The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-08-25

willy but impetuous adversary during the past
two years.
And this the more unquestionably that
time, which has thus been working against
Bsmark and for Bonaparte in the South, has
been bringing about similar result in the
West.
The difficulty of last year between France
and Prussia over the question of Luxembourg,
and the chronic cries which from Paris to Ber-
lin, and Berlin to Paris, have echoed and re-
echoed the passionate song of Carl Becker, and
the scornful response of Alfred de Musset
about the ownership of the Rhine, these after
all have only indicated that real body of mis-
chief in the West over which a war between
France and Prussia, should such a war break
out will be waged. This is simply the pos
session of the Netherlands under which term
history knows that region lying between
the North Sea and the Rhine which,
after being for ages the cockpit
OF Europe" has known comparative
tranquility for half century past as the king
doms of Holland and of Belgium. OF these
two Kingdoms Holland alone can be said to
possess genuine nationality. The Dutch
have history, great national character, a
religion, language of their own. The Bel
gians are made up of Walloons, of Flemings,
and of Frenchmen. The French language
predominates in their provinces, and save so
far as the long domination of the House of
Austria may be said to have made them
Spapiards or Austrians, there is no reason to
be drawn from the traditions of Flanders and
Brabant, Hainault, aud Limbourg, which
should lead one to suppose that their people
would find it any more difficult to make them
selves Frenchmen than their kinsmen of Lille
and Valenciennes have done.
The existence of Belgium as an independent
monarchy since 1880 has been mainly sup
ported by the existence in France and Eng
land of the old protective system. So long as
this system prevailed, Belgium, which was
taken by England particularly under her wing,
was the natural economic enemy of France,
while she was indispensable to English trade
with the continent. But ever since the esta-
blishment by Napoleon in 1861 of compare
tive free trade with England and particularly
since the adoption by Belgium in 1865 of the
principles of the Anglo-French treaty the
natural drift of things has gradually made a
closer alliance of Belgium with France, de-
sirable not only to Belgium and to France but
to England also. Ten years ago serious pro-
iect for the annexation of Belgium to France
would have meant an immediate war be-
tween France and England. To-day such
project would be quite as likely to be for
warded as to be thwarted even by Tory
Government in England and it is extremely
probable that Lord Stanley recent and rather
OstentatiOus declaration that France and Eng
land were quite at one in regard to the "pre-
sent and prospective events" on the Cont
nent, may have been meant to convey a
distinct intimaton of this important fact to
the Prussian Government. For up to this
moment the only distinct effect which has
been produced in the Netherlands by the
menacing possibility of a Franco Prussian
conflict for the possession of that ancient and
fertile region has been to rouse the Dutch into
a fever of hostility to Prussia while the party
in Belgium friendly to union with France has
gained strength with each new demonstration
of Count Bismark's ambition.
Whatever may be The issue, then, of the
actual and most interesting state of things in
the Old World, history, at least, will give the
palm of practical craftsmanship during the
critical period which has elapsed since the
thunderstorm of July, 1866, to the head of
the Bonapartes, rather than to the right hand
of the IIOhepZOllern,