surrender of May, 1940, and the subsequent assumption of Belgian neutrality in the war has not been given. The old scar must heal some day, and the real question with which King Leopold must tax his conscience is whether he is helping the healing process by holding on.
