The election of 1897, after first promising a victory to the more conservative groups, ended by giving a small majority to the liberals, the progressive section winning a number of seats, and the socialists increasing their representation in the Chamber.  A liberal-concentration cabinet took the place of the Roell-Van Houten ministry, its leading members being Pierson (finance) and Goeman-Borgesius (interior).  For a right understanding of the parliamentary situation at this time and during the years that follow, a brief account of the groups and sections of groups into which political parties in Holland were divided, must here interrupt the narrative of events.

It has already been told that the deaths of Thorbecke and Groen van Prinsterer led to a breaking up of the old parties and the formation of new groups.  The Education Act of 1878 brought about an alliance of the two parties, who made the question of religious education in the primary schools the first article of their political programme—­the anti-revolutionaries led by the ex-Calvinist pastor Dr Abraham Kuyper and the Catholics by Dr Schaepman, a Catholic priest.  Kuyper and Schaepman were alike able journalists, and used the press with conspicuous success for the propagation of their views, both being advocates of social reform on democratic lines.  The anti-revolutionaries, however, did not, as a body, follow the lead of Kuyper.  An aristocratic section, whose principles were those of Groen van Prinsterer, “orthodox” and “conservative,” under the appellation of “Historical Christians,” were opposed to the democratic ideas of Kuyper, and were by tradition anti-Catholic.  Their leader was Jonkheer Savornin Lohman.  For some years there was a separate Frisian group of “Historical Christians,” but these finally amalgamated with the larger body.  The liberals meanwhile had split up into three groups:  (1) the Old Independent (vrij) Liberals; (2) the Liberal Progressive Union (Unie van vooruitstrevende Liberalen); (3) Liberal-Democrats (vrijzinnig-democratischen Bond).  The socialist party was a development of the Algemeene Nederlandsche Werklieden Verbond founded in 1871.  Ten years later, by the activities of the fiery agitator, Domela Nieuwenhuis, the Social-Democratic Bond was formed; and the socialists became a political party.  The loss of Nieuwenhuis’ seat in 1891 had the effect of making him abandon constitutional methods for a revolutionary and anti-religious crusade.  The result of this was a split in the socialist party and the formation, under the leadership of Troelstra, Van Kol and Van der Goes, of the “Social-Democratic Workmen’s Party,” which aimed at promoting the welfare of the proletariat on socialistic lines, but by parliamentary means.  The followers of Domela Nieuwenhuis, whose openly avowed principles were “the destruction of actual social conditions by all means legal and illegal,” were after 1894 known as “the Socialist Bond.”  This anarchical