Journal de Genève
- The Dutch-Belgian treaty
- Second act
- On pages 2 and 3
The Journal de Genève's front page of 5 November 1926 carried a letter signed 'Dr E. v. R.' on the Dutch-Belgian treaty. It set out the treaty's five measures: the end of Belgian neutrality and of the ban on a naval port at Antwerp, a reorganized administration of the Dutch Scheldt, canals from Antwerp to Moerdyk and to Ruhrort, and better waterways between Liège and Maastricht. The letter argued that only the last of these was bilateral and that the rest were Dutch concessions. An editorial treated the Grand Council's renewed debate on merging Geneva with its suburbs as the second act of a drama that had already been heavily reworked in committee. A box listed what was on pages 2 and 3.
Translation
The Dutch-Belgian treaty
…involve concessions on the part of the Netherlands; only the fifth is bilateral in character. They are: 1. The abolition of Belgium's permanent neutrality and of the prohibition on making Antwerp a naval port. 2. The broadening and strengthening of freedom of navigation through a thorough reorganization of the system of administration applied to the Lower Scheldt (that is, the Dutch Scheldt). 3. The construction of a canal from Antwerp to Moerdyk, crossing a substantial part of Dutch territory. 4. The construction of an Antwerp–Ruhrort canal passing through Dutch Limburg (the Rhine–Scheldt canal). 5. The improvement of river communications between Liège and Maastricht (improvement of the existing canals and construction of a new Neeroeteren–Maasbracht canal).
Second act
Curtain up, on Wednesday at the Grand Council, on the second act of the great drama The Fusion. The first act, as will be remembered, was staged in June 1925, and the man who played the leading role at that time, M. John Rochaix, recalled its twists and turns, not forgetting the prologue read at Saint-Pierre in November 1924. The critics were rather severe, and in the long interval between the first two acts the play has been substantially reworked by the Grand Council committee charged with examining it.
On pages 2 and 3
The Soviet marriage. – H. H. Leopold and Astrid. Echoes. Serial: Andorra. The situation.
Context
What the 1925 treaty actually changed
The letter signed 'Dr E. v. R.' lists five measures of the Belgian-Dutch treaty and says that every measure except the last requires a Dutch concession. The US State Department's annotated edition of the Versailles treaty confirms the core of that list for the treaty signed on 3 April 1925. According to that commentary, the treaty's first article ended the neutrality provision of the 1839 Belgian-Dutch treaty and cancelled the article that limited Antwerp to being solely a commercial port. The same commentary records that Article VII gave Dutch consent to a Belgian Rhine-Meuse canal. It describes the whole treaty as a slight revision of a 1920 draft and notes that the Wielingen channel question was not dealt with. The details of the Moerdyk canal and the Liège–Maastricht works come from the correspondent's own account.
How the 1919 Paris talks set the agenda
The five measures go back to demands Belgium pressed at the Paris Peace Conference. At a meeting of foreign ministers on 20 May 1919, the Belgian delegate Hymans argued that the development of Antwerp depended on Dutch goodwill, because its connection with the sea passed through Dutch territory. Among his demands was a broad-section canal from Antwerp to Moerdijk to replace the arrangements of 1839, the same project that appears as the letter's third measure. The Dutch parliamentary biography of Herman van Karnebeek, foreign minister until 1927, records that he strongly resisted Belgian annexation demands at the conference. The conference's commission was told to submit proposals implying neither a transfer of territorial sovereignty nor international servitudes. It ended its work on 23 March 1920 with draft treaties. A dispute over the Wielingen, the largest and most frequented channel into the Scheldt, then blocked a settlement, and the 1925 treaty left that question aside.
Where the treaty stood when this page appeared
The letter appeared while the Dutch parliament was still weighing the treaty. The State Department commentary records that the Belgian Chamber and Senate approved it in July 1926. The same commentary states that the Dutch Parliament considered the treaty from July 1926 until 24 March 1927. On 4 November 1926, the day before this issue, Van Karnebeek defended the treaty in a speech to the Second Chamber. He ended by saying that he shuddered at the thought that parliament might reach a different verdict. Geneva readers therefore received the correspondent's count of four Dutch concessions against one bilateral measure in the middle of that debate.
Why the Dutch First Chamber rejected the treaty in 1927
The Dutch First Chamber rejected the treaty by 33 votes to 17 on 24 March 1927. A Dutch chronicle of the twentieth century records that the Second Chamber had approved it earlier by a narrow margin of 50 to 47. The chronicle attributes the defeat to an exhausting campaign driven above all by Rotterdam port employers. According to the same chronicle, those employers saw the Antwerp–Moerdijk canal, the third measure on the correspondent's list, as enormous competition. After the vote, Foreign Minister Van Karnebeek offered his resignation. The chronicle calls the agreement the 'Wielingen treaty', whereas the State Department commentary states that the Wielingen question was left out of the 1925 text.
How Geneva's 'Fusion' drama ended
The editorial treats the plan to merge the city of Geneva with its neighbouring communes as a play in several acts. In its telling, a prologue was read at Saint-Pierre in November 1924, a first act was staged in the Grand Council in June 1925, and after a committee rewrite the second act opened on the Wednesday before this issue. The City of Geneva's history of its municipal regime gives the outcome. On 18 May 1930, four years after a first refusal, Geneva voters approved the creation of 'Greater Geneva', a merger of the communes of Geneva, Eaux-Vives, Plainpalais and Petit-Saconnex. The merged city was run by a five-member administrative council and given an 80-member municipal council. By that account the first refusal came in 1926, the same year in which this editorial's second act opened.
Original
Le traité hollando-belge
res impliquent des concessions de la part des Pays-Bas, la cinquième seule présente un caractère bilatéral. Ce sont: 1. La suppression de la neutralité permanente de la Belgique et de l'interdiction de faire d'Anvers un port de guerre. 2. L'élargissement et le renforcement de la liberté de la navigation par une réorganisation profonde du système d'administration appliqué au Bas-Escaut (c'est-àdire à l'Escaut hollandais). 3. La construction d'un canal d'Anvers à Moerdyk, traversant une partie importante du territoire hollandais. 4. La construction d'un canal Anvers-Ruhrort, passant par le Limbourg hollandais (canal Rhin-Escaut). 5. L'amélioration des communications fluviales entre Liège et Maasstricht (amélioration des canaux existants et construction d'un nouveau canal de Neeroeteren-Maasbracht).
Deuxième acte
Lever de rideau, mercredi au Grand Conseil, sur le deuxième acte du grand drame la Fusion. Le premier acte, on s'en souvient, fut représenté au mois de juin 1925, et celui qui joua, à cette époque, le premier rôle, M. John Rochaix, en a rappelé les péripéties, sans oublier le prologue lu à Saint-Pierre au mois de novembre 1924. La critique fut assez sévère, et, dans le long intervalle compris entre les deux premiers actes, la pièce a été sérieusement remaniée par la commission du Grand Conseil chargée de l'examiner.
En 2e et 3e pages
Le mariage soviétique. - H. H. Léopold et Astrid. Echos. Feuilleton: Andorra. La situation.