The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1914-11-21
filled with fear.

s8 7a q 7
 when the war began Ehe Neither lands government immediately mobil- ized it's troops, fearing that Holland would be immediately invaded For a moment, even. the brave defenders Of Etege fired the people with an en-. thusias1n, and. many wished to defy Germany Then the terrible German military nachine stayed for but a moment, swept over Belgium and left it desolate. Viewing at close quar- ters the awful wreckage of war, the blood Of the brave Dutchmen congeal- ed in their veins.
 still. declaring neutrality. Holland, hat in hand, was soon Lowing before the German emperor. All desire to emulate Belgiun's defiant attitude will, humbled herself before Prussian might
 It was not alone the fear that she might share the fate of Belgium in being frannpIed beneath the feet of warning might that caused Holland loss Of her rich possessions of the East Indies. of being deprived of Java and Sumatra and of those other pos sessions which constantly pour q steady stream of gold into Hollands l coHers. exercised an even greater i'm Although Great Britain and France ] might have saved Antwerp by dis l patching a fleet with refnforcenents 1 by way of the Dutch Scheldt, they re- tfrained- And this was in face of the peculiar and unexplained fact that al- Ithough Dutchmen are admittedly practicing that thrift and economy for \ which they are noted to the utter most nxuits they have since the begin ming of the war imported at least four 1 times as much food and other conmo- dities as before the beginning of the struggle. A fourfold increase in food Imports, and much greater increases in some other imports. can be explain ed only by the assumption that Hof- land has suddenly grown wildly ex- travagantor else that these increas- ! ed supplies. In some mysterious way, go on to Germany.
 In her war plans Germany has al- 1 ways acted on the assumption that
 Holland and Belgium. by threats of 1 invasion and annexation, could be forced to aid Germany by permitting the passage Of troops through their territory and the importation of food
 through their ports. In the case o4 Belgium, this belief has proved not to have been well founded, but there is ground for a. suspicion that HoI- l lands with the ghastly spectacle of 1 Belgium's fate before her eyes, has
 been more yielding.
 But if the Netherlands has to some
 extent yielded to force of circumstan- Il (SSS IL IS 4loS W4IAOuI 1OreDOO1nS. 4ne
 Dutch people have never fully trusted
 Queen W1Ihelxnina's consort Before
 the birth of the Princess Ju1iana ii
 was often charged that he was bru-
 tai husband, and he was often hissed
 and heoted in the streets Tines al
 legations of cruelty have gradually
 died out, but Dutchmen find it impos-
 sible to forget that Prince Henry is a
 German. a close and intimate friend or the Kaiser, and a former officer o1
 the Emperor's Guards at Potsdarn.
 But if Holland fears the loss of fts .I economic and political freedom and
 absorption by Germany, she is by nc
 means friendly toward France o1
 Great Britain. Old quarrels stil shoulder, and Dutchmen remembe,
 that the French deprived Holland o; Belgium, and that the English have tntervenedv in many ways to hampe Dutch expansion since they took Nev
 Netherlands and South Africa iron
 them. Dutch hatred of Britain Ina, never entirely died out, and it f1arnet forth in great fury during the Soul African war, when the Dutch wer, open in their devotion to the Boe cause.