The Berlin correspondent of the Times reports that the North,
German Gazette, which is more or less official, quotes, and thereby endorses, a paper by Dr. Edward von Hartmann urging that Holland should be induced, or even compelled by commercial competition, to enter the German Empire, and thus protect her valuable possessions in the East, while bringing to Germany at a stroke ships, colonies, and com- merce. "Even then, however, Germany would not have secured a Colonial Empire adequate to her own necessities." Certainly she would not, for Holland has never possessed in Asia any dominion in which Europeans could permanently settle. It is believed, however, that the idea of the fusion of Holland with his Empire, on the Bavarian terms, is one of the many ideas which have flitted before the restless brain of William II., and which helped to produce the famous and disastrous telegram to Mr. Kruger. It is certain, too, that Holland is by nature the true outlet of Germany to the sea, and the geographical completion of her Continental dominion. The absorption of the little kingdom would, how- ever, be a difficult task. The Dutch are as insular as we are, they would resist to the last, and unless Europe were in the agony of some great struggle, such, for instance, as the dis- ruption of Austria might produce, they would find powerful allies, not only in Western Europe.
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