EVER since the great poet, Willem Bilderdijk, more than a hundred years ago, finding the intellectual life of his country submerged in Teutonic sentimentality, turned the German doves out of the temple of the Dutch Muses, Holland has followed the intellectual example of France more than that of any other country. The Dutch have a passion for individualism which carries them in a direction exactly opposite to the moral and artistic tyranny of Prussian Kultur, and gives a totally different coloring to their respect for mental distinction. But the insidious propaganda of Berlin had of late done fresh mischief, and when the war broke out a considerable portion of the Dutch clergy and a small but violently militant university clique of professors showed themselves surprisingly bitter against the Allies, and particularly against France. There was a reflection of this in the ruling class, while the conduct of the Government, although perfectly correct in regard to the Entente Powers, was not considered by the mass of the Dutch people to protect the nation vigilantly enough against the coarse propaganda of Germany.

In Raemaekers’ cartoon we see this propaganda in action. A corpulent journalist, boche of the boches, fitted out with plenty of money and a suit of Dutch peasant clothes provided by Wilhelmstrasse, struts about in Holland, and being now “a genuine Dutchman,” will start a newspaper in the German interest. But the real Dutch see through him and laugh at his pretensions.

The fall of Mr. Trub, the eminent statesman whose sympathies were openly with the Allies, was considered in Germany to be a triumph for Teutonic intrigue in Holland. The success of Mr. Cort van der Linden seemed to confirm this impression. But the corpulent and bearded boche, in whom Raemaekers symbolizes the secret journalistic work of Germany in Holland, acted too insolently and went too far. He awakened the Vaderlandsche Club, or Club of Patriots, which has been formed specifically to guard Dutch interests and to oppose with vigor the advances of Germany. The response with which this association has been greeted in all parts of the country; the discomfiture of the “Toekomst,” the newspaper mainly financed by our stout friend in the baggy breeches; and the sustained prosperity of the “Telegraaf,” the patriotic journal which Germany attempted first to purchase and then to suppress, show that Holland can distinguish a travestied Prussian from “a genuine Dutchman.”

EDMUND GOSSE.