The week has been full of accounts of an intended
strike in Holland which in certain contingencies might prove of high political importance. The strike is to begin with the railwaymen throughout the country, who plead serious grievances ; but it would be supported by the whole of the artisan class. The Government think the threat so serious that they are preparing to increase the garrisons in the great cities, and have introduced a Bill forbidding strikes which injure general welfare, and authorising the employment of troops to work the railways. This would be only a local labour struggle but that German traders cannot endure a suspension of the Dutch railways, over which much of their exports must pass, and that William II. might be tempted to meet any- thing like general disorder or sporadic civil war in Holland by a military occupation, which would probably bring the Great Powers into the field. -
