Holland: The History of the Netherlands

by Thomas Colley Grattan

The constitution was finally accepted by the nation, and the principles of the government were stipulated and fixed in one grand view—that of the union, and, consequently, the force of the new state.

It has been asked by a profound and sagacious inquirer, or at least the question is put forth on undoubted authority in his name, "Why did England create for herself a difficulty, and what will be by and by a natural enemy, in uniting Holland and Belgium, in place of managing those two immense resources to her commerce by keeping them separate? For Holland, without manufactures, was the natural mart for those of England, while Belgium under an English prince had been the route for constantly inundating France and Germany."

So asked Napoleon, and England may answer and justify her conduct so impugned, on principles consistent with the general wishes and the common good of Europe. The discussion of the question is foreign to our purpose, which is to trace the circumstances, not to argue on the policy, that led to the formation of the Netherlands as they now exist. But it appears that the different integral parts of the nation were amalgamated from deep-formed designs for their mutual benefit. Belgium was not given to Holland, as the already-cited article of the treaty of Paris might at first sight seem to imply; nor was Holland allotted to Belgium. But they were grafted together, with all the force of legislative wisdom; not that one might be dominant and the other oppressed, but that both should bend to form an arch of common strength, able to resist the weight of such invasions as had perpetually periled, and often crushed, their separate independence.

SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER

A.D. 1815—1899

In the preceding chapters we have seen the history of Holland carried down to the treaty which joined together what are now known as the separate countries of Holland and Belgium. And it is at this point that the interest of the subject for the historian practically ceases. The historian differs from the annalist in this—that he selects for treatment those passages in the career of nations which possess a dramatic form and unity, and therefore convey lessons for moral guidance, or for constituting a basis for reasonable prognostications of the future. But there are in the events of the world many tracts of country (as we might term them) which have no special character or apparent significance, and which therefore, though they may extend over many years in time, are dismissed with bare mention in the pages of the historian; just as, in travelling by rail, the tourist will keep his face at the window only when the scenery warrants it; at other times composing himself to other occupations.

The scenery of Dutch history has episodes as stirring and instructive as those of any civilized people since history began; but it reached its dramatic and moral apogee when the independence of the United Netherlands was acknowledged by Spain. The Netherlands then reached their loftiest pinnacle of power and prosperity; their colonial possessions were vast and rich; their reputation as guardians of liberty and the rights of man was foremost in the world. But further than this they could not go; and the moment when a people ceases to advance may generally be regarded as the moment when, relatively speaking at least, it begins to go backward. The Dutch could in no sense become the masters of Europe; not only was their domain too small, but it was geographically at a disadvantage with the powerful and populous nations neighboring it, and it was compelled ever to fight for its existence against the attacks of nature itself. The stormy waves of the North Sea were ever moaning and threatening at the gates, and ever and anon a breach would be made, and the labor of generations annulled. Holland could never enter upon a career of conquest, like France or Russia; neither could she assume the great part which Britain has played; for although the character of the Dutchmen is in many respects as strong and sound as that of the English, and in some ways its superior, yet the Dutch had not been dowered with a sea-defended isle for their habitation, which might enable them to carry out enterprises abroad without the distraction and weakness involved in maintaining adequate guards at home. They were mighty in self-defence and in resistance against tyranny; and they were unsurpassed in those virtues and qualities which go to make a nation rich and orderly; but aggression could not be for them. They took advantage of their season of power to confirm themselves in the ownership of lands in the extreme East and in the West, which should be a continual source of revenue; but they could do no more; and they wasted not a little treasure and strength in preserving what they had gained, or a part of it, from the grasp of others. But this was the sum of their possibility; they could not presume to dictate terms to the world; and the consequence was that they gradually ceased to be a considered factor in the European problem. In some respects, their territorial insignificance, while it prevented them from aggressive action, preserved them from aggression; their domain was not worth conquering, and again its conquest could not be accomplished by any nation without making others uneasy and jealous. They became, like Switzerland, and unlike Poland and Hungary, a neutral region, which it was for the interest of Europe at large to let alone. None cared to meddle with them; and, on the other hand, they had native virtue and force enough to resist being absorbed into other peoples; the character of the Dutch is as distinct to-day as ever it had been. Their language, their literature, their art, and their personal traits, are unimpaired. They are, in their own degree, remarkably prosperous and comfortable; and they have the good sense to be content with their condition. They are liberal and progressive, and yet conservative; they are even with modern ideas as regards education and civilization, and yet the tourist within their boundaries continually finds himself reminded of their past. The costumes and the customs of the mass of the people have undergone singularly little change; they mind their own affairs, and are wisely indifferent to the affairs of others. Both as importers and as exporters they are useful to the world, and if the prophecies of those who foretell a general clash of the European powers should be fulfilled, it is likely that the Dutch will be onlookers merely, or perhaps profit by the misfortunes of their neighbors to increase their own well-being.

As we have seen in the foregoing pages, Belgium did not unite with the Hollanders in their revolt of the sixteenth century; but appertained to Burgundy, and was afterward made a domain of France. But after Napoleon had been overthrown at Waterloo, the nations who had been so long harried and terrorized by him were not satisfied with banishing the ex-conqueror to his island exile, but wished to present any possibility of another Napoleon arising to renew the wars which had devastated and impoverished them. Consequently they agreed to make a kingdom which might act as a buffer between France and the rest of Europe; and to this end they decreed that Belgium and Holland should be one. But in doing this, the statesmen or politicians concerned failed to take into account certain factors and facts which must inevitably, in the course of time, undermine their arrangements. Nations cannot be arbitrarily manufactured to suit the convenience of others. There is a chemistry in nationalities which has laws of its own, and will not be ignored. Between the Hollanders and the Belgians there existed not merely a negative lack of homogeneity, but a positive incompatibility. The Hollanders had for generations been fighters and men of enterprise; the Belgians had been the appanage of more powerful neighbors. The Hollanders were Protestants; the Belgians were adherents of the Papacy. The former were seafarers; the latter, farmers. The sympathies or affiliations of the Dutch were with the English and the Germans; those of the Belgians were with the French. Moreover, the Dutch were inclined to act oppressively toward the Belgians, and this disposition was made the more irksome by the fact that King William was a dull, stupid, narrow and very obstinate sovereign, who thought that to have a request made of him was reason sufficient for resisting it.

But over and above all these causes for disintegration of the new kingdom lay facts of the broadest significance and application. The arbiters of 1815 did not sufficiently apprehend the meaning of the French Revolution. The wars of Napoleon had made them forget it; his power had seemed so much more formidable and positive that the deeper forces which had brought about the events of the last decade of the eighteenth century were ignored. But they still continued profoundly active, and were destined ere long to announce themselves anew. They were in truth the generative forces of the nineteenth century.

They have not yet spent themselves; but as we look back upon the events of the past eighty or ninety years, we perceive what vast differences there are between what we were in Napoleon's day and what we are now. A long period of intrigue and misrule, of wars and revolutions, has been followed by material, mental and social changes affecting every class of the people, and especially that class which had hitherto been almost entirely unconsidered. The wars of this century have been of another character than those of the past; they have not involved basic principles of human association, but have been the result of attempts to gain comparatively trifling political advantages, or else were the almost inevitable consequence of adjustments of national relations. Several small new kingdoms have appeared; but their presence has not essentially altered the political aspect of Europe. It is the conquests of mind that have been, in this century, far more important than the struggles of arms. Steam, as applied to locomotion on sea and land, and to manufactures, has brought about modifications in social and industrial conditions that cannot be exaggerated. Steamboats and railroads have not only given a different face to commerce and industry, but they have united the world in bonds of mutual knowledge and sympathy, which cannot fail to profoundly affect the political relations of mankind. Isolation is ignorance; as soon as men begin to discover, by actual intercourse, the similarities and dissimilarities of their several conditions, these will begin to show improvements. To be assured that people in one part of the world are better off than those in another, will tend inevitably to bring about ameliorations for the latter. The domain of evil will be continually restricted, and that of good enlarged. In the dissemination of intelligence and the spread of sympathy, the telegraph, and other applications of electricity, have enormously aided the work of steam. Every individual of civilized mankind may now be cognizant, at any moment, of what is taking place at any point of the earth's surface to which the appliances of civilization have penetrated. This unprecedented spread of common acquaintanceship of the world has been supplemented by discoveries of science in many other directions. We know more of the moon to-day than Europe did of this planet a few centuries ago. The industrial arts are now prosecuted by machinery with a productiveness which enables one man to do the work formerly performed by hundreds, and which more than keeps up the supply with the demand. Conquests of natural forces are constantly making, and each one of them adds to the comfort and enlightenment of man. Men, practically, live a dozen lives such as those of the past in their single span of seventy years; and we are even finding means of prolonging the Scriptural limit of mortal existence physically as well as mentally.