Has Belgium no conscience? She ranks so high to-day in the opinion of the world, that it seems impossible for her to expose herself to the diminution of her moral glory which will inevitably follow when History goes into the vexed question of the King's Inheritance, and its results in my own case. Can she rightly and peacefully enjoy that which has been unjustly obtained, or more or less greedily seized by her? History will find, as I find, certain ineffaceable words in the address to the Sénat by M. de Lantsheere, Minister of State, touching the Royal Gift of 1901, which all that was best in the Belgian soul then found inacceptable. I reproduce these words for the contemplation and consideration of all honest men. M. de Lantsheere spoke as follows in the Belgian Sénat on December 3, 1901, to contest the acceptance by the Chambre des Représentants of the King's Gift, and all that had privately enriched the King: "I intend to remain faithful to a principle which King Leopold I always upheld and from which he never departed, one which I also upheld twenty-six years ago with M. Malou, M. Beernaert, and M. Delcour, Members of the Cabinet of which I had the honour to be a member--which MM. Hubert Dolez, d'Anethan and Notcomb, chief of those preceding me, who, like others after me, have equally upheld. This principle, which it has been reserved for the law to abandon for the first time, can be summed up in few words. _The common law is an indispensable support of the Royal Patrimony._ The present project offends Justice.... Two of the Royal princesses are married. From these marriages children have been born. Therefore families have been founded. These children have married in their turn, and have founded new families. These families may very reasonably have expected that nothing detrimental could happen to the hereditary rights which the Code declares unalienable from the descendants.... If, owing to some aberration of which you will give the first example ... you do not respect the laws by which families are founded, ... _one universal voice will be heard in Belgium which will curse the dominions which have enriched the nation at the expense of the King's children_....