Van Karnebeek’s break with tradition

Abstract

In no other period after the separation from Belgium have the States General and public opinion in the Netherlands been so intensely concerned with foreign policy as in the years 1925–1927. Under consideration was a treaty with Belgium which newly ordered sovereign rights in the Scheldt estuary and foresaw the construction of a canal joining Antwerp with the Rhine. After rejection of his conduct of policy with regards to the treaty, the minister of foreign affairs, Herman Adriaan van Karnebeek, resigned, the fifth time a man holding that portfolio had done so.1 Never before, however, had the point at issue been a policy so strongly inspired by the minister personally. Despite the vehement reaction of public opinion and extensive debate in both Chambers, discussion of the treaty took place largely outside party policy lines, so that the resignation of the minister had no direct consequences for internal politics. Nor dit rejection of the treaty result in major changes in the international position of the Netherlands. In retrospect, especially after the emotions of the Second World War, the affair of the treaty came to be viewed as the incidental mistake of an otherwise competent — albeit obstinate — Foreign minister.