Loyal and affectionate birthday greetings were offered on Monday her subjects {0 the Queen of" the Netherlands. With those congratulations the rest of the world will surely desire to associate itself. Her Ma-Jesty's high sense of duty and devotion to the cares of sovereignty for nearly 46 years have won for her: ever-increasing respect and admiration. 'Netherlanders, as staunch holders of democracy and as. inheritors of a great colonial tradition, command in an especial degree the confidence and friendship of their British kinsman. Anxious to preserve their serenity amid' the alarums and excursions of Europe, they have lately taken steps to safeguard their Constitution. A. commission appointed early in the year reported a {ew weeks ago in favour of a partial revision designed to provide for modern emergencies. Significant too has been the Government's introduction of a Dill to prevent the development of political organizations on the basis of private military force, In consonance: With' that principle the Commission has recommended measures to protect the parliamentary system. No cur-ailment of the privileges of free speech by censorship was proposed, but a recommendation was made to farm the executive with power te orarily to ban publications cal-Culated to lead to public disorder, Tt was hardly to be expected that the Netherlands could escape all the con-Sequences of the clash of revolution ary doctrines in the world outside Dut it was equally certain that. the people's sanity would confront those dangers without inching. Queen Wilhelmina's democratic leanings have no doubt proved a source of Inspiration to her Government and the nation in these passing perplex: les." May' she live long and her country flourish with het
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.