One matter affecting Holland did, however, concern the Conference, namely Belgium’s compulsory and guaranteed neutrality, and it was the Belgian contention that this involved also her frontiers. The international status of Belgium rests upon the three treaties of April 19, 1839, one between the Five Great Powers and Belgium, one between these powers and Holland, and one between Holland and Belgium. These documents, in substance identical, fix the boundaries of Belgium at the same time that they establish her as an independent and perpetually neutralized state, “bound to observe the same neutrality toward all other states.” This whole system of neutrality collapsed in 1914, and Belgium wanted no more of it. By the time of the Peace Conference Prussia, Austria, and Russia were certainly in no position to guarantee Belgium’s neutrality, while France and England joined with Belgium in considering a revision of the treaties necessary. Upon the advice of its Commission on Belgian Affairs, the Conference took the position that the treaties, as constituting a single entity, should be revised in the entirety of their clauses, at the joint request of these three powers, and that Holland as a signatory of one of the treaties should take part in the revision, together with the Great Powers whose interests were general. The declared object of the revision was “to free Belgium from that limitation on her sovereignty which was imposed on her by the treaties of 1839, and, in the interest both of Belgium and of general peace, to remove the dangers and disadvantages arising from the said treaties.” Belgium and Holland were accordingly invited to appear before the Conference in order to set forth their views with regard to such a revision. This action was taken by the Council of Ten March 8; but the Conference was busy with more pressing things, and it was not until May 19 and 20 that the representatives of the two countries were at last heard. The Belgians maintained that Belgium had been given weak frontiers in 1839 on the ground that she was to be protected by the Powers; such protection having failed disastrously in 1914, she should be given frontiers which would enable her to hold her own with her neighbors, in war and in peace. The unlimited sovereignty which had been promised her in President Wilson’s seventh point ought to carry with it the frontiers denied her in the days of her weakness. Holland had no objection to the abandonment of Belgium’s neutrality, which had been guaranteed to her as well as to Belgium, but she would not consider for a moment any cession of her own territory. She declared, however, that she was ready to discuss amicably with Belgium any adjustments of the conditions of navigation, etc.