THE BELGIAN DEMANDS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR.")
Smn,—In your . article on the Belgian demands in last week's issue you write that "there seems to be no reason why Belgium should be an exception to the rule laid down by the Peace Conference that every nation should have a guaranteed access to the sea." I hope you will be good enough to allow me to point out that Belgium has had guarantees of freedom of navigation as long as she existed: this freedom is expressly laid down in the treaties of 1839, and since the tolls were abolished in 1863 there has been not the slightest obstatle is the way of Antwerp's communication with the sea, as the extraordinary prosperity of the ,port before the war well showed. The administration of the river in Dutch territory was-entrustedin 1839 to a mixed commission, which is in excess of what the treaty of Vienna prescribed for international rivers.. The Belgians now complain—and there is much force in that complaint, although Holland has never taken advantage of the formula to obstruct necessary improvements—that this commission has only been instructed to maintain the river in good condition, while as commerce expands the condition of the• Scheldt must naturally not merely be maintained, but improved. The Dutch, therefore, have now amongst other things offered in. Paris that the instruction of the commission should be extended so as to charge it with seeing that the river " shall always meet the increasing needs of commerce." If an agreement is readied between Holland and Belgium on that basis, as seems not unlikely, it will be even less correct than it is now to describe Belgium as being " at the mercy of Holland." May I in conclusion remind' you that even the less favourable pre-war regime enabled the two countries to live in undisturbed amity? Good will and confidence on both sides
were'a great asset—I am, Sir, he., Da. P. Gan,.
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