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" 'But who should know if you do not? Are you not my Minister of -------?'
" 'It turned out,'said the Minister in telling of the incident, 'that her Majesty knew what I had overlooked and did not know. But she gave me no indication of her knowledge until she compelled me to find out and report to her next day.'
"You must have your question well in hand when you go into conference with the Queen," said another of her Ministers, ' and every detail must be at your fingers' ends. She never attaches her signature to a document until she has read every word in it and knows every point involved.'
"One of Her Majesty's colonial representatives reported to the Queen on conditions in the Dutch East Indies. The Queen listened intently, as is her invariable custom. When the report was ended: ' Very interesting," was her immediate comment. ' But your observations and conclusions differ rather materially from those of Jonkheer" three years ago. How do you account for the difference ?'
"The Colonial representative was not conversant with this report. . . . The Queen, with startling accuracy, repeated the substance of the report. . . . ' I found every conclusion," said the representative, ' exactly as Her Majesty had recalled it.'
"Such," says Mr. Bok, " is the woman under whose rule her people have progressed and prospered for the last 25 years; always in the background; adverse to her personality being brought forward; content that public attention should center upon her Ministers and the legislative bodies; but nevertheless a potent figure and active participant in every important matter that concerns the welfare of the people of her land back of the dikes, and in her faraway colonies"
* HOLLAND UNDER QUEEN WILHELMINA— A. J. Barnouw—Scribner ($3.00).