The Governments of Europe

by Frederic Austin Ogg

571. The Settlement by the Congress of Vienna: the Constitution of 1815.—With the overthrow of Napoleon the fate of both the Dutch and the Belgian provinces fell to the arbitrament of the allied powers. In the first Treaty of Paris, concluded May 30, 1814, between the Allies on the one side and France on the other, it was stipulated that the Belgian territories should be joined with Holland and that the whole, under the name of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands, should be assigned to the restored house of Orange, in the person of William I., son of the stadtholder William V. Already, consequent upon the Dutch revolt which followed the defeat of Napoleon at Leipzig, William had been recalled from his eighteen-year exile. December 1, 1813, he had accepted formally the sovereignty of the Dutch provinces, and early in 1814 a constitution had been drawn up and put in operation. The desire of the Allies, particularly of Great Britain, was that there should be brought into existence in the Low Countries a state which should be sufficiently powerful to constitute a barrier to possible aggressions of France upon the north. The union of the Belgian with the Dutch provinces, was intended furthermore, to compensate the Dutch in some measure for their losses of colonial possessions to Great Britain during the war. By the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, June 9, 1815, and by the second Peace of Paris, November 20 following, the arrangement was ratified. With Holland and the Austrian Netherlands were united in the new state the bishopric of Liège, the duchy of Limburg, and the duchy (henceforth to be known as the grand-duchy) of Luxemburg. The last-mentioned territory, while included in the Germanic Confederation, was bestowed upon the Dutch sovereign in compensation for German principalities ceded by him at this time to Prussia.[718] March 15, 1815, William began his reign under the new régime in Holland, and September 27 following he was crowned at Brussels.

In fulfillment of a promise made his people, King William promulgated, August 24, 1815, a new constitution, drafted by a commission consisting of an equal number of Dutch and Belgian members. The instrument provided for a States-General of two chambers, one consisting of members appointed for life by the crown, the other composed of an equal number (55) of Dutch and Belgian deputies elected by the provincial estates. Bills might be rejected, but might not be originated or amended, by this assembly. The suffrage was severely restricted; trial by jury was not guaranteed; the budget was to be voted for a number of years at a time; ministers were declared responsible solely to the king; and, all in all, there was in the new system little enough of liberalism. When the instrument was laid before a Belgian assembly it was overwhelmingly rejected. None the less it was declared in effect, and it continued the fundamental law of the united dominions of William I. until 1830.

572. The Belgian Revolution, 1830-1831.—Friction between the Dutch and the Belgians was from the outset incessant. The union was essentially an artificial one, and the honest efforts of the king to bring about a genuine amalgamation but emphasized the irreconcilable differences of language, religion, economic interest, and political inheritance that separated the two peoples. The population of Belgium was 3,400,000; that of Holland but 2,000,000. Yet the voting power of the former in the lower legislative chamber was no greater than that of the latter, and in fact the Dutch were able all the while to maintain in that body a small working majority. Administrative offices were filled, in large part, by Dutchmen, and the attitude quite commonly assumed (in a measure, without doubt, unconsciously) by the public authorities strongly suggested that Holland was the preponderating power and Belgium little more than so much subjugated territory. The upshot was discontent and eventual rebellion. In 1828 the principal political parties of Belgium, the Catholics and the Liberals, drew together in the "Union," the object of which was to bring about the recognition of Belgian independence, or, in the event that this should prove impossible of attainment, the establishment of thoroughgoing Belgian autonomy, with no union with Holland save of a purely personal character through the crown. Inspired by the success of the July Revolution in France, and hopeful of obtaining French assistance, the Belgians in August, 1830, broke into open revolt. After a period of violence, a provisional government at Brussels, October 4, 1830, proclaimed Belgium's independence and summoned a national congress to which was committed the task of drawing up a scheme of government. Aroused by the imminent loss of half of his dominion, King William, after an ineffectual display of military force, offered concessions; and the States-General went so far as to authorize the establishment in the southern provinces of a separate administrative system, such as at one time would have met the Belgian demand. The day for compromise, however, had passed. The Belgian congress voted overwhelmingly for the establishment of an independent monarchy, adopted (February 7, 1831) a liberal constitution, and, after offering the throne without avail to the Duke of Nemours, second son of Louis Philippe of France, selected as king the German Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who, under the title of Leopold I., was crowned July 21 of the same year.

573. The Independence of Belgium.—These proceedings involved the overturning of an arrangement which the Allies in 1815 had considered essential to the security of Europe. Several considerations, however,—among them the outbreak of insurrection in Poland,—induced the powers to acquiesce with unexpected readiness in the dissolution of the loose-jointed monarchy. December 20, 1830, a conference of the five principal powers at London formally pronounced in favor of a permanent separation, and when, in August, 1831, a Dutch army crossed the frontier and inflicted upon the Belgians an overwhelming defeat, a French force compelled the invaders to surrender the fruits of their victory and to retire from the country. A treaty of separation was drawn up by the London conference under date of November 25, 1831, under whose terms there were recognized both the independence and the neutrality of the new Belgian monarchy. William of Holland protested and flatly refused to sign the instrument. The British and French governments compelled him outwardly to acquiesce in the agreement, although it was not until April 19, 1839, that he gave it his formal assent. Embittered by his losses and chagrined by the constitutional amendments to which his own people compelled him to submit, he abdicated in 1840 in favor of his son.[719]

574. Constitutional Revision in Holland.—After 1831 the constitutional development of Holland and that of Belgium move in separate channels.[720] In Holland the fundamental law of 1815 was retained, but the modifications which have been introduced in it, notably in 1840, 1848, and 1887, have so altered its character as to have made of it an essentially new instrument. The revision of 1840 was forced upon the king by the Liberals, whose position was strengthened by the fiscal chaos into which the nation had fallen under the previous autocratic régime. The reformers got very much less than they demanded. Instead of the ministerial responsibility and the public control of the finances for which they asked they procured only an arrangement to the effect that the budget should be submitted to the States-General every two years and the colonial balance sheet yearly, together with certain changes of detail, including a curtailment of the civil list and a reduction of the membership of the States-General in consequence of the loss of Belgium. Yet these reforms were well worth while.

During the reign of William II. (1840-1849) the demand for constitutional revision was incessant. The king was profuse in promises, but vacillating. In 1844, and again in 1845, a specific programme of revision failed of adoption. By 1848, however, economic distress and popular discontent had become so pronounced that the sovereign was forced to act. The overthrow of Louis Philippe at Paris, too, was not without effect. March 17 the king named a state commission of five members which was authorized to draft a revision of the constitution, and the resulting instrument, after being adopted in an extraordinary session of the States-General, was promulgated November 3. The revision of 1848 introduced into the Dutch constitutional system many fundamental changes. Instead of being appointed by the crown, members of the upper branch of the States-General were thereafter to be elected by the provincial estates; and in the choice of members of the lower house, direct popular elections were substituted for indirect. The ministers of the king were made responsible to the States-General, and the powers of the legislative body were otherwise increased through the extension of its authority over colonial affairs, provision for a regular annual budget, and, most of all, recognition of the right to initiate and to amend projects of legislation. Constitutional government in Holland may be said virtually to have had its beginning in 1848.

575. The Constitution To-day.—Through several decades following the accession of William III., in 1849, the political history of Holland comprises largely a story of party strife, accentuated by the efforts of the various political groups—especially the Liberals, the Conservatives, and the Catholics—to apply in practice the parliamentary system.[721] The death of Prince Alexander, June 21, 1884, occasioned a constitutional amendment to provide for the accession of a female sovereign and the establishment of a regency, and three years later a parliamentary deadlock compelled the king to authorize a general revision of the fundamental law whereby the number of citizens in possession of the franchise was more than tripled. The constitution of Holland at the present day is the amended instrument of November 6, 1887. It comprises more than two hundred articles, being, indeed, one of the lengthiest documents of its kind in existence. Like most European constitutions, it may be amended by the ordinary legislative organs, though under specially prescribed conditions. The first step in the amending process consists in the adoption by the legislative chambers of a resolution affirming that there is sufficient reason for taking under consideration the amendment or amendments in hand. Following the promulgation of this resolution the chambers are required to be dissolved. The newly elected houses then take up the project for final disposition, and if by a two-thirds vote they adopt it, and if the sovereign assents, it goes into operation.[722]

II. The Crown and the Ministry

576. Status of the Sovereign.—The government of Holland[723] is in form a constitutional, hereditary monarchy. Until 1884 the royal succession was vested exclusively in the direct male line of the house of Orange-Nassau in the order of primogeniture. The death, however, in the year mentioned, of the sole surviving male heir occasioned, as has been stated, an amendment of the constitution authorizing the succession of a female heir, in default of a male; and, upon the death of William III., November 23, 1890, the throne accordingly passed to his only daughter, the present Queen Wilhelmina.[724] In default of a legal heir, the successor to the throne is to be designated by a law presented by the crown and acted upon by a joint meeting of the legislative chambers, each house containing for this purpose double its usual number of members. In the event of the minority or the incapacity of the sovereign a regency is established, and the regent is named by law enacted by the States-General in joint session.[725]

The sovereign, at accession, is installed in a public joint meeting of the two chambers in the city of Amsterdam, and is required to take oath always "to observe and maintain the constitution;" whereupon the members of the chambers solemnly pledge themselves "to do everything that a good and loyal States-General ought to do." The person of the monarch is declared inviolable. For the maintenance of the royal establishment the constitution stipulates that, in addition to the revenue from the crown lands, the sovereign shall be entitled to a yearly income, to be paid out of the national treasury, together with summer and winter residences, the maximum public expenditure upon which, however, is restricted to 50,000 florins a year. At each accession the amount of the annual stipend is fixed by law for the entire reign. William II.'s civil list was 1,000,000 guilders, but at the accession of William III. in 1849 the amount was reduced to 600,000, where it has remained to the present day. The family of Orange is possessed of a large private fortune, most of which was accumulated by William I. from a variety of commercial and industrial ventures. The Prince of Orange, as heir apparent, is accorded by the state an annual income of 100,000 florins, which is increased to 200,000 upon his contracting a marriage authorized by law.