NETHERLANDS. 



413 



tobacco at 10,657,000 guilders, and exports at 

 7,453,000 guilders; imports of gold and silver at 

 17,234,000 guilders, and exports at 3,490,000 guil- 

 ders. The value of all articles of food and drink 

 imported was 509,960,000 guilders, and the value 

 exported 490,872,000 guilders; the value of raw 

 materials imported was 462,821,000 guilders, and 

 the value exported 348,266,000 guilders ; the value 

 of manufactured products imported was 243,897,- 

 000 guilders, and the value exported was 240,024,- 

 000 guilders; the value of miscellaneous products 

 imported was 356,019,000 guilders, and the value 

 exported was 301,308,000 guilders. The values in 

 guilders of the imports from and exports to the 

 principal countries in 1900 are given in the fol- 

 lowing table: 



Navigation. The number of vessels entered at 

 Dutch ports during 1900 was 12,307, of 9,475,164 

 tons, of which 3,335 were Dutch, of 2,381,358 tons, 

 and 8,972, of 7,093,806 tons, were foreign; the 

 total number cleared was 12,367, of 9,449,676 

 tons, of which 3,449, of 2,406,846 tons, were Dutch 

 and 8,918, of 7,042,830 tons, were foreign. Of the 

 total number entered 11,589, of 9,218,868 tons, 

 were with cargoes and 718, of 256,296 tons, were 

 in ballast ; of those cleared 7,472, of 4,655,454 tons, 

 were with cargoes and 4,895, of 4,794,222 tons, 

 were in ballast. Of the ships entered with cargoes 



03.1 per cent, and of those cleared 47.1 per cent, of 

 the tonnage was entered and cleared at Rotter- 

 dam; at Amsterdam, 15.8 per cent, of the ton- 

 nage entered and 19.6 per cent, of that cleared; at 

 Flushing, 7.4 per cent, of the tonnage entered and 



14.2 per cent, of that cleared. 



The Dutch commercial marine in the beginning 

 of 1901 consisted of 425 sailing vessels, of 78,588 

 tons, and 213 steamers, of 269,586 tons. 



Railroads, Posts, and Telegraphs. The 

 length of the railroads in operation in 1900 was 

 1,730 miles. The Government railroads, having a 

 length of 969 miles, constructed at a cost of 270,- 

 509,000 guilders, carried 12,257,000 passengers and 

 7,274,000 metric tons of freight in 1900, earning 

 23,789,000 guilders, with 20,809,000 guilders of ex- 

 penses. Private railroads carried 17,761,000 pas- 

 sengers and 4,386,000 tons of freight, earning 18,- 

 863.000 guilders and expending 14,829,000 guilders. 



The post-office during 1900 forwarded 74,800,000 

 domestic and 28,112,000 foreign letters, 46,613,- 

 860 domestic and 9,193,398 foreign postal cards, 

 140,208,000 domestic and 15,855,000 foreign 

 newspapers and other printed enclosures, 4,180.- 

 240 domestic and 1,003,645 foreign parcels, and 

 336,262 domestic and 112,473 foreign money-or- 

 ders, The receipts from the post-office were 10,- 

 149.535 guilders; expenses, 7,742,436 guilders. 



The Government telegraph-lines on Jan. 1, 1901, 

 had a total length of 3,831 miles, with 14.210 

 miles of wire. The number of messages sent in 

 1900 was 5,393,872, excluding official messages; 

 receipts were 2,151,346 guilders, and expenses 

 2,726,961 guilders. 



Politics and Legislation. The elections for 

 the renewal of one-third of the members of the 

 First Chamber took place early in July. The 



K T liberals lost 1 seat, leaving them still 27 in the 

 pper house, while the Anti-Revolutionists and 



Catholics with this seat won had 23 members. 

 The lower house was strongly Anti-Liberal, but 

 the Cabinet of Dr. Kuyper, composed of Orthodox 

 Protestants and Catholics, had no urgent' mandate 

 other than to keep educational and other con- 

 troversial matters as they were and initiate no 

 legislation that was not manifestly useful and 

 imperative. In the session which closed just be- 

 fore the elections the most critical measures dis- 

 cussed were a military penal code drawn up by 

 Prof, van der Hoeven, and a bill on military dis- 

 cipline. The Socialists thought that soldiers 

 under sentence, like civilians, were entitled to a 

 stay of execution pending an appeal. Gen. 

 Bergansius rejected this proposal as prejudicial, 

 but he raised no objection to a compromise of- 

 fered by a member of the Ministerial party pro- 

 viding for the temporary suspension of a military 

 sentence until after the house had adopted this 

 amendment, when he declared that the Govern- 

 ment could not accept the vote. The matter was 

 reconsidered in order to extricate the Cabinet from 

 an awkward dilemma, and the clause was recast 

 by the Minister of War himself, who had to make 

 a concession, since Ministerialists as well as the 

 Opposition were committed to an opinion con- 

 trary to his own. The Protectionists wished to 

 increase the import duties on foreign sugar and, 

 until the Brussels convention goes into effect, the 

 sugar bounty, amounting to 2,500,000 guilders a 

 year, in order to strengthen the crippled domestic 

 beet-sugar industry against the still stronger com- 

 petition it will have to meet when bounties are 

 abolished. Minister Harte van Tecklenburg con- 

 demned temporary measures and was non-com- 

 mittal as to his future policy. The Queen, who 

 instead of giving birth to an heir, nearly lost her 

 own life in April, opened the First and Second 

 Chambers in person 'on Sept. 16. The Minister of 

 the Colonies, Dr. van Asch van Wyk having died, 

 Lieut.-Gen. Bergansius took the portfolio tem- 

 porarily in addition to his own on Sept. 10. 

 Baron Melvil van Lynden, Minister of Foreign 

 Affairs, exploded the rumors that Holland was 

 seeking powerful allies to protect her East Indian 

 possessions from England, a subject that had been 

 discussed in the press, in \vhich the opinion pre- 

 vailed that to join the triple alliance would be 

 tantamount to surrendering the colonies to Ger- 

 many and compromising the national independ- 

 ence, and to join the dual alliance, though less 

 hazardous, would lead to complications and dan- 

 gers perhaps as fatal in the end; that it would be 

 better to give up the colonies than to sacrifice 

 Holland's position as an independent nation; and 

 that the colonies were not in any way menaced 

 by the Anglo-Japanese alliance, for England could 

 not provoke a quarrel with Holland without risk 

 of an armed conflict with other European powers. 

 International Arbitration and Laws. 

 Ideas of international law have been indigenous 

 in Holland since the time of Grotius, and for this 

 reason and on account of her neutral position The 

 Hague was chosen by the Czar to be the meeting- 

 place of the conference of 1899 and the seat of the 

 International Tribunal of Arbitration evolved 

 from his proposals. According to the convention 

 concluded on July 29, 1899, the president of the 

 permanent administrative council of The Hague 

 Tribunal is the Minister of Foreign Affairs and 

 the members are the diplomatic representatives of 

 the signatory powers. The members of the Court 

 of Arbitration appointed by the respective powers 

 were as follows: Germany" Dr. Bingner, Herr von 

 Frantzius, Prof, von Martitz, and Prof, von Bar: 

 Austria-Hungary, Count Friedrich Schoenborn, 

 Count Albert Apponyi, and Dr. Heinrich Lam- 



