No. 468.
Mr. Gorham
to Mr. Fish.
The Hague, June 12, 1875. (Received July 8.)
Sir: The constitution of the Netherlands provides that the second chamber of the States-General shall be partially renewed every alternate year by the election of one-half of its members. This body, since the election of two years ago, has been equally divided between the liberals on one side, and conservatives, orthodox Protestants, and Catholics, on the other, the religious sections, though differing essentially on religious dogmas generally, practically unite in an effort to change the government’s system of primary instruction.
Under a law of 1857, children of whatever creed, or of none at all, are admitted to equal advantages in the public schools, with a view to a secular education, but nothing more. The schools are maintained at the expense of the municipalities, except in a few localities where the general government aids pecuniarily to a limited extent. School teaching is a career entitling a superannuated teacher to a moderate pension.
[Page 990]The system appears to have given satisfaction for awhile, and it is difficult to understand why complaint should be made of it now. Each annual report bears proof of its efficiency in showing a decreasing per cent. of untaught children, and of unlettered persons below a certain age. Still, here, as in most countries in Europe—and to a small extent in our own—an idea is cherished that in some mysterious but positive sense the state and church are divinely wedded, and that fearful calamities will sooner or later be visited upon all governments sanctioning their divorce. The times are not propitious for securing directly more intimate relations between them, but the principle is involved in the school question now at issue in so many quarters, and hence the effort being made by the religionists referred to—here called clericals—to increase their political power in the hope of controlling the educational interests of the country in a manner to serve equally well their sectarian aims.
The orthodox Protestants say, “Our children must be accustomed to the daily reading of the Bible.” “Ours must be educated in the faith of the Catholic Church,” say the Romanists, “and since they cannot be under the present arrangement, refund the money we now pay for educational purposes that we may support schools consistent with our creed,” say both, thus practically uniting to enfeeble, if not destroy, the common-school system of the country.
It is a noticeable circumstance that the fiercest attacks are from orthodox Protestants. Though less numerous than the Catholics, who dominate in at least three of the eleven provinces, they supply in zeal what they lack in numbers. They are ably represented at this time by Dr. Knyper, formerly a clergyman at Amsterdam, now a member of the second chamber. Some months ago he published in a leading journal of his party a detailed plan, under the title of “Restitution,” for paying back to the “clericals” taxes collected for school-purposes. A little later, venturing to interrogate the minister in order to determine the prospect of his scheme, he was distinctly informed that “restitution would receive no encouragement from the government.
It is creditable to the several cabinets through which the government has been administered during the past few years, embracing ordinarily members of different creeds, that no encouragement has been given to sectarian schemes or disposition evinced to direct legislation in a narrow or illiberal sense.
There is, however, an impression on the part of many that a settled purpose pervades the Catholic portion, now comprising two-fifths of the population of the Netherlands, to secure political control at whatever expense. Recent events have more than ever brought the papacy into consideration as a political power capable of interfering with the lives of nations—as a force which may become a powerful ally to one, a relentless foe to another. People are saying that the ultramontanes have a hand in every intrigue; that there is settled mischief in the counsels of the Vatican, and that the next war will be so far a religious war that the priesthood, and all who obey them, will be found, actually or in sympathy, on the same side.
True or false, these impressions are dividing the people into clerical and anti-clerical parties, obliterating other distinctions and forcing men desiring official positions to choose between the two. The election held on the 8th instant was sharply contested on this basis, though nominally under old party banners.
Neither side will have gained or lost, however, if the three or four ballotings to be repeated on the 22d result according to general expectation. The liberals claim a moral victory in gaining two members at [Page 991] Amsterdam against two lost in places of less importance. Dr. Knype was re-elected at Gonda by the united efforts of the clericals. The ministry is likely to be, as in the last Parliament, without a majority for or against it. How long it will be able to endure the anomalous situation is a question for the future.
I am, &c.,