THE DUTCH SUCCESSION.
WE heartily congratulate the Dutch people upon the safety of their Queen. The wave of pity for her Majesty in her succession of great dangers which has passed over the Continent has been fully felt here also, where all men think of the house of Orange as the one Royal house whose fame has been acquired through great battles for freedom. We have all read Motley, but the names in Dutch history which adhere to our memories are those of William the liberator of Holland, and. William the deliverer of England, not only from despotism, but from the prospect of the enfeebled Republic which a line of Roman Catholic tyrants would infallibly have inflicted upon this country. There is almost, indeed, as keen a feeling of sympathy here as in Holland itself, where they would have mourned a pleasant Sovereign, the last of the direct line, though not the last of the race, who by reason of her pedigree acts as a barrier to all dynastic pretensions. It is said, indeed, that such pretensions have now no force in politics ; but we remember how Schleswig-Holstein was torn from Denmark because Frederick VII. had died, and we fear that dynastic pretensions are only feeble when they are unsupported by a general popular feeling. When they are so supported they are most formidable, and we cannot but believe that the pretension of the Hohen- zollern& to the Dutch throne, which, as we shall speedily show, might in the unhappy event of Queen Wilhelmina's death have been a very strono.b one, would. be acclaimed by his people with an energy that the Emperor might find it difficult to resist. It is the Germans who are a danger to Holland rather than their ruler. The Emperor William, in spite of his passion for "ships, colonies, and com- merce," is said to protest that he never thinks of Holland except as a possible reversion in the far-distant future, and we entirely acquit him even of the wish to deprive Queen Wilhelmina of her heritage, and so acquire the Far East, by force of arms. He is dynast, as she is, though both houses rose to thrones at a distance from their original seats. Had she passed away, however, as on Monday seemed for some hours not only possible but nearly certain, he might have revised his decision, which then his subjects would always have regarded as somewhat Quixotic. They want their "free-born German Rhine" from its source to the sea, and they think that owing to the configuration of their Empire they have a " natural " right to it. Professors are writing long arguments in this strain, and as we have all seen in the last forty years, what German professors write is apt in the end to find an executive agent. They would have needed a pretext, of course; but had not the Quee. n sur- vi red her dangerous confinement they would have had one which no prudent man familiar with the history of Europe would thrust aside as light.
As we understand the arrangements of 1830, the succes- sion to the Dutch throne, failing Queen Willielmina and her possible children, passes to the Grand-Duke of Saxe- Weimar, who is the grandson of a Princess of Orange-Nassau. If be accepted his heritage, and the Dutch people acceded, all would be simple, or at all events as simple as the suc- cession of the, house of .Hanover Under our own Act of Settlement proved to be. But the Dutch in all human probability would insist that if the Grand Duke accepted the throne he should resign his own Principality. It would be intolerable to them that their King should be at the same time a subject of the German Emperor, or at all events bound to him by ties which the people of the Grand Duchy would not allow their ruler to break. We had trouble enough with Hanover, which as long as our Kings retained it gave every British diplomatist a double set of objects, and always enabled those Kings to threaten abdication without seeming ridiculous ; but the Electors of Hanover in all but name were independent Sovereigns. They were bound to move if the Empire moved; but as the Empire was immovable, and its constituent Princes never respected obligations, that was a purely nominal bondage to ancient theory. The bondage—we do not use the word as one of derogation—of Saxe-Weimar is of a very different kind, for if the Duke disobeyed Imperial orders his dominions would be occupied with the promptitude charac- teristic of the Prussian Army. Under all the circum- stances, and especially if pressed from Berlin, the Grand Duke, who is very comfortable where he is, might renounce for himself and his heirs a throne which for them would be a thorny one, and then—then the nearest successor would be Prince Albrecht of Hohenzollern, now Regent of Bruns- wick, and also an heir by the female line of the house of Orange-Nassau. A substitute might readily be found Or him in Brunswick, even if the Guelfs are never to be readmitted to their most ancient possession—which is not yet finally settled—and then Holland would have a Hohenzollern King who was competent to govern, and who would use that competence first of all possibly, to the advantage of Holland, but secondly to the advantage of Germany, and thirdly to the advantage of the Hohen- zollern dynasty, whose protection would save him, as it saves King Charles of Roumania, from many dangers. The drift of Holland to the Bavarian position in the Empire, of which it would be the maritime arm, would be almost irresistible. The Dutch would detest the prospect, and might reject it ; and then the Foreign Offices of Europe would certainly quiver with excite- ment and alarm. Dynasts are intolerant of insult ; the German people, perceiving at once that the rejec- tion proceeded from dislike of them and their ways, would be furious with rage and ambition ; and the in- dependence of Holland would be protected only by Austria and Russia. France could be "squared" on the Gambetta plan by the sacrifice of Belgium, and England will not engage in Continental war until directly threatened, but it would. be nearly impossible for Germany to move in the teeth of earnest remonstrances from Austria. They would. be made, for though the IlapsburY°s are allies of the Hohenzollerns, and did not object to the election of King Charles of Roumania—which threw a fortress in the path of the Russians moving southwards—they do not desire to see that family further aggrandised, or to find Germany become without spending a great maritime Power, able to dominate the Mediterranean. The same feelings would predominate in Russia, and if Russia at the moment were ready to move she might control the action of Republican France, which overvalues the Russian A lliance because, by preserving peace, it prevents the rise of a dangerous military rival to the Republican system. That protection might save Holland, which would then be permitted—as the English would demand—to settle her fate for herself, probably with the reserve, in dynastic interests, that she must choose a King, and not proclaim herself a Republic.
We shall be told that these dangers are dreams ; and that is true while Queen Wilhelmina, lives ; but States and their policies live long, and Holland will never be really safe until her Queen has an heir, whose birth would put an end to all German pretensions, though not, we fear, to 'all wishes to possess what they think and write of as "their own coast-land. And we shall also be told that the rights of the people are now too fully acknowledged to admit of the claim of conquest in a European State. Those rights, doubtless, are acknowledged every day in words ; but though Hanover is reconciled, she became Prussian in 1866 by right of conquest alone, and to this hour a plitbiscite taken in Alsace-Lorraine would restore that State to France by a, majority of 80 per cent. Nor, if those two cases are explained by the German "necessity for unity," do we per- ceive in German debates on Poland any sign of an Mama- tion to set Poland free, or, indeed, of any feeling except that it is very impertinent of a conquered race to object to being trodden on or bought out. We see no reason in modern history for believing in democratic professions upon this point, or for thinking that if France acquired Piedmont or the Valley of the Ebro even French Socialists would vote for restoring them their right of separate self- government. On the contrary, they would propound the theory that Piedmontese and Basques were "emancipated" by being joined to France, and bad therefore nothing to complain of. Be that as it may, sure we are that not only Holland but Europe has reason to thank the Providence which, while inflicting so many trials on Queen Willielmina, still leaves her in possession of a life which is a barrier to many dangerous ambitions.
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