THE NETHERLANDS: Juliana, Unemployed

Juliana, Unemployed

Buxom Queen Wilhelmina Helena Pauline Maria last week personally read her Speech-from-the-Throne at the opening of the Netherlands Parliament. Not only Queen Wilhelmina, but indomitable Queen Mother Emma, portly Prince Henry (Wilhelmina’s spouse) and plump Princess Juliana, heiress to the throne, were there, almost 700 Ib. of Royal Dutch.

What every correspondent and most loyal Netherlanders hoped to hear from the lips of Majesty was a name. All last summer Queen & Daughter yachted and toured in Scandinavia. Dutch rotogravures have pictured the curvesome Crown Princess beside one tall and royal Scandinavian sapling after another. Which is to be her Prince Consort, future Man-in-the-House to the Netherlands’ excessively female Royal line?

With a rustle and vibrant clearing of Her Majesty’s throat the Speech-from-the-Throne began. It touched first, continued to touch on unemployment, economic depression. Keynote: “Strenuous efforts and wise policy, with God’s help, must pave the way to better times!”

Demure and still (so far as anyone outside the Court circle knows) unbetrothed,

Crown Princess Juliana ultimately followed her rustling mother out of Parliament. Lusty as ever rose the famed Dutch cheer for Royalty: “Orange Boven! Orange Boven!” (“Orange up! Orange up!”).— To Parliament next day Finance Minister Dr. D. J. de Geer sheepishly reported that for the first time in seven years the Dutch budget is out of balance, shows a small deficit of $3,615,300. This in part the Government proposes to make up by “increasing the liquor excise” and “economizing.” Two days after good Queen Wilhelmina failed to name a fiance, the Swedish press heard that the name is “Sigvard”—i. e. Prince Sigvard Oscar Frederick, Duke of Uppland, second son of Sweden’s Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf by his first wife, the late Princess Margaret Victoria, granddaughter of Queen Victoria. This potent rumor neither the Swedish nor Dutch would officially confirm last week,

—When Her Majesty Wilhelmina Helena Pauline Maria, Queen of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-Nassau, appears at an aquatic function, such as the opening of the giant Ymuiden lock of the North Sea Canal (TIME, May 12), she is greeted by “Houzee! Houzee!” contraction for the Dutch naval cheer “Houdt de Zee!” (“Hold the Sea!”)