Commenting, in July, on the disturbances then just quieted in Belgium, the "Spectator," of London, remarked: "The recent explosion of political feeling in Belgium was a much more serious event than was quite understood in this country. It might have involved all Europe, as, indeed, it may even yet. There was revolution in the air, and a revolution in Belgium would gravely affect the military position both of France and Germany, would rouse keen suspicions and apprehensions in this country, and would perturb all the dynasties with fears of coming change. The new electoral bill drove the Liberals and Socialists of the little kingdom into one another's arms—both believing that it would give the Clericals a permanent hold on power—and whenever these two parties are united they control the majority of the Belgian people. That majority is a most dangerous one. It controls all the cities, and it includes hundreds of thousands of men who resent their economic condition with justifiable bitterness, and who are penetrated with a tradition of victories achieved by insurrection. At the same time they have no pacific vent for their discontents, for the suffrage gives double votes to the well-to-do, and secures to both Liberals and laborers on all economic or religious questions a certainty of defeat. With the inhabitants of the cities all rioting and killing the officials, the government would have been compelled to resort to force, and it is by no means clear that force was decidedly on their side. The Belgian army is not a caste widely separated in feeling from the people; it has no instinctive devotion to the Clerical party, and it has no great soldier whom it admires or to whom it is attached. The king is distrusted and disliked both personally and politically; and the dynasty, which has no historic connection with Belgium, has never taken root in the soil as the Bernadottes, for example, have done in Sweden. If the revolutionists had been beaten, they would have appealed to France, where Belgium is regarded as a reversionary estate; while if they had been victorious, they might—in our judgment, they certainly would—have proclaimed a republic. … The danger has, we suppose, for the moment been smoothed away; but it has not been removed, probably can not be removed, while the conditions which produce it continue to exist. The Belgians, who are commonly supposed to be so prosperous and pacific, are divided by differences of race, creed, and social condition more violent than exists in Ireland, where at all events, all alike, with insignificant exceptions, speak one tongue. {51} The French-speaking Belgians despise the Flemish-speaking Belgians, and the Flemish speaking Belgians detest the French-speaking Belgians, with a rancor only concealed by the long habit of living and acting together,—a habit which,