The Problem of the Scheldt
IT is a disappointment to all the friends of Belgium and Holland that the tedious and intricate negotia- tions for readjusting the relations of the two countries and for defining afresh their rights on the Scheldt have ended in nothing. Last week the Dutch Upper Chamber rejected the new Treaty by 33 votes to 17. The Lower Chamber had accepted it last November by a majority of only 3.
No one could possibly have argued the case from the Dutch point of view more ably than Jonkheer van Karnebeek, the Dutch Minister for Foreign Affairs. Having failed to carry the Treaty he resigned. He demonstrated, what cannot be disputed, that somehow or other Holland and Belgium must agree upon new ways of conducting their immemorially difficult relations, because Belgium, as the result. of the War, has an entirely new status. The Treaty of 1839, which guaranteed her neutrality, was torn up in 1914 by Germany—one of the guarantors. After the War it was found impossible to revive the Treaty if only because sonic of the nations which were parties to it had made clean breaks with their political continuity. Direct negotiations on several important matters between Rolland and Belgium became necessary and the two countries proceeded to draft the Treaty which has just been rejected by Holland.
The Treaty provided for two canals from Antwerp to the Dutch town Moerdijk on the Rhine and from Antwerp to the German town of Ruhrort, and it gave Belgium certain new rights on the Scheldt. The very name of the river sums up nearly all the Belgian-Dutch disputes. A glance at the map explains why this is and must be so. The Scheldt, which flows from France into Belgium, passes below Antwerp into Dutch territory. Nothing has been more zealously clung to by the Dutch, and nothing so reluctantly yielded, as their hold over the Scheldt. Those mighty seamen, the seventeenth-century Dutch, were strong enough to claim and keep the privilege of closing the Scheldt to navigation, and it was not till the Kingdom of the Netherlands. dissolved. in 1839 that Holland gave a more regular and legal form to this privilege. She then fixed tolls and, by winning the consent, of the Powers, put the trade of Antwerp in fetters. An arrangement so crippling to Belgium could not last, and in 1863 the Dutch right to levy the tolls was bought out and the navigation of the Scheldt was declared free.
. The proposed Treaty, which seemed to put Belgium in the position of " asking too much " on the Scheldt, restored all the old pride, jealousy and tenacity of the Dutch people. Nationalist societies denounced it ; the wider view of the Dutch Government was obscured by the assertion of immediate and even local interests. It was said that the trade of the Rhine would be throttled by the trade of Antwerp ; that the reclaimed lands of riparian owners would be menaced by the canalizing and dredging necessary for the great ships destined for Antwerp ; and that Belgian ships of war would have a freedom of movement intolerable to Holland. The working up of opinion against the Treaty was aided by the suspicion that Belgium was being helped by France. Was there not evidence ? After the War did not the Allies suggest that Holland should hand over certain districts to Belgium ?
In our judgment the trade of both Holland and Belgium would have profited by the developments proposed in the Treaty. There is no economic justification for saying that if Antwerp became more prosperous Amsterdam and Rotterdam would become less prosperous. As it is, the negotiations will have to be begun all over again. Other European Powers arc interested in easy access by sea to the Low Countries,and the scope of the discussion may be enlarged by other disputants. The problem is by no means insoluble. It would not be beyond the capacities of the League of Nations.
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