egime. The reformers got very much less
than they demanded. Instead of the ministerial responsibility and the
public control of the finances for which they asked they procured only
an arrangement to the effect that the budget should be submitted to
the States-General every two years and the colonial balance sheet
yearly, together with certain changes of detail, including a
curtailment of the civil list and a reduction of the membership of the
States-General in consequence of the loss of Belgium. Yet these
reforms were well worth while.

[Footnote 720: For that of Belgium see p. 534.]

During the reign of William II. (1840-1849) the demand for
constitutional revision was incessant. The king was profuse in
promises, but vacillating. In 1844, and again in 1845, a specific
programme of revision failed of adoption. By 1848, however, economic
distress and popular discontent had become so pronounced that the
sovereign was forced to act. The overthrow of Louis Philippe at Paris,
too, was not without effect. March 17 the king named a state
commission of five members which was authorized to draft a revision of
the constitution, and the resulting instrument, after being adopted in
an extraordinary session of the States-General, was promulgated
November 3. The revision of 1848 introduced into the Dutch
constitutional system many fundamental changes. Instead of being
appointed by the crown, members of the upper branch of the
States-General were thereafter to be elected by the provincial
estates; and in the choice of members of the lower house, direct
popular elections were substituted for indirect. The ministers of the
king were made responsible to the States-General, and the powers of
the legislative body were otherwise increased through the extension of
its authority over colonial affairs, provision for a regular annual
budget, and, most of all, recognition of the right to initiate and to
amend projects of legislation. Constitutional government in Holland
may be said virtually to have had its beginning in 1848.

*575. The Constitution To-day.*--Through several decades following the
accession of William III., in 1849, the political history of Holland
comprises largely a story of party strife, accentuated by the efforts
of the various political groups--especially the Liberals, the
Conservatives, and the Catholics--to apply in practice the
parliamentary system.[721] The death of Prince Alexander, June 21,
1884,