LONDON:PRINTED BY SCHULZE & CO., 13, POLAND STREET.
LONDON:PRINTED BY SCHULZE & CO., 13, POLAND STREET.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLELORD STANLEY, M.P.&c. &c.MY DEAR LORD,Mydesire to inscribe this page with your name, is associated with the recollection of the period when you filled one of the highest administrative offices in Ireland; and when your firm and vigorous discharge of it, effectually stifled the designs of those, whose measures, if tolerated, would have drawn down upon that country, consequences similar to those which similar proceedings have, unhappily, entailed upon Belgium. The value and effect of that nervous policy, by which you “boldly muzzled treason” then, is attested by the contrast, which the social condition of Ireland exhibits now, under the nominal government of those who have submitted to abandon it; and whose sacrificesto purchase the loyalty, and secure the permanent attachment of the Irish Repealers, have been rewarded by an intimation of a prospective fraternization with the “hereditary enemies of England,” so soon as their “compact alliance,” with the English administration shall have expired.“History is philosophy teaching by example;” and it is not to be supposed that there are not, even amongst the zealots for the Repeal of the Union in Ireland, some few who will be attentive to its lessons: it is chiefly in this anxious hope, that I have transcribed the present volumes. The more so too, because Belgium is the one bright example, which those who have addressed themselves to unsettle the allegiance of the Irish people, have always ostentatiously paraded for their imitation and encouragement. From this selection they cannot now retreat; and I confidently believe, that the exposition contained in the following pages of the condition of that country, after ten years of separation andindependence, will exhibit Belgium to Ireland, if as an example at all, only as—Exemplar vitiis imitabile.Neither the social nor the material prosperity of Belgium, affords anything encouraging to the hopes of those who can profit by the experience of others; and as, in Ireland, the materials in which the vital experiment must be made are similar, the results to be anticipated must be the same. With Popery, merely as a complexion of Christianity—as a distinctly marked form of religion—a legislator has no further concern, than as regards the question of enlightened toleration. Butpolitical Popery, that character in which the followers of the Church of Rome, are exhibiting themselves in Belgium and in Ireland—“resting their lever on one world,” as Dryden says, “to move another at their will”—enters essentially, and of necessity, into the investigation and study of the statesman. And, in no instance, in modern times, has it so unreservedly exhibited itself, as in the conception,the achievement, and the results, of the Belgian revolution. It remains to be seen, whether the Liberal party in Ireland, whose co-operation encourages and sustains the advocates of the Repeal of the Union, will relish the prospect of such an absolute religious ascendancy of the majority in that country, as that which has succeeded to the most absolute freedom of worship, and the most unlimited liberty of conscience in the Low Countries.On the score of substantial and material prosperity, a similar question must arise. The application of machinery to every branch of production, has effected a revolution in the economy of European manufactures, which is only paralleled by the effects, upon learning, of the discovery of printing. The poorest, and, occasionally, the smallest communities, have been, at various times, the most successful producers of certain commodities, which were the offspring of hand labour, and the fruits of individual dexterity; and the price of which, therefore, was not sensibly affectedby the greater or less amount of their consumption. But when human ingenuity became infused into iron—when the industry and adroitness of a million of hands had been concentrated in the single arm of the Briareus of steam—the movements of the mighty prodigy became necessarily expanded in proportion to its power, and required a correspondingly enlarged field for their display. To produce successfully by machinery, it is indispensible to produce extensively; but Belgium, apparently unconscious of this important truth, proceeded to contract, instead of enlarging, her limits; and her powers of production, thus cribbed and restrained, without the opportunity of exercise, have pined and wasted away and are now on the brink of decay.The two banks, east and west of the Rhine, present at this moment a singular and striking illustration of the opposite effects of the cultivation or neglect of this principle in modern manufacture.To the right, we have the numerous little industrious states and principalities of Western Germany,each ambitious of acquiring manufacturing power, and each possessing it to a certain extent; but each unable, till lately, to succeed or prosper, owing to the narrowness of its individual bounds; till, at last, awakened to a consciousness of their real and actual wants, they, by one simultaneous movement, levelled every intervening barrier, and threw their united territories into the one grand area of the Prussian Commercial League; the success of which has hitherto realized their utmost expectations.On the leftof the Rhine we had, ten years ago, Belgium and Holland enjoying thatunionwhich Germany has but lately attained, and reaping all the advantages which it was possible to derive from it—till, in the “madness of the hour,” the latter undid the very bonds of her prosperity, reversed the process by which Germany is rising to prosperity, and, resorting to repeal and separation, she has lost, as a matter of course, every advantage which she had drawn from union and co-operation. A similar proceeding cannot fail to inflictsimilar calamities upon Ireland; and the same destruction of her manufactures which has followed the exclusion of Belgium from the markets and the colonies of Holland, would inevitably overtake the manufacturers of Ireland, if placed upon the footing of a stranger and a rival in the ports and colonies of Great Britain.It is with an ardent hope that the question of the Repeal of the Union in Ireland may be tested by arguments such as these, by those who will pause to weigh it at all, that I have ventured to bring before its advocates the real condition of that country which their own leader has selected for their example and their model. And conscious of the deep interest which your Lordship has ever taken in the condition of Ireland, and your intimate acquaintance with her wants and her resources, I am anxious to recommend my exertions to notice by the prestige of your name.At the same time, as I have never submitted to you in conversation or otherwise the contents of these volumes, it is possiblethat you may dissent from opinions which I have ventured to express. But my object has been merely to collect facts as to the influence of the recent revolution, and I neither discuss the policy of the settlement of Holland as concluded at the Congress of Vienna, nor question the prudence of those governments in Europe, which, after the events of 1830, found it necessary to put an end to hostilities by concurring in the independence of Belgium.I remain,My dear Lord,Most truly yours,J. EMERSON TENNENT.17, Lower Belgrave Street, Belgrave Square, London, February, 22, 1841.ANNONCE.Thedetails regarding the commerce and manufactures of Belgium, which will be found in the following pages, are the result of personal enquiry, corrected by the annual statistical returns, published by the Belgian Government, and confirmed by the labours of M. Briavionne in a recent work, to which I have frequently referred—“De L’Industrie en Belgique.” It may, also, give them some additional weight, to add, that the opinions expressed, arose out of visits made to the principal manufacturing districts, accompanied by two gentlemen of extensive practical acquaintance with the manufacturers of Great Britain; Mr. Thomsonof Primrose, near Clitheroe, and Mr. J. Mulholland, of Belfast, a member of a family, the extent of whose machinery and productions in the staple commodity of Ireland—the linen trade—is, I believe, the greatest in the kingdom. And though these volumes, or their contents, have not actually been submitted to their inspection, I believe that I have their perfect concurrence in the sentiments which they embody, upon the subject of the trade and manufactures of Belgium.CONTENTSOF THEFIRST VOLUME.CHAPTER I.Ostend, the Harbour—Canal Docks—Police—Economy of a private carriage for a party on the continent—General aspect of Ostend—Effluvia—Siege in 1604—Fortifications—Promenade—Sands and sea-bathing—Commerce—Bruges, the railroad—Belgium naturally suited to railroads—Old canal travelling to Bruges superseded—Appearance of the city—Its style of ancient houses—The streets—Canals and gardens—Squares—Style of public edifices—Resembles Pisa—Ancient history of Bruges—Its old palaces—Marriages of Charles the Rash and Mary of Burgundy—Singular marriage custom of the middle ages—House in which the Emperor Maximilian was confined—Residences of Edward IV. of England, and of Charles II.—Commercial greatness ofBruges—The Hanseatic League—Her tapestries—The order of the Golden Fleece instituted in her honour—Saying of the Queen of Philip the Fair—Story of the Burghers at the court of John of France—Her present decay—Air of reduced nobility—Costume of the middle classes—Grave demeanour of the citizens—No traces of the Spaniards to be found in the Low Countries—Flemish sculptures in wood—Pictures—No modern paintings in Bruges—Collection in the Church of St. Sauveur—Characteristics of the early Flemish school—The paintings inthe Museum—Statue of Van Eyck—His claim to be the inventor of oil painting—Collection in the Chapel of the Hospital of St. John—Story of Hans Memling—The cabinet of St. Ursula—The folding-doors of the Flemish paintings—The Hospital of St. John—Statue by Michael Angelo—Tombs of Mary of Burgundy and Charles the Rash—The tower of Les Halles—Carillon—Splendid view—ThePalais de Justice—Superb carved mantel-piece—Hotel de Ville—Its statues destroyed by the French revolutionists—Diamond setters—Comparison of Bruges and Tyre—Mr. Murray’s hand-books—The manufacture of lace in Belgium.1CHAPTER II.Bruges a cheap residence—Tables-d’Hôte, their influence upon society—Canal from Bruges to Ghent—Absence of country mansions—Gardens—Appearance ofGhent—M. Grenier and M. de Smet deNaeyer—TheConseil de Prud’hommes, its functions—Copyright of designs in Belgium—The linen trade of Belgium—Its importance—Great value of Belgian flax—Its cultivation—Revenue derived from it—Inferiority of British flax—Anxiety of the government for the trade in linen—Hand-spinners—Spinning by machinery—Société de la Lys—Flower gardens—The Casino—Export of flowers—General aspect of the city—Its early history—Vast wealth expended in buildings in the Belgium cities accounted for—Trading corporations—Turbulence of the people of Bruges and Ghent—Jacques van Artevelde—His death—Philip van Artevelde—Charles V.—Hisbon motsregarding Ghent—Latin distich, characteristic of the Flemish cities—Siege of Ghent, Madame Mondragon—House of the Arteveldes—Hôtel de Ville—The belfry and Roland—TheMarché de Vendredi—The great cannon of Ghent.44CHAPTER III.Manufacture of machinery in Ghent—Great works of the Phœnix—Exertions of the King of Holland to promote this branch of art—His success—Policy of England in permitting the export of tools—Effect of their prohibiting the export of machines upon the continental artists—Present state of the manufactures in Belgium—The Phœnix, its extent, arrangements and productions—The canal of Sas de Gand—The Beguinage—Tristam Shandy—The churches of Ghent—Religious animosity of the Roman Catholics—The cathedral of St. Bavon—Chef-d’œuvre of Van Eyck—Candelabra of Charles I—Carved pulpit—Church of St. Michael—Vandyck’s crucifixion—The brotherhood of St. Ivoy—Church of St. Sauveur—Singular picture in the church of St. Peter—Dinner at M. Grenier’s—Shooting with the bow—Roads in Belgium—Domestic habits of the Flemings—The Flemish language—Count d’Hane—Mansion of the Countess d’Hane de Steenhausen—Gallery of M. Schamps—The Universityof Ghent—State of primary education in Belgium.93CHAPTER IV.The market-day at Ghent—The peasants—The linen-market—The Book-stalls—Courtrai—The Lys—Denys—Distillation in Belgium—Agriculture in Flanders—A Flemish farm—Anecdote of Chaptal and Napoleon—Trade in manure—The Smoor-Hoop—Rotation of crops—Cultivation of Flax—Real importance of the crop in Belgium—Disadvantageous position of Great Britain as regards the growth of flax—State of her importations from abroad and her dependency upon Belgium—In the power of Great Britain to relieve herself effectually—System in Flanders—The seed—Singular fact as to the Dutch seed—Rotation of crops—Spade labour—Extraordinary care and precaution inweeding—Pulling—The Rouissage—In Hainault—In the Pays de Waes—At Courtrai—The process in Holland—The process in the Lys—A Bleach-green—The damask manufacture in Belgium—A manufactory in a windmill—Introduction of the use ofsabotsinto Ireland—Courtrai, the town—Antiquities—The Church of Notre Dame—Relic of Thomas à Becket—The Maison de Force at Ghent—The System of prison discipline—Labour of the inmates—Their earnings—Remarkable story of Pierre Joseph Soëte—Melancholy case of an English prisoner—A sugar refinery—State of the trade in Belgium—Curious frauds committed under the recent law—Beet-root sugar—Failure of the manufacture—A tumult at Ghent—The New Theatre—Cultivation of music at Ghent—Print works of M. Desmet de Naeyer—Effects of the Revolution of 1830 upon the manufactures of Belgium—Opposition of Ghent and Antwerp to a separation from Holland—M. Briavionne’s exposé of the ruin of the trade in calico printing—Smuggling across the frontiers—Present discontents at Ghent—Number of insolvents in 1839—General decline of her manufactures.128CHAPTER V.The railroad—Confusion at Malines—Country between Ghent and Dendermonde—Vilvorde—The Palace of Laeken—First view of Brussels—The Grand Place in the old town—The Hôtel de Ville and Maison Communale—The new town—The churches of Brussels—The carved oak pulpits of the Netherlands—St. Gudulemonuments—Statue of Count F. Merode—Geefs, the sculptor—Notre Dame de la Chapelle—The museum—Palais de l’Industrie—The gallery of paintings—The library—Its history—Remarkable MSS.—Curiosities in the museum of antiquities—Private collections—Rue Montagne de la Cour—The theatre—Historical associations with the Hôtel de Ville—Counts Egmont and Horn—The civil commotions of Philip II—The fountains of Brussels—The Cracheur—The Mannekin, his memoirs—Fountain of Lord Aylesbury—Dubos’ restaurant—The hotels of Brussels—Secret to find the cheapest hotels in travelling.186CHAPTER VI.The Belgian revolution has produced no man of leading genius—The present ministry—M. Rogier—M. Liedtz, the Minister of the Interior—An interview at the Home Office—Project of steam navigation between Belgium and the United States—Freedom of political discussion in Belgium—Character of King Leopold—Public feeling in Brussels—The original union of Holland and Belgium apparently desirable—Commercial obstacles—Obstinacy of the King of Holland—Anecdote of the King of Prussia—The extraordinary care of the King for manufactures—Prosperouscondition of Belgium under Holland—Les Griefs Belges—Singular coincidence between the proceedings ofthe repealers in Ireland and the repealers in Belgium—Ambition for separate nationality—Imposition of the Dutch language unwise—Abolition of trial by jury—Now disliked bythe Belgians themselves—Financial grievances—Inequality of representation—Conduct of the Roman Catholics—Hatred of toleration—Attachment of the clergy to Austria—Remarkable manifesto of the clergy to the Congress of Vienna—Resistance to liberty of conscience, and freedom of the press—Demand for tithes—Resistance of the priests to the toleration of Protestants—The official oath—Protest of the Roman Catholic Bishops against freedom of opinion and education by the State—Perfect impartiality of the Sovereign—Resistance of the priesthood—The Revolution—Union of the Liberals and Roman Catholics—Intolerant ambition of the clergy—Separation of theClerico-liberal party—Present state of parties in the legislature—Unconstitutional ascendancy of the priests—State of public feeling—Universal disaffection—Curious list of candidates for the crown of Belgium in 1831—“La Belgique de Leopold,” its treasonable publications—Future prospects uncertain—Vain attempts to remedy the evils of the revolution—Connexion with the Prussian League refused—Impossibility of an union with Austria or Prussia—Union with France impracticable—Partition of Belgium with the surrounding states—Possible restoration of the House of Nassau in the event of any fresh disturbance.217INDEXTO SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THETRADE AND MANUFACTURES OF BELGIUM.Fisheries, i.9.Lace, manufacture of, i.41.Conseils de Prud’hommes, i.51.The Linen Trade, i.55,68,129.Cultivation of Flax, i.56,137.Linen Yarn Mills, i.63; ii, 193.Export of Flowers, i.72.Manufacture of Machinery, i.93,99; ii. 25, 174.Exportation of Machinery from England, i.94; ii. 185.Distillation, i.131.Flemish Agriculture, i.133.Bleaching, i.150.Crushing of Oil, i.151; ii. 106.Manufacture of Wooden Shoes, i.152.Refining of Sugar, i.161.Beet-root Sugar, i.167.Calico-printing, i.170.Carpet-weaving, ii. 28.Carriage-building, ii. 29.Books, ii. 29.Transit Trade of Belgium, ii. 45.Shipping, ii. 40.Silk Trade, ii. 45.Cotton Trade, ii. 91.Gilt Leather chairs, ii. 109.Railroads, ii. 119.Brewing, ii. 131.Cutlery, ii. 157.Paper, Manufacture of, ii. 163.Coal Mines, ii. 168.Fire-arms and Cannon, ii. 191.Woollen Trade, ii. 199.Joint Stock Companies, ii. 204.General State and Prospects of Belgian Manufacturers, i.81; ii. 210.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLELORD STANLEY, M.P.
&c. &c.
MY DEAR LORD,
Mydesire to inscribe this page with your name, is associated with the recollection of the period when you filled one of the highest administrative offices in Ireland; and when your firm and vigorous discharge of it, effectually stifled the designs of those, whose measures, if tolerated, would have drawn down upon that country, consequences similar to those which similar proceedings have, unhappily, entailed upon Belgium. The value and effect of that nervous policy, by which you “boldly muzzled treason” then, is attested by the contrast, which the social condition of Ireland exhibits now, under the nominal government of those who have submitted to abandon it; and whose sacrificesto purchase the loyalty, and secure the permanent attachment of the Irish Repealers, have been rewarded by an intimation of a prospective fraternization with the “hereditary enemies of England,” so soon as their “compact alliance,” with the English administration shall have expired.
“History is philosophy teaching by example;” and it is not to be supposed that there are not, even amongst the zealots for the Repeal of the Union in Ireland, some few who will be attentive to its lessons: it is chiefly in this anxious hope, that I have transcribed the present volumes. The more so too, because Belgium is the one bright example, which those who have addressed themselves to unsettle the allegiance of the Irish people, have always ostentatiously paraded for their imitation and encouragement. From this selection they cannot now retreat; and I confidently believe, that the exposition contained in the following pages of the condition of that country, after ten years of separation andindependence, will exhibit Belgium to Ireland, if as an example at all, only as—
Exemplar vitiis imitabile.
Exemplar vitiis imitabile.
Neither the social nor the material prosperity of Belgium, affords anything encouraging to the hopes of those who can profit by the experience of others; and as, in Ireland, the materials in which the vital experiment must be made are similar, the results to be anticipated must be the same. With Popery, merely as a complexion of Christianity—as a distinctly marked form of religion—a legislator has no further concern, than as regards the question of enlightened toleration. Butpolitical Popery, that character in which the followers of the Church of Rome, are exhibiting themselves in Belgium and in Ireland—“resting their lever on one world,” as Dryden says, “to move another at their will”—enters essentially, and of necessity, into the investigation and study of the statesman. And, in no instance, in modern times, has it so unreservedly exhibited itself, as in the conception,the achievement, and the results, of the Belgian revolution. It remains to be seen, whether the Liberal party in Ireland, whose co-operation encourages and sustains the advocates of the Repeal of the Union, will relish the prospect of such an absolute religious ascendancy of the majority in that country, as that which has succeeded to the most absolute freedom of worship, and the most unlimited liberty of conscience in the Low Countries.
On the score of substantial and material prosperity, a similar question must arise. The application of machinery to every branch of production, has effected a revolution in the economy of European manufactures, which is only paralleled by the effects, upon learning, of the discovery of printing. The poorest, and, occasionally, the smallest communities, have been, at various times, the most successful producers of certain commodities, which were the offspring of hand labour, and the fruits of individual dexterity; and the price of which, therefore, was not sensibly affectedby the greater or less amount of their consumption. But when human ingenuity became infused into iron—when the industry and adroitness of a million of hands had been concentrated in the single arm of the Briareus of steam—the movements of the mighty prodigy became necessarily expanded in proportion to its power, and required a correspondingly enlarged field for their display. To produce successfully by machinery, it is indispensible to produce extensively; but Belgium, apparently unconscious of this important truth, proceeded to contract, instead of enlarging, her limits; and her powers of production, thus cribbed and restrained, without the opportunity of exercise, have pined and wasted away and are now on the brink of decay.
The two banks, east and west of the Rhine, present at this moment a singular and striking illustration of the opposite effects of the cultivation or neglect of this principle in modern manufacture.To the right, we have the numerous little industrious states and principalities of Western Germany,each ambitious of acquiring manufacturing power, and each possessing it to a certain extent; but each unable, till lately, to succeed or prosper, owing to the narrowness of its individual bounds; till, at last, awakened to a consciousness of their real and actual wants, they, by one simultaneous movement, levelled every intervening barrier, and threw their united territories into the one grand area of the Prussian Commercial League; the success of which has hitherto realized their utmost expectations.
On the leftof the Rhine we had, ten years ago, Belgium and Holland enjoying thatunionwhich Germany has but lately attained, and reaping all the advantages which it was possible to derive from it—till, in the “madness of the hour,” the latter undid the very bonds of her prosperity, reversed the process by which Germany is rising to prosperity, and, resorting to repeal and separation, she has lost, as a matter of course, every advantage which she had drawn from union and co-operation. A similar proceeding cannot fail to inflictsimilar calamities upon Ireland; and the same destruction of her manufactures which has followed the exclusion of Belgium from the markets and the colonies of Holland, would inevitably overtake the manufacturers of Ireland, if placed upon the footing of a stranger and a rival in the ports and colonies of Great Britain.
It is with an ardent hope that the question of the Repeal of the Union in Ireland may be tested by arguments such as these, by those who will pause to weigh it at all, that I have ventured to bring before its advocates the real condition of that country which their own leader has selected for their example and their model. And conscious of the deep interest which your Lordship has ever taken in the condition of Ireland, and your intimate acquaintance with her wants and her resources, I am anxious to recommend my exertions to notice by the prestige of your name.
At the same time, as I have never submitted to you in conversation or otherwise the contents of these volumes, it is possiblethat you may dissent from opinions which I have ventured to express. But my object has been merely to collect facts as to the influence of the recent revolution, and I neither discuss the policy of the settlement of Holland as concluded at the Congress of Vienna, nor question the prudence of those governments in Europe, which, after the events of 1830, found it necessary to put an end to hostilities by concurring in the independence of Belgium.
I remain,My dear Lord,Most truly yours,J. EMERSON TENNENT.
17, Lower Belgrave Street, Belgrave Square, London, February, 22, 1841.
ANNONCE.
Thedetails regarding the commerce and manufactures of Belgium, which will be found in the following pages, are the result of personal enquiry, corrected by the annual statistical returns, published by the Belgian Government, and confirmed by the labours of M. Briavionne in a recent work, to which I have frequently referred—“De L’Industrie en Belgique.” It may, also, give them some additional weight, to add, that the opinions expressed, arose out of visits made to the principal manufacturing districts, accompanied by two gentlemen of extensive practical acquaintance with the manufacturers of Great Britain; Mr. Thomsonof Primrose, near Clitheroe, and Mr. J. Mulholland, of Belfast, a member of a family, the extent of whose machinery and productions in the staple commodity of Ireland—the linen trade—is, I believe, the greatest in the kingdom. And though these volumes, or their contents, have not actually been submitted to their inspection, I believe that I have their perfect concurrence in the sentiments which they embody, upon the subject of the trade and manufactures of Belgium.
CONTENTSOF THEFIRST VOLUME.
INDEX
TO SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THETRADE AND MANUFACTURES OF BELGIUM.