The Hawaiian gazette., 1872-02-07

THE Ministerial crisis in Belgium has
apparently had a more satisfactory termi-
nation than might have been expected
from the violent popular disturbance from
which it arose. The question was alto
gether of personal nature, and it led only
to a change of persons. The D'Anethau
Ministry, Conservative and Clerical, has
been superseded by De Theux Ministry,
also Clerical and Conservative. On the
other hand, the Liberal party have obtain
ed all they wished. They professed to
have no open quarrel with the Govern
ment They acknowledged the superior
strength of their adversaries in the Cham
Der, and limited their policy to a consist
ent but legal and pacific opposition. No
question of principle was for the moment
at issue, and the Cabinet had steered the
vessel of the State through the late war
like and revolutionary period with a skill
and firmneSs which won them the graft
tude of their fellow-citizens and the res
pect of their neighbours. Their only al
legged offence was the appointment of NJ.
de Decker to the Governorship of Linn
burg. NJ de Decker belonged to the
Government party, but, personally, he
seems to have enjoyed an unblemished
reputation. The single objection to him
was the connexion he was said to have
with the Langrand-Dumonceau Banking
Company, an establishment against which
popular outcry had been raised, and
whose transactions were, or had been, the
subject of judicial inquiry. Affairs of
that nature are, of course, beyond the
scope of our criticism. The nomination
of NJ. de Decker was made the theme offs
passionate Parliamentary debate, at the
end of which the Government, backed by
Its majority, came off with all the honours.
Riots ensued in Brussels, in consequence
of which the newly-appointed Governor
resigned his Office This first concession
was not, however, deemed sufficient
atonement for the offence of the Govern
ment, and the tumultuous multitude in
sisted that the Ministers, as guilty of an
"immoral" nomination, should also retire.
The King deemed it either just or expedi-
ent to give in to the Glamour. He parted
with his Ministers; but, as all imaginable
cause of offence was now removed, as
there was no question ofprinciple on which
an appeal to the country might be advis-
able, aud as the Opposition itself would
neither have been willing to dissolve the
Chamber nor able to govern withit, King
Leopold had to choose his new advisers
out of the old majority, and the result, as
we have said, was De Theux Admins
tration, completely sharing the political .
views of the fallen Cabinet.
There are, strictly speaking, no politi-
cal parties in Belgium. The parties which
there go by the name of Conservatives
and Liberals should more properly be
called Catholics and anti Catholics. They
were friends in YOUTH" they consti-
tuted only one patriotic party at the time
that the country carried on its successful
struggle for emancipation against the Pro
testant Government of the Netherlands.
The Church and the people were one, as
they would be in Poland if that Catholic
nation could take the field against schis-
matte Russia, as they would be in Ireland
if the Papist Celt could rise in arms against
the Protestant Saxon. But in Belgium
the people had fought in the name of re-
ligion and liberty, and a State had been
formed in which those two principles were ,
to go hand in hand A com
promise between clerical authority and
free inquiry was in those early days deem
I'd compatible A Protestant Prince was
without repugnance accepted as ruler of a
purely Catholic Kingdom, and the Con- {
based on the Model of the French {
July Charter, was supposed to place the {
citations between Church and State on t
hat basis which would best prevent either S
or collision. This rare har- I
nony could, however, be of no long dura-
ion. The forty years of the independent a
existence of Belgium mark the period of I
he rise and development of Ultramon- f
anism in the Roman Catholic Church. e
Plus TX ushered in as momentous a revo- t
ution in this latter part of the nineteeuth q
entury as Plus V. accomplished towards d
he decline of the sixteenth. The Church a
5 now carrying on as relentless a war il
gainst political freedom as she then t
vaged against religious independence. 9
n Belgium, as in France, she laid hold of 4
he masses, and by their vote exercised an a
lmost irresistible ascendency over the
Jational Councils. The Liberals on their S,
ide entered the lists with confidence.
he strife was between the University il
nd the Seminary, between the Press and II
be Pulpit-the latter backed by the Con- n
,ssional. While Rome overran Belgium Il
18th her Jesuit legions, France flooded the
tile kingdom with her literature. Hence Ia
he origin of the hostilities between Cleri- p
7 !