attracted great interest both at home and abroad; it was generally supposed that it would conclude with the announcement that he had found a bride, but this proved not to be the case.

CHAPTER VI.

BELGIUM -NETHERLANDS

-SWITZERLAND - SPAIN - PORTUGALDENMARK-SWEDEN-NORWAY-FINLAND.

BELGIUM.

THE year 1927 was politically one of the quietest since the war. The Jaspar Government was the fruit of a National Union Coalition, and could only maintain itself if, conformably to the decision adopted at its inception, all political questions were left in abeyance. Hence Parliament was not able to embark on any new legislation; its activity was confined to the carrying through of the measures for restoring the finances inaugurated by the former Financial Minister, M. Francqui (vide ANNUAL REGISTER, 1926, p. 223). These proved entirely successful; in the course of the year the Financial Minister announced that the yield from taxes considerably exceeded the Budget estimate, and he even felt encouraged to contemplate a reduction in certain of the taxes.

In January the Premier, M. Henri Jaspar, took over the office of Minister of the Colonies which had become vacant by the death of M. Pécher, while the Ministry of the Interior was transferred to the Liberal senator, M. Maurice Vauthier. These ministerial rearrangements were not well received by the Christian Democrats, who were left without a representative in the Cabinet. Aided by a number of citizens of Socialist leanings, these carried on an agitation in the Press and in meetings against the Government, maintaining that, as the financial situation had been reestablished, the national combination of M. Jaspar had no longer any raison d'être, and that a return should be made to a Government composed of Socialists and Christian Democrats. The agitation became strong enough to cause anxiety to the leaders of the Socialist Party, and accordingly the question of their continued participation in the Government was placed by the General Council of the Workers' Party before the various provincial federations. These, on a referendum being taken, gave an affirmative vote by a considerable majority, but with certain express qualifications. It was to be a sine qua non for the cooperation of Socialist Ministers that the Government should accept the essential points of the Socialist programme: six months' military service, and increase and extension of pensions for all workers. As against this the Financial Minister, Baron Houtart, supported by the Treasury Committee, formed to combat excessive expenditure, laid stress in his speeches on the

fact that it would be impossible to improve the situation of the civil servants, the State pensioners, and superannuated workers without upsetting the Budget, and that therefore he would oppose such outlay. At the beginning of March the Government was questioned in the Chamber on this matter, and also in regard to the protests raised against the methods used by the revenue officers in the collection of income tax and still more of the numerous luxury taxes.

Parliament was not completely inactive. It passed a number of Bills, but all of them dealing only with matters of detail, supplementing previous legislation and not constituting any complete programme. No important political problem was solved. The Chamber of Representatives discussed at length a Bill on rural leasehold. At the end of the first session, M. Wauters, the Socialist Minister of Public Welfare, succeeded in obtaining a provisional increase in the old-age pensions for workers, thus partially redeeming one of the election pledges of the Workers' Party. The salaries of members of Parliament, emoluments of Ministers, and the King's civil list were also increased, on account of the higher cost of living. The Minister of Finance on his side consented to bring in a Bill for slightly reducing the income tax; this was immediately passed.

The "activists," i.e., the Flemish separatists, displayed a certain activity in the course of the year. Their deputies delivered in the Chamber anti-Belgian discourses, and, with the aid of some Socialist deputies, they succeeded in introducing into the Chamber a proposal to amnesty the activists who had been condemned for having given assistance to the enemy during the German occupation. Violent protests were immediately raised all over the country against such a project.

At the beginning of September the Government adopted the recommendations of a Commission appointed to draw up a programme of public works on a large scale for furthering the economic development of the country.

At the end of the year the military question came up for discussion in the Chamber. At the beginning of July M. de Brocqueville, the Minister of National Defence, had announced that on the re-assembling of the Chamber in November he would, in the name of the Government, introduce a Bill on the matter. Having, however, met with an obstinate resistance on the part of the Staff to any modification in the existing system of military service, he came before Parliament without the promised Bill. Finding themselves thus deluded, the Socialist Ministers announced their intention of voting for the Socialist scheme of military reform which provides for the reduction of the term of military service from ten to six months, and a thorough recasting of the system of national defence. This led to a Cabinet crisis. Taking into account their formal pledges to secure the six months' military

service, also the rising cost of necessaries, and the possibility of a Communist attack on their Left Wing, the Socialists decided to go into Opposition, so as to prepare themselves for the elections of 1929.

The crisis was quickly settled. The King, after consulting with the chief political leaders, commissioned M. Jaspar to form a new Cabinet. The four Socialist Ministers were replaced by two Liberals and two Christian Democrats. The Liberal leader, M. Paul Hymans, took the portfolio of Foreign affairs and M. PaulEmile Janson that of Justice. The Ministry of Industry and Labour was offered to the leader of the Christian Democrat Party, that of the Interior to M. Carnoy. The Liberal Senator Vauthier was transferred from the Interior to Arts and Sciences, and the former Governor-General of the Congo, M. Maurice Lippens, became Minister of Railways.

The ministerial declaration of policy announced that the investigation of the military question would be entrusted to a mixed Commission of military men and members of Parliament. The co-operation of Liberals in the Government was only obtained on condition that no linguistic or religious question should find a place on the Government programme. The Christian Democrats had made promises on this matter which it would be difficult for them to fulfil, while on the other hand their programme in many points, and especially on the question of military service, closely approached that of the Socialists. Consequently their position in the new Government was very precarious.

In August M. Vandervelde, in the course of a Note intended to refute the German allegations with regard to the Belgian franctireurs who were said to have fought against the German armies after the invasion of the country in 1914, recalled the fact that Belgium had lately offered to the Government of the Reich to submit the matter to an impartial inquiry, and that this invitation had produced no result. In replying to the Note Germany gave her belated consent to this old proposal. This put the Belgian Government in a dilemma, and M. Vandervelde's colleagues reproached him for having, without consulting them, reopened this important question which was already regarded as a chose jugée. A Cabinet Council was held at Brussels, and it decided that the Belgian Government should, for the present, oppose such an inquiry, as it could only prejudice the friendly relations between the two countries which had been gradually built up since the war. The incident was then closed.

THE NETHERLANDS.

Politically 1927 was a quiet year. The extra-parliamentary Cabinet of de Geer (vide ANNUAL REGISTER, 1926, p. 225), as

was expected, maintained itself without difficulty, since there was no prospect as yet of the formation of a majority party in Parliament. The Roman Catholics did not show any inclination to form such a majority by joining with the democratic groups of the Left, although on some occasions, especially during the discussions on the collective labour contract, nearly all the Roman Catholics co-operated with those groups. On the other hand, no reconciliation took place between the three parties who had been allied for so many years, viz., the Roman Catholics, the anti-Revolutionaries, and the Christian Historicals. There would appear, however, to be among them an increasing desire to come to an agreement once more; at any rate the Roman Catholics have shown themselves willing to consider the abolition of the Legation at the Vatican as a fait accompli, and not to look upon this any longer as an impediment to the re-establishing of the former Coalition. It is worthy of note that in the elections for the Provincial States, which took place in April, 1927, the dissenting Protestant parties which are against co-operation with the Roman Catholics again made headway at the expense of the anti-Revolutionaries and the Christian Historicals.

As against the tendency of the Roman Catholic and the great Protestant parties to come together again, Dr. Marchant, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, continued to plead for an alliance between the Democrats of the Right and of the Left. From a parliamentary point of view he deprecated the idea, which was propounded from the Right, of forming a Ministry after the elections, which would then draw up its programme. He held that the formation of a Ministry ought to be preceded by the framing of a programme. The political line of demarcation ought to run between the supporters and the opponents of a pure parliamentary system, of social legislation, of militarism, and of subjection to international jurisdiction. As it turned out, co-operation between the Right and the Left in regard to the military problem did not prove possible. When the Social Democrats brought forward a proposal for national disarmament, i.e., for the reduction of the national forces to a police army with an annual contingent of 3,200 men, they were only supported by the Liberal Democrats and the one Communist member; the proposal was rejected by

53 votes to 32.

Owing to the absence of a Parliamentary majority, no legislative work of importance was accomplished. The Minister of War and of the Navy ad interim was able to carry his estimates, which were opposed only by the Social Democrats and the Liberal Democrats. He also succeeded in getting a Bill passed by a large majority for the amalgamation of the two Departments into a Department of National Defence, but only after making a declaration that this amalgamation would not prejudice the splitting up of the Navy into a Dutch and a Netherlands East

Indian fleet, to prevent which had at first been an essential object of the amalgamation of the two Departments.

Foreign politics were of greater interest than home politics. After the sanctioning of the Netherlands-Belgian Treaty by the Second Chamber with a majority of only 3 votes (vide ANNUAL REGISTER, 1926, pp. 228-229), the campaign against this Treaty grew even more active. Besides the objections which had been put forward before, doubts were raised as to whether the agreement regarding the Scheldt was in fact compatible with the supervision, invested in the Crown by the Constitution, of all matters concerning the "Waterstaat" (rivers, canals, dykes, etc.). Strong protests were also raised against the exceptional position which would be accorded to Belgian men-of-war. A declaration on this point by M. Vandervelde, the Belgian Minister of Foreign Affairs, in January, was not deemed satisfactory. In March the First Chamber began its discussion of the Treaty, to which it devoted special attention. Not less than 27 out of the 50 members took part in the discussions, which were followed with great interest throughout the country. The Treaty was finally rejected by 33 votes to 17, a result which was hailed with joy by public opinion, although general regret was expressed that Jonkheer van Karnebeek, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who had honourably occupied his post for more than eight years, felt compelled to resign owing to the rejection. Jonkheer Dr. F. Beelaerts van Blokland, formerly Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary in China, and lately chief of the section of Diplomatic Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was appointed as his successor. The new Minister, on April 24, took occasion in the First Chamber to make a declaration regarding the relations with Belgium, in which he laid stress on the interdependency of the two countries. Good relations between the two countries, he said, were not only to their mutual interest, but were also a matter of general European interest. Holland had never failed in carrying out the obligations imposed on her by the Separation Treaty of 1839. If there were reasons now for Holland's consenting to co-operate in revising certain clauses of that Treaty, it should be thoroughly well understood that no juridical basis existed for requiring more from her than she had thus far been under obligation to give. But from that fact it did not at all follow that as a matter of principle Holland would refuse to consider Belgium's economic requirements resulting from her geographical position with regard to Holland. On the contrary, the recent discussions had confirmed the Government in its conviction that it could count on the approval of the States General for carrying on discussions with Belgium concerning what might be done to meet such requirements and for opening negotiations in order to arrive at arrangements calculated to serve the interests of both countries.