Americus times-recorder. [volume] (Americus, Ga.) 1891-current, 1916-12-01
HOLLAND DOES NOT.
WANT THE BLOOD Of.
GERMANON THRONE.

THE HAGUE Netherlands, Dec. l.
Only two lives, those Of the reigning
Queen and of her seven-year-old
daughter, Princes Juliana, bar the way
III the natural order of things to the
accession to the throne of the Neither
lands of German prince. 1t is true
that, so far as health and age are con-
cerned, those living may be described
as first class but the potential
slenderness of the thread was illus
trated not long ago in the Hague
woods, where the royal automobile
carrying Queen Wilhelmina and the
little Princess was the victim Of a
collision that might under less FORUM
ate circumstances have cost the lives
of both.
This question of the succession gave
Dutchmen some concern before the war
and much more now Several well
known public men have drawn public
attention to the matter in the last few
days, and what looks like strong agi-
tation, enjoying widespread sympathy.
has been started for a revision of the
Constitution declaring null and void
all potential rights of succession of for
eign princes, leaving the choice Of a
new sovereign, in such an unhoped-for
and unexpected circumstance as the
failure of all direct heirs to the throne,
entirely to the State General or Parli-
ament of the country. For every
Dutchman, practically without excep-
ticn, whatever be his sympathies in the
present war, would regard the access
ion of a German prince as a calamity,
threatening the so dearly-cherished in
dependence of the nation.
In the House of Orange, Holland is
blessed with dynasty bound to Hol-
land and Holland alone by such strong
ties that no one at home or abroad
would dream of suggesting that the
council chambers of the Crown are
accessible to other than purely Dutch
interests. But if that house were left
without living issue, the next claim
ants to the throne would be found
among the collateral princely houses
o. SaxeWeimer and Reuse-Kostrit2,
followed or accompanied by those Of
-Mainingen, Hohenzollern, au-
other branch of Reuse-Kostritz, Schles-
wig-Holstein, Norway, Sahcumburg-
Lippe Sweden and Wierd-one AMI
all equally foreign to the Netherlands.
Small Powers Should Beware.
Professor ]. A. Van Hamel, disting
uished authority on law, declares in
the Amstrdamer: This game of ia-
terests with German royal relations on
foreign throne must teach lis that
small powers should beware if they Go
not desire to see, in their highest gov
eminent circles, foreign aims that
might be pernicious to them put ii
place of their national interests. Is
the fact sufficiently reckoned, with
that, according to the present consti-
tutional regulation of the succession to
the throne, the successive princes
called to the throne after Princess Jul
lana are all of German families, mostly
officers in the German army, naturally
all attached heart and soul and bound
to the German policy? Monarchical
couplings of this country to another,
by prince who could hardly be any
thing but an imperial prince-envoy,
and who might be admonished from
abroad to bear himself like a good
German Of whom, moreover, nothing
is known here save that he has not
the slightest relations with this coun-
try, would be a very serious matter for
the coming times"
As regards the exact form that the
proposed constitutional revision should
take, Prof D. p D. Fabius, yet anotk-
er writer on the subject, argues in fay-
or of simply putting all possible claim
ants besides Princess Juliaua out of
court. or binding the country in no
way to any house or person outside
the offspring of Wilhelmina, and thus
in case Of the necessity occurring leav-
ing the States General, an unquestion-
ably free choice in the matter On the
ether hand, Professor H. Louis Israels,
"a well known publicist, wants to take
a cue from the American constitution,
which itself borrowed so much from
Dutch political law, in its prescrig-
con that only born American can
be elected head of the State He would
have the rule laid down that only those
who were born and had remained Hol-
'anders would by right of inheritance
cnraoaJ IN