QUEEN WILHELMINA OF HOLLAND

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2718, 13 March 1916, Page 3

QUEEN WILHELMINA OF HOLLAND

TWENTY-FIFTH YEAK. ON THIS THRONE. | Quoon Williclmitm lias occupied the throne of the Netherlands lor polity-, fivo yours from November tost, celebrating tlio event. very <|Uiutl.y «ith her husband, Prince llcury, their little daughter* Princess Juliana, mid her U'otlior, Dowager Qucoii Emma. Slio would not allow her subjects to spend any in on oy on festivities m her honour, stipulating 'bat. tlio appropriation made l>y the State tor this occasion should be donated to the tuud loi H*ar sufferers in Holland. Ibo uowspapers, in recently noting 11ns kindly let of charity, brought lo tho minds of tlio pooplo in other countries tlio first remembranco tluit tho yoniif* Qucon had actually passed 11 quarter ot t\ century upon the throno. oho wilt no iffi next August, and was a very plump nrtd dimpled littlo girl of 10 when her father, King William 111, diod, and bio became Queen. Sho was under tho guardianship of her mother until sho reached tho age of 18, since which time die lias been very much of a sovereign. Her position is not an easy one these days, at the liead of a nation ot 0,000,000 people crowded into an area of 12,000 square milos, with about half a million Belgian refugees and two thousand interned British soldiers and sailors as uninvited guests. Tho Belgians are former near neigh, hours .who were seldom congenial frionds, differing in religion, and habits, and divided, moreover, from tiha Dutch by commercial and political jealousies. Tho British arc tho defenders of Antwerp who fled across tlio border in timo to avoid internment in Belgium, and who should bo more contented to remain quietly in tho Netherlands than they are. In addition every belligerent country has sent into neutral Holland numerous men and women whoso object it is to porsuado the Queon and her Government to abandon noutrality in favour of ono sido or tho other,

Thero is tho army still mobilised. It was increased last July from 330,000 to 550,000, the nnvy being enlarged at the snmo time through a Government grant to build two new cruisers nnd four submarines for the defence of 1101. land's colonial possessions. And there is, abovo all else as a source of anxiety, the Netherlands Overseas Trust, tho great commercial enterprise which hau charge, of all trado ontering and departing from the country, ivhich is officially recognised by both sides of tho belligerents, who, naturally, glare /it one another across little Holland's narrow strip of territory and fasten oaglo oyes upon the doings of the N. O. T. It is not believed either in London ov Berlin that Queen Wilhelmina has the slightest intention of permitting her country tp enter tho war. She fears both Germany and Great Britain, being dependent upon the first for tho integrity of lier colonial empire, and dependent upon the second for the integrity of her colonial Empire. The Queen's hope is thnt she may h& among the negotiators of tho peaca which must eventually come, and that she may thus have the opportunity ol placing Holland upon a higner plane of international importance. Her countiv was tho first to recogniso the flag of the American colonists, but on that account Holland's delegate to tho confetence at Paris was not allowed a seal< at tho council tallo.