The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1916-04-08
'NETHERL LANDS CABINET WILL
 RETAIN OFFICE, AL LTHOUGH ITS
 POLICIES MAY BE REJECTED
Ministry Regards. Itself As Liable for Preservation
 of Country's Inde- : pendence.


 The present constitutional position in the Nethera1nds' is a remarkable one in the history of modern Constitu- tional States, being the outcome of the extra.ordinary circumstances in which the country finds itself. The present government has announced, and already put into practice on sev- eral occasions, the theory that only individual ministers need fall if the bills introduced by them (wit11, of course, the approval oe the whole Cabinet) are defeated in Parliament and the Ministry a whole proceeds with it's work if nothing had hap pened. The Prime Minister, MT. Cort van der Linden, a sound Liberal and consequently great respecter of good constitutional rules, has just publicly declared in the First Cham Der of the Dutch Parliament that even if the proposals for the revi- sion of the constitution, which. form the main item of the governments legislative program and for which he is personally responsible, should be rejected by Parliament, he will re- main in office. x
 It seems uper-constitutionaI, says one press organ, and a unique devel opment in the evolution of modern constitutional ideas, when a Cabinet may have it's entire legislative pro- gram rejected and coolly stay in of
 
 pened. There are, however. Fnatur- ally good grounds for the ''super-con- stitutionalism" of the present Dutch Ministry; and it is Silently endorsed by the nation as a whole. They are found in the peri1ous position of the country. The ministry will not make Cabinet question of any subject of internal politics because it consider itself a Cabinet of Foreign AffairsI and it's raison- d'etre the preservation
 xl T safety Thus while MT. Cort van der Linden is nominaIly Minister of Home Affairs, he makes it clear that he really regards himself as the guar dian and director of the national-in- ternational policy of the Netherlands, saying in effect that only a direct vote of censure on himself and his colleagues will bring about their res ignation.
 The effect of this attitude on the home political situation is curious one, for the questions placed by the government on the legislative pro- amT-Constitutfonal Revision, in cIuding universal manhood suffrage and the question of woman's suffrage and possibly the thorny education question:; far-reaching taxation re- forms, old age pensions, etc.-are of g. very controversial nature and deeply divide the. various political parties. But to the reproaches ad- dressed to it by the parties Of the Right that 1t is thus breaking the political truce, the Government re- plies:3 "It is high time these questions, which have so long occupied the po1i- ticaI arena and which, indeed, we promised to deal with, were settled Just now, when all parties have been drawn together in upho1ding the saf- ety of the country, let us take adVan- tage of the spirit of cancellation so evoked. and with as little partisanship as possible try to solve them. But while these are our proposals as a Cabinet, we leave you entirely tree | to accept or reject them as you will, with the full assurance that our life as a. Cabinet, and the foreign policy 1 of the country, on which all are | agreed, will not be affected thereby Vote as you will, accept or reject the | legislative measures put betore you' l 1t will not affect the Ministry now in l office as a whole, whose existence de- bends on your contipued support or 1 it's foreign policy and not on it's home | legislative proposals
 That this new constitutional pre- cedent should have startled some people and led members of the oppo- l sition parties of the right to ask: l .eWf1at has become of ministerial re- 1 spensibility ?' is not Surprising. FThe | basic rule that Ministers are respon- sib1e' that was introduced into the Constitution when the Liberal par ty was at the height of it's power. l is thus set on one side by this gov ernment, by this classic Liberal Prime Minister" says the Tyd. The .debac1e I of the Liberal administration is con- sl1nnuated by this extra-Parhanien- l tary Cabinet Begun by breaking the continuity of legislation, continued by suspending collective responsibility, it ends by declaring Ministers no longer responsib1e.'' Such sharp criticism i may be formally well founded, but most people in Holland seem to be agreed that forms and precedents must not stand in the way of the vital interests and safety of the coun-