The Sun.
London, England, 1832-07-10 00:00:00

BELGIUM AND HOLLAND.

NOTE SENT TO THE CONFERENCE BY
THE DUTCH PLENIPOTENTIARY.
TO THEIR EXCELLENCIES THE PENIPOTENTIARIES
OF AUSTRIA, FRANCE, GREAT BRITAIN, PRUSSIA,
AND RUSSIA.

London, June 30,1832.
By a note of the 11th of this month, emanating
from their Excellencies the Plenipotentiaries of Aus-
tria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, and Russia, as-
sembled in Conference in London, the Plenipoten-
tiaries of his Majesty the King of the Low Coun-
tries had the honour to receive a project of a direct
treaty between Belgium and Holland. They also
found a demand made to know from them if, on the
supposition that Belgium should accept this direct
treaty,that said treaty, and the treaty to be concluded
between Holland the Five Powers, would receive the
assent of his Majesty the King of the Low Countries.
The said note and the annexes having been trans-
mitted to the Government of the Low Countries,
the undersigned Plenipotentiary of his Majesty the
King of the Low Countries has been charged to lay
what follows before the Conference.

These projects carry with them the recognition of
the twenty-four-articles to which the Government
of the Low Countries has declared it cannot concede.

In effect, in Article 2 of the project of the Treaty
between the five Courts and the Low Countries it is
found that the twenty-four Articles are invoked with
the extraordinary Articles, as necessarily forming►
the conditions of separation, and as having the same
force and value as if they formed an integral part of
a Treaty between Holland and the five Powers;
and, according to the same Article, they are to be
transformed immediately into a Treaty between
Holland and Belgium.
The three explanatory Articles are not of a nature
to remove the difficulties which arise respecting the
signature of the said twenty-four Articles.
The first, notwithstanding the six weeks granted
for the exchange of the ratifications, orders the re-
spective evacuation of the territories for the 20th of
July; an evacuation which cannot be consented to so
long as an understanding is not formed as to the
conditions of separation.
According to the 2d explanatory Article, Com-
missioners were to assemble at Antwerp to negotiate
by mutual arrangement on the Articles 9 and 12,
the execution of which is to be suspended until the
definitive conclusion of the said negotiations. The
execution of those articles suppose their existence
real, and their simple suspension renders always
their execution possible at a late period. Besides,
the treaty with the Five Powers and that with
Belgium will lose all their force if objects such as
those contained in Articles 9 and 12, in which ge-
neral principles and not particular dispositions are
treated, were postponed to ulterior negotiations
which may be difficult to terminate. To open those
negotiations in Belgium would be also to wound
anew the dignity of the Netherlandish Government.
This article terminates by the stipulation that the
free navigation of the navigable rivers which traverse
or separate the Belgian and Dutch territories shall
be subject to the same rates of passage-money as
now exist. The stipulation can have no result for
the Low Countries, as the King has formed the re-
solution of continuing an impassable spectator of
the navigation of the Scheldt, as there did not re-
main to him, since January, 1831, but the choice
of preventing the navigation by arms, or of con-
senting thereto; by which resolution no dues are
consequently received on the Scheldt.
The 3d article bears relation to the capitalization,
and not to the liquidation, of the debt. The post-
ponement of these subjects to a future and unfixed
negotiation is not admissable, since the admission
of such entreaty would have for effect to assure im-
mediately to Belgium the enjoyment of the advan-
tages promised to it, while no guarantee would be
given to the Netherlands for the conditions in which
they are concerned.
In a verbal note of the 11th of June the Conk-

once makes mention of its note of the 14th of Ja-
nuary, 1832, in which a decision was pronounced
on several points of the treaty of the 24 articles.
The Conference adds, that if doubts should arise
on the sense or execution of this treaty, the decla-
ration contained in the memorial of the 4th of Jan.,
1832, were to be regarded as the opinion of the Five
Courts on the reciprocal engagements resulting from
this treaty.
The opinion expressed by the Conference in this
verbal note does not seem sufficient to tranquillize
the Netherlands as to the execution in the sense of
the Articles, on the subject of which the note of
the Ist of June, 1832, had pronounced itself favour-
able—that is, on the Articles 7,8, 10, 17, 23, and
24, independent of the amelioration of Article 9,
and the abandonment of the servitude in Limburg,
imposed by articles 10 and 12. The following ob-
servations are submitted to the Conference on those
points:—

The treaty is to be finally executed by the
Netherlands and Belgium, and this latter country has
never given in its adhesion to the memorial of the
Conference of the 4th of January; it is clear that
it will not then consider itself bound by that act.
The Conference having of its own accord offered
modifications to Articles 7,8, 10, 17, 23, and 24,
and the Cabinet of the Hague having accepted
them by its note of the 30th of January, this treaty
establishes between the Cabinet of the Hague and
the representatives of the Five Powers an obligation
which necessarily ought to receive a legal fixity, in
conformity with the diplomatic forms in usage. If
the reciprocal obligations that result from the modi-
fied articles do not obtain this legal force, they would
become, in their application, an inexhaustible source
of discord. The Cabinet of the Hague would be
obliged in all cases of difference to address itself to
the Five Powers, for the purpose of obtaining the ap-
plication of the modifications, which, not being
comprised in the articles, might give ground for
opposite sentiments between the Five Courts.
Finally, the opinion of the Conference expressed
on the 4rh of January, 1832, on the subject of
the 24th Article, and according to which it did not
seem toll-link about interfering its good offices, in
order to prolong from fourteen days to a month the
reciprocal evacution after the exchange of the rati-
fications, is in direct opposition with the first modi-
Aed Article, which appoints a determined day.
Independent of the remarks made by the Court
of the Hague, or the twenty-four Articles, the
epochs fixed in the 14th Article are no longer in
accord with the payments which are to take place,
since the Low Countries have not only effected the
payment of the half-year, due on the Ist of Jan.
last, but besides procured the funds necessary for
the payment of the dividends of the half-year ending
on the Ist of July current.
From these motives the answer cannot be other-
wise tnan negative to the question of supposing
Belgium shall have given its assent to the project of
an arrangement between the two aforesaid coun-
tries; in such case this project and that of an
arrangement between the Five Powers and the
King, would obtain the approbation of his INlajesty.
But at the same time the Court of the Hague has
endeavoured to find appropriate means in the actual
state of the requisitions to satisfy the dissident par-
ties on the points of difference.
The Court of the Hague believes that it has suc-
ceeded therein, by the annexed project of a treaty
between the King and the Five Courts, tending to
regulate the separation of Belgium from Holland,
and containing the treaty to be formed between
Holland and Belgium, a project which the under-
signed is charged to offer to the Conference, and
which he has the honour of doing in the sub-
joined note.
The Plenipotentiaries of the Five Powers as-
sembled in Conference in London will find therein a
new proof of the desire of the Government of the
Low Countries to put an end to the existing diffi-
culties, of which an example would be in vain sought
after in the annals of diplomacy, and without abandon-
ing itself to the chances of posterior negotiations.
The undersigned hope that their Excellencies will
fully appreciate the pacific sentiments which this
project will give rise to, and will deign to honour
him with a favourable answer in as short a delay as
their Conferences will allow.

He is also charged to state that these new sacri-
fices for the preservation of peace, made by the
King are too hard not to be the last ; and at the
same time he is charged to add, in the most formal
manner, that if the Five Powers shall not succeed
in coming to a full understanding among them-
selves on the contents of this project, it is to be
considered as null and of no avail; that the
King reserves to himself most expressly the right
of maintaining by all the means which Divine Pro-
vidence has placed within his power the conditions
of the annex A of the 12th Protocol, without ac-
knowledging either the political independence of
Belgium or Prince Leopold of Saxe Coburg, as long
as he shall not have received acceptable conditions ;
that the King rejects the responsibility of the diffi-
culties which may arise, and to which the Conference
has made allusion, and which his Majesty shall not
have provoked ; and that he will never neglect his
honour nor the supreme law of nations, that sacred
and imprescriptible law from which no State has ever
deviated with impunity, and which leaves to every
Government of a free people its own will as the last
arbitrator of its rights.
The underigned seizes the opportunity of, &c.
(Signed) 11. Van ZUYLEN Van NYEVELT.