Year: 1872

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been superseded by De Theux Ministry,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 !