CHAPTER IV.
GHENT AND COURTRAI.
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 theinmates—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.
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 theinmates—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.
This being the market day for linen, we went early to the Marché de Vendredi where it is held. The winter, however, is the season in which the market is seen to the greatest advantage, as the farmers are not then prevented by their agricultural employments from attending to the weaving, and bringing of it to town for sale in December and January; so many as 2000 pieces have been sold in the course of a morning. The appearance of the peasantry was particularly prepossessing, their features handsome, their dress and person neat in the extreme; the women generally wearing longcloaks, made of printed calico, and the men the blouse of blue linen, which has become almost the national costume of Belgium.
The sellers of linen were arranged in long lines, each with his webs before him resting on a low bench, whilst the police were present to preserve order, and see that every individual kept his allotted place. The webs had all previously been examined by a public officer, who affixed his seal to each, not as any mark of its quality or guide to its price, but merely to testify that it was not fraudulently made up—that it was of the same quality throughout as on the outer, fold, and that the quantity was exactly what it professed to be; any fraud attempted, in any particular, exposing the offender to the seizure and forfeiture of the web.[21]
The other articles for sale in the marketwere vegetables and fruit of the ordinary kinds, (with a profusion of Mirabelle plums, the trees of which we saw, repeatedly, planted in hedge-rows), woollen cloth, cutlery, household furniture, and pottery of a very rude description, together with numerous stalls of books. The latter were chiefly religious, but amongst the others were a number of the old popular histories, which seem to be equally favourites in England and Flanders, such as “Reynaert den Vos;”—“de schoone historie van Fortunatus borsen;”—“de schoone historie van den edelen Jan van Parys;”—“de Twee gebroders en vroome riddens Valentyn en Oursen den Wilden men;”—“Recretiven Droomboek.” &c., &c.
After breakfast we went by the railroad to Courtrai, a distance which the train accomplishes in a little more than two hours. My object, in the excursion, was to see the process, which is peculiar to this district, of steeping flax in the running waters of the Lys. This river, which rises in the Pays de Calais, and forms one of the boundaries between France and Belgium, derives itsname, in all probability, from the quantity of water-lilies which flourish in its sluggish current, and which are said to be the origin of the fleur-de-lys in the royal arms of France. The road passes through Denys, Waereghem and Haerlebeke, three towns which are the chief in Communes of the same name, and are all bustling little places, combining with agricultural industry, a considerable trade in linen which is the great staple of the district. At Denys, there are also extensive distilleries of Geneva which enjoys a considerable reputation in Belgium, where the spirit produced by distillation is invariably bad, except in the provinces of Limbourg and Luxembourg, where it approaches somewhat to the character of the Dutch. This remarkable difference between the produce of two countries, so similar in almost all their resources for the manufacture, is, perhaps, to be found in the almost total absence of any duty of excise upon distillation, which it was found essential to reduce to a mere nominal sum since 1830, in order to protect the agricultureof Belgium, and which, consequently, brought the trade into the hands of the very lowest class, both of distillers and consumers.
The entire surface of the country, between Ghent and Courtrai, is one unbroken plain, which, though less rich and luxuriant than the alluvial soils of Holland and of England, exhibits, in all directions, the most astonishing evidence of that superiority in agricultural science for which the Flemings are renowned over Europe. The natural reluctance of their thin and sandy soil has been overcome by dint of the most untiring labour—an attention to manuring, which approaches to the ludicrous in its details, and, above all, by a system of rotation, the most profoundly calculated and the most eminently successful.
The general aspect of a Flemish farm; the absence of hedge-rows, or, where they are to be found, their elaborate training and inter-texture, so as to present merely a narrow vegetating surface of some two or three feet high, and twice as many inches inthickness; the minute division of their fields into squares, all bearing different crops, but performing the same circle of rotation, and the total disappearance of all weeds or plants, other than those sought to be raised; all these show the practical and laborious experience, by which they have reduced their science to its present system, and the indomitable industry by which, almost inch by inch, these vast and arid plains have been converted from blowing sands into blooming gardens. Here draining and irrigation are each seen in their highest perfection, owing to the frequent intersection of canals; whilst the same circumstance, affording the best facilities for the transport of manure, has been one of the most active promoters of farming improvement. Chaptal relates, that having traversed one of the sandy plains of Flanders in company with Napoleon, the Emperor, on his return to Paris, adverted to the circumstance of its gloomy barrenness with an expression of surprise as well as regret, when the practical philosopher suggested,that the construction of a canal across it would, within five years, convert the unproductive waste into luxuriant farms. The experiment was tried, and proved triumphantly successful. The canal was opened, and in less than the time predicted, the results anticipated were more than realized in its effects.
To fix the flying sands of Belgium, the main and permanent expedient has been the application of manures; the preparation and care of this important ingredient has been, in Flanders, reduced to an actual trade, and barges innumerable are in constant transit on the canals, conveying it from its depôts and manufactories in the villages and towns to the rural districts, where it is to be applied. Servants, as a perquisite, are allowed a price for all the materials serviceable for preparing it, which they can collect in the house and farm-yards, and the value of which often amounts to as much as their nominal wages. Pits and a tank, called asmoor-hoop, or smothering heap, are attached to every farm, and tendedwith a systematic care that bespeaks the importance of their contents. Into these, every fermentable fluid is discharged, and mixed with the refuse of vegetables; the rape-cake, which remains after expressing the oil, wood-ashes, soaper’s waste, grains from distilleries, weeds from the drains, and, in short, every other convertible article collected in the establishment; and often, in addition, plants such as broom are sown in the lands, expressly for the purpose of being ploughed in when green to increase their fertility, or to be cut for fermentation in thesmoor-hoop. This latter is constructed with bricks, like a tan-pit, and covered with cement to avoid escape or filtration; and its contents, at the larger establishments, are sold to the farmers at from three to five francs a hogshead, in proportion to the quality.
The circle of rotation is observed with equal precision and scientific skill, and generally consists of four or five crops and a clean fallow, but varies, of course, according to the nature of the soil and the articles indemand. The season was too advanced for us to see the majority of the crops upon the ground, the grain being mostly housed; but those which were still in the field were of the most luxuriant quality. Pasturage, there was comparatively little; but clover, the chef-d’œuvre of Flemish husbandry, whence it was introduced into England, we saw in high perfection. Some plants which are not usual in Great Britain were to be seen in great abundance; large fields of tobacco, hemp, colza or rape-seed, which is largely sown for crushing, buck-wheat orsarrasin, (probably another importation of the Crusaders) from which they make a rich and nutritious bread. Beans and feeding crops, especially carrots, which the sandy lands produce luxuriantly, and turnips, appeared to be favourites especially near the villages.
But the important article, and that which I was most desirous to see, was theflax, which, however, had been almost all pulled before my visit, so that I could only see therouissageor process of watering—which, in the district around Courtrai, is performed in a manner almost peculiar to themselves;indeed, I may say altogether so, so far as success is concerned; for although the same practice prevails in the Department du Nord, in France, in the vicinity of St. Amand and Valenciennes, it is with a much less satisfactory result: and in Russia, where it is practised to some extent, the flax produced is, in every way, of inferior quality. It seems, in fact, to be a question whether, in addition to the slow and deep current of the Lys, and its remarkable freedom from all impurity, it be not possessed of some peculiar chemical qualities, which account for its efficiency for this purpose, whilst identically the same process utterly fails in other streams with no perceptible difference in the quality of their waters.
It is impossible to over estimate the importance to Great Britain of such an immediate improvement in the process of flax cultivation at home, as will place her on an equality with her rivals abroad. At present, it is an incontrovertible and uneasy fact, that with her trade in yarn and linen hourly encreasing, she is in the sameproportion becoming more and more dependant upon foreign countries for the supply of the raw material. The cultivation of flax in England, is, in all probability, diminishing in amount, whilst year after year, our imports from Holland, Belgium and Prussia, are rising in a remarkable manner. Only look to the following facts. The great increase in our manufacture of linen yarn, both in England, Scotland and Ireland has taken place, since the year 1820; we then imported largely from the continent, and spun only for our own weavers at home, we have since then ceased to import yarn spun by machinery altogether, except a very small portion of the very finest for cambrics; and actually export to France, and elsewhere, to the value of £746,000 per annum. Our exports of British and Irish linen have increased in the mean time, from 36,522,333 yards in 1820, to 60,954,697 in 1833, and 77,195,894 yards in 1838, and what has been the case as regards the importation of flax? The import duty upon foreign flax, both dressed and undressed, was at the commencementof this period, £10. 14s.6d.per cwt.; as our manufacture increased, and our home supply fell short, that duty was, in 1825, reduced tofour pence; when the import increased from 376,170 cwt. to 1,018,837 cwt. In the year following, the necessity still becoming more pressing, and no relief arising from home, it was further reduced tothree pence; the year following totwo pence, and in 1828 toone penny. The importation, all this time, has been going on steadily increasing, showing an average on the five years, from 1830 to 1835, of 751,331 cwt., and amounting, by the last printed returns of the House of Commons, for 1838, to 1,626,276 cwt.[22]It is manifest, that a trade so valuable to us as our linen manufacture, can never be said to be safe, so long as we are thus dependant for the very means of its support upon those whose manifest advantage it is to destroy it.
In order to remedy this evil, it seems tome, to require only a vigorous exertion on behalf of our own farmers, and those whose direct interest it is to give them encouragement to lead to such an improvement in our process of cultivation and dressing, as would speedily render our flax of equal quality with that of our rivals in the Low Countries; we may thus safely rely on its augmented value in the market, to ensure its production in sufficient quantity to meet our demands, and relieve us altogether from a dependance upon foreigners. For the landed proprietor and the farmer, not less than the manufacturer, there is a mine of unwrought wealth to be secured in this important article, and my earnestness upon this point arises from the fact that from all I have seen myself, or can possibly learn from others, the field is equally open to England as to the Netherlands—she obtains the seed from the same quarter, her soil and her climate are equally suitable; the plant up to a certain stage, is as healthy and promising with us, as with them, but there the parallel ceases, and inall the subsequent processes, the superior system of the Belgian gives him a golden advantage over us. Still notwithstanding all our disadvantages, Irish flax, for the strong articles, to which alone it is suited, produces a firmer, and in every respect, a better thread than Flemish or Dutch of the same character.
One source of superiority which the farmer of Holland and the Netherlands enjoys, is derived from the fact of hissaving the seedof his own flax. In the first instance, he imports, as we do from Riga, seed which yields a strong and robust plant, during the first year; its produce is then preserved and sown a second time, when it becomes more delicate in its texture, and the seed then obtained, isnever parted withby the farmer, but produces the finest and most valuable plant. As this, however, in time deteriorates, it is necessary to keep up a constant succession by annual importation of northern seed, which in turn become acclimated, refined, and are superseded by the next in rotation. The sagaciousHollander thus obtains for himself a seed for his own peculiar uses, of twice the value of any which he exports; an advantage of which England cannot expect to avail herself, till the process of saving the flax-seed for herself, becomes more generally introduced, instead of annually importing upwards of 3,300,000 bushels, as we do at present.
In Flanders, where the cultivation is so all important, therotationof all other crops, is regulated with ultimate reference to the flax, which comes into the circle only once in seven years, and in some instances, once in nine, whilst, as it approaches the period for saving it, each antecedent crop is put in with a double portion of manure. For itself, the preparation is most studiously and scrupulously minute, the ground is prepared rather like a flower-bed than a field, andspade labouralways preferred to the coarser and less minute operation of the plough, every film of a weed is carefully uprooted, and the earth abundantly supplied, generally with liquid manure, fermented with rapecake. The seed is then sown remarkablythick, so that the plants may not only support one another, but struggling upwards to the light, may throw out few branches, and rise into a taller and more delicate stem. Theweedingis done, whilst the plant is still so tender and elastic as that it may rise again readily after the operation, and it is a remarkable illustration of the studied tenderness with which the cultivation is watched, that the women and children who are employed to weed it, are generally instructed to do so against the wind, in order that the breeze may lift the stems as soon as they have left them, instead of allowing them to grow crooked, by lying too long upon the ground. Again, in order to give it a healthy support during its growth,stakesare driven into the ground at equal distances, from the top of which, cords, or thin rods are extended, dividing the field into minute squares, and thus preventing the plants from being laid down by any but a very severe wind.
The time ofpullingdepends uponwhether the farmer places most value upon the seed or the fibre of the particular field. If the former, he must wait till the plant is thoroughly ripe, its capsules hard, its leaves fallen, and its stem yellow; but in this case, the stalk is woody and the fibre coarse and hard; whereas, if the fineness of the fibre be the first object, it is pulled whilst the stalk is still green and tender, and before the fruit has come to maturity. At Courtrai and its vicinity, the flax when severed from the ground, after being carefully sunned and dried, is stored for twelvemonths before it is submitted to the process of watering. In the Pays de Waes, however, this practice does not obtain, the steeping taking place immediately on its being pulled, and I find the inclination of opinion to be in favour of the latter mode, as the former is said to render the flax harsh and discolored, whilst that immersed at once is soft and silky, and of a delicate and uniform tint.
It is remarkable that although the process ofrouissageor watering is felt to beone of the utmost nicety and importance, the ultimate value of the flax being mainly dependent upon it, no uniform system prevails throughout the various provinces of Belgium. In Hainault and around Namur, where an impression is held that the effluvia of the flax, whilst undergoing therouissage, is injurious to health, it is interdicted by the police, and it is consequently dew-riped, simply by spreading it upon the grass, and turning it from time to time, till the mucilaginous matter, by which the fibre is retained around the stem, is sufficiently decomposed to permit of its being readily separated from the wood. In the Pays de Waes, the flax is steeped in still water as in Ireland, except that in the latter country, a small stream is contrived, if possible, to pass in and out of the pit during the process.[23]The system of the Pays de Waesis that which has met with the most decided approbation in Belgium; it is recommended officially to the farmers in the instructions published by the Société Linière, an association instituted for the purpose of promoting the cultivation of flax, and its various manufactures.[24]Thesystem at Courtrai, consists in immersing the flax, after being dried and stored for twelvemonths, in the running water of the Lys; an operation, which in their hands, is performed with the utmost nicety and precision, and for which it is so renowned that the crops for many miles, even so far as Tournai, are sent to the Lys to undergo therouissage.
The flax, tied up in small bundles, is placed perpendicularly in wooden frames of from twelve to fifteen feet square, and being launched into the river, straw and clean stones are laid upon it till it sinks just so far below the surface of the stream asto leave a current both above and below it, which carries away all impurities, and keeps the fibre clean and sweet during the period of immersion. This continues for seven or eight days, according to the heat of the weather and the temperature of the water, and so soon as the requisite change has taken place in the plant, the frames are hauled on shore, and the flax spread out upon the grass to sun and dry it previously to its being removed to undergo the further processes. Therouissageat Courtrai is usually performed in May, and again in the months of August and September; after which the flax merchants of Brabant and the north send their agents amongst the farmers, who purchase from house to house, and, on a certain day, attend at the chief town of the district to receive the “deliveries,” when the qualities of the crop and the average prices are ascertained and promulgated for the guidance of the trade.
From the flax grounds which lie close by Courtrai, on the right bank of the Lys,we crossed the river to the bleach-green on the opposite side of the river, and if we might judge from the extent of the buildings, which were not larger than a good barn, the process must be a very simple one in Flanders, or the employment very limited at Courtrai. The most important establishments of this kind, however, are at Antwerp, Brussels and Tournai.
The cloth on the grass was principally diaper made on the spot and at Ypres (whence it derives its name,d’Ypres,) but it was coarse, and the designs ordinary and inartificial. The manufacture of the article in which Belgium formerly excelled so much as to supply the imperial household during the reign of Napoleon, was ruined by his fall and the breaking up of the continental system. At one time not less than 3000 workmen were employed in this branch alone, but the separation of Belgium from France in 1815, and the simultaneous imposition of an almost prohibitory duty on her damask has reduced the trade to a mere cypher, not above three hundredworkmen being now employed at Courtrai, the great seat of the manufacture.
Close by the bleach-green, we entered a windmill for grinding bark, and at a short distance from it, another of the same primitive edifices was at full work, crushing rape oil. I never saw such a miniature manufactory—in one little apartment, about ten feet square, the entire process was carried on to the extent of a ton of seed, yielding about thirty-six gallons of oil per day. In one corner, the seed was being ground between a pair of mill-stones; in another, pounded in mortars by heavy beams shod with iron, which were raised and fell by the motion of the wind; the material was then roasted in an iron pan over a charcoal fire, till the oil became disengaged by the heat, and was then crushed by being inclosed in canvas bags enveloped in leather cases, and placed in grooves, into which huge wooden wedges were driven by the force of the machinery; the last drop of oil was thus forced out by a repetition of theprocess, and the residue of the seed which came forth in cakes as flat and as hard as a stone, were laid on one side to be sold for manure and other purposes.
A manufactory ofsabotswas attached to the back mill, and sold for five-pence and six-pence a pair for the largest size, and half that amount for those suited to children. Surely the introduction of these wooden shoes would be a great accession to the comforts of the Irish peasantry, as well as a new branch of employment in their manufacture. An expert Flemish workman can finish a pair within an hour, and with care they will last for three months. Four pair of thick woollen socks to be worn along with them costs eighteen-pence, so that for four shillings, a poor man might be dry and comfortably shod for twelve months. In winter, especially, and in wet weather, or when working in moist ground, they are infinitely to be preferred, and although the shape may be clumsy, (though in this respect, the Flemish are superior to the French), it is, at least, as graceful asthe half-naked foot and clouted shoe of the Irish labourer. I doubt much, however, whether the people, though ever so satisfied of their advantages, would get over theirassociationof “arbitrary power and brass money” with the use of “wooden shoes.”
Courtrai itself is a straggling, cheerless-looking town, and possesses few objects of any interest. Outside the gate is the field on which was fought the Battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302, and a little chapel still marks the spot which was the centre of the action. Its large market for flax and linen has made its name familiar abroad, but it has little within itself to detain a stranger in search of the picturesque. Its only antique buildings are the Town Hall and the church of Notre-Dame, the former contains two richly carved mantel-pieces, evidently of very remote date. The latter was built by Count Baldwin, who was chosen Emperor at Constantinople in the fourth Crusade, and contains, amidst a host of worthless pictures,a Descent from the Cross, by Vandyck. Amongst the curiosities in the sacristy, is a sacerdotal dress of Thomas a’Becket, of most ample dimensions, which the saint left behind him on returning to England after his reconciliation with Henry II. At either extremity of the bridge which crosses the Lys in the centre of the town are two vast circular towers, called theBroellen Torrenwhich were built in the fifteenth century, and still serve as the town prisons. The chief support of the town is still derived from its linen weaving, which unlike the usual practice in Belgium, is done in large factories, at which the workmen attend as in England. The production of linen of all kinds at Courtrai is about 30,000 pieces a year. There is also a considerable manufactory of thread.
We this morning accompanied Count d’Hane to visit the celebrated prison of Ghent, themaison de force, which received the applause of Howard himself, and has beenthe model for most of the improved penitentiaries of Europe. It was erected in 1774, under the auspices of Maria Theresa, whilst the Spanish Netherlands were still attached to the House of Austria, and for its present state of completion and perfected system, it is indebted to the care and munificence of the late King, William I. of Holland. It, at present, incloses upwards of 1,100 prisoners, divided and classified into various wards, and employed in various occupations according to the nature of their crimes and the term of their punishment. Of these, two hundred were condemned to perpetual labour, and one to solitary confinement for life, the remainder for temporary periods.
In Ghent there has not been more thanthreecapital executions since the year 1824, and as Belgium has no colonies to which to transport her secondary offenders, they are condemned to imprisonment in all its forms in proportion to the atrocity of their crimes.
Labour enters into the system in all itsmodifications, and as the rations of food supplied to the prisoners are so calculated as to be barely adequate to sustain life, they are thus compelled, by the produce of their own hands, to contribute to their own support. According to the nature of their offences, the proportion of their earnings which they receive is more or less liberal; they are separated into three classes:—1st. Thecondamnés aux travaux forcés, who receive but three tenths of their own gains; 2nd. thecondamnés à la réclusion, who receive four tenths; and 3rd. thecondamnés correctionellement, who receive one half. The amount of these wages may be seen to be but small, when the sum paid for making seven pair ofsabots, or seven hours’ labour, is but one penny. Of the sum allotted to him, the criminal receives but one half immediately, with which he is allowed to buy bread, coffee, and some other articles at a canteen established within the prison, under strict regulations, and the other moiety is deposited for his benefit in the savings’ bank of the jail, to be paid to him with intereston his enlargement. A prisoner, notwithstanding his small wages, may, after seven years’ confinement, have amassed one hundred and twenty francs exclusive of interest.
The labour of the prison consists, in the first place, of all the domestic work of the establishment, its cleansing, painting and repairs, its cooking, and the manufacture of every article worn by the inmates; and secondly, of yarn spinning, weaving and making shirts for the little navy of Belgium,[25]and drawers for the soldiers, together with other similar articles suited for public sale. Prisoners who have learned no trade, are permitted to make their choice, and are taught one. The cleanliness of every corner is really incredible, and such are its effects upon the health of the inmates, that the deaths, on an average, do not exceed, annually, one in a hundred. After paying all its expenses of every description, the profits of the labour done inthe prison leaves a surplus to the government, annually, to an amount which I do not precisely remember, but which is something considerable.
Amongst the prisoners, one very old man was pointed out to me, named Pierre Joseph Soëte, seventy-nine years of age, sixty-two of which he had spent within the walls of this sad abode. He was condemned, at the age of seventeen, for an atrocious offence; in a fit of jealousy, he had murdered a girl, to whom he was about to have been married, by tying her to a tree and strangling her. He entered the jail when a boy, and had grown to manhood and old age within its melancholy walls; and the tenor of his life, I was told, had been uniformly mild and inoffensive. Five years since, the father of our friend, Count D’Hane, who was then Governor of Ghent, had represented the story to King Leopold, and the unfortunate old man was set at liberty; but in a few weeks, he presented himself at the door of the prison, and begged to be permitted to enter it again, and to diethere as he had lived. I asked him why he had taken this extraordinary resolution, and he told me that the world had nothing to detain him; he had no longer a relative or a living face within it that he knew; he had no home, no means of support, no handicraft by which to earn it, and no strength to beg, what could he do, but return to the only familiar spot he knew, and the only one that had any charms for him! Poor creature! his extraordinary story, and his long life of expiation, rendered it impossible to remember or resent his early crime, and yet I could not look at such a singular being without a shudder.
Another, but a still more melancholy case, was pointed out to me. I asked the physician, Dr. Maresca, if there were any foreigners in the jail, and he told me there were several from Germany and France; and one, an Englishman, who had been confined some years before for an attempt at fraud, and who, between chagrin and disease, was now dying in the hospital. I went to see him, and found him in bedin the last feeble stage of consumption. His story was a very sad one—his name was Clarke, he seemed about thirty-five or thirty-six years of age, and had come over with his wife to seek for work as a machine maker at one of the engine factories in Ghent. He was disappointed—he could get no adequate employment—he saw his young wife and his little children perishing from hunger in a strange land, and, in an evil hour, he forged a document for some trifling sum to procure them bread. He was detected, tried and condemned to five years’ imprisonment in themaison de force. What became of his family he no longer knew; they had, perhaps, returned to England, but he could not tell. The physician told me that his conduct had all along been most excellent, so much so, that thegovernmentreduced the term of his imprisonment from five years to four, and he had now but eighteen months to remain. But he was dying, and of a broken heart through sorrow and mortification. The physician had tried to obtain a further reductionof his term; but it was not thought prudent at the time to accede to his representations, and now it was too late to renew the application. Dr. M. thought he would now be liberated if the application were repeated, but it was more humane, he said, to leave him as he was, as he had every attention he required; the hospital was comfortable, and the rules of the prison had all been relaxed in his favour, so that he had books and every indulgence granted to him, and a few weeks would soon release him from all his sorrows. Poor fellow! I hardly knew whether he seemed gratified or grieved by our visit; but his situation, surrounded by foreigners, to whose very language he was a stranger, far from home and England, and without a friend or relation to watch his dying bed was a very touching one, and it was rendered, perhaps, more so, by the very sympathy and kindness which seemed to be felt for him by all around him.
On the opposite side of the canal, we visited the sugar refinery of M. Neyt. Thisis a trade of much importance to Belgium, and, like almost every other department of her manufactures, at present in a very critical condition. The establishment of M. Neyt, though of great extent, being calculated to work twenty-five tons of sugar in the week, is not greater than some others in Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels. The machinery is all of the newest construction for boilingin vacuo, upon Howard’s principle, with some recent improvements by, I think, M. Devos-Maes; which, though expensive in the first instance, tends materially to diminish the cost by accelerating the completion of the process.
All the sugar we saw in process was from Java and Manilla, and vessels were loading in the canal in front of the works with purified lump for Hamburgh. This branch of Belgian commerce has been retarded by a series of vicissitudes, and seems still destined to perilous competition, not only from Holland, which already disputes the possession of the trade with her, but from the states of the Prussian League inwhich there are eighty-four refineries of sugar already. Holland and Belgium have, for many years, enjoyed a large revenue from this most lucrative process for the supply of Germany and for export to the Mediterranean; a manufacture in which they have been enabled to compete successfully with England, owing to their being at liberty to bring the raw material from any country where it is to be found cheapest, whilst Great Britain has necessarily been restricted to consume only the produce of her own colonies by the protective duty imposed upon all others. Holland has, however, by her recent treaty with Prussia, taken steps to preserve her present advantageous position as regards the supply of Germany, whilst her bounties to her own refiners afford an equal encouragement with that held out by their government to those of Belgium.
The false policy of the system of bounties has, however, operated in Belgium, as it has invariably done elsewhere, to give an unreal air of prosperity to the trade, whilstit opened a door to fraud, the never failing concomitant of such unsound expedients. To such an extent was this the case, that on its recent detection and suppression, a reaction was produced in the manufacture, that for the moment threatened to be fatal. The duty on the importation of raw sugar amounts to 37 francs per 100 kilogrammes, and a drawback was paid down to 1838 on every 55 kilogrammes of refined sugar exported. This proportion was taken as the probable quantity extractible from 100 kilogrammes of the raw article, but the law omitted to statein what stageof refinement, or of what precise quality that quantity should be. The consequence was, that sugar which had undergone but a single process, and still retained a considerable weight of its molasses, was exported, and a drawback was thus paid upon the entire 75 to 80 kilogrammes, which, had the process been completed, would only have been demandable on fifty-five. The encouragement designed to give a stimulus to improvement, thus tended only to give an impulse to fraud, and vastquantities of half refined sugar were sent across the frontiers, and the drawback paid, only to be smuggled back again for a repetition of the same dishonest proceeding. The attention of the government being, however, awakened by a comparison of the relative quantities of raw sugar imported, and of refined exported, on which the drawback was claimed, a change was made in the law in 1838, by which the drawback was restricted to a per centage on nine tenths only of the raw sugar imported, thus securing a positive revenue upon the balance, and at the same time some practical expedients were adopted for the prevention of fraud for the future. These latter were found to be so effectual, that four establishments in Antwerp discontinued the trade altogether immediately on the new law coming into force, and this example was followed by others elsewhere.
There are still between 60 and 70 refineries in Belgium, and in 1837 and 1838, the importations of raw sugar and the exports of refined were as follows:
RAW SUGAR IMPORTED.
REFINED SUGAR EXPORTED.
An amount, which whilst it shows the general importance of the trade, seems to indicate that it is not increasing. The home consumption of Belgium as compared to England, is as 2 kils. per each individual to 8. In France the quantity used per head, is 3 kils. and in the rest of Europe about 2½. But to the Belgians, this export trade is the vital object at the present moment, and any alteration of our law which would permit the import of foreign sugar into England, at a diminished duty, or encourage the growth of beet-root for the manufacture of sugar, would be fatal to the trade of the Netherlands, and to Holland, not less than to Belgium.
In the latter country, the production ofsugar from beet-root, notwithstanding the encouragement given to it by Napoleon, was never very extended nor successful. It disappeared almost entirely in 1814, and was not revived for twenty years, till in 1834, a fresh impulse was given to the Belgians to renew the experiment from witnessing the example of its success in France and some establishments were erected in Brabant and Hainault. But the vast advantages derived by the refiners of foreign sugar from the facility for fraud afforded by the defective state of the law, completely extinguished the attempt. Even now the expense of the process, which renders the cost of the beet-root sugar nearly equal to that extracted from the cane, together with the inferiority for every purpose of the beet-root molasses, holds out but little prospect of its ever becoming a productive department of national manufacture.
On the evening of our arrival, a considerable tumult was excited around the front of theHotel de la Postewhere we staid, which we found arose from the eagernessto obtain admission to the new Theatre, which stands next door to the Hotel, and which was that evening to be opened for the first time. Some soldiers were stationed to keep off the crowd, but as their impatience increased, the orders of the military were but little regarded, till, at length, the struggle came to an open rupture with them, and the officer on guard after going through all the preliminaries of intimidation, expostulation and scolding, at length, fairly lost all temper, and commenced boxing “the leader of the movement!” A ring being made for the combatants, the officer was beaten, and walked off to his quarters, and the pressure of the crowd, being by this time relieved, the spectators hurried into the theatre.
The new building is very magnificent; a new street having been formed to open at a suitable site for it, one side of which it occupies exclusively. The centre of the front, projects in the form of a wide semi-circle, so that carriages drive right under the building to set down their company atthe foot of the grand staircase. Besides the theatre itself, there is a suite of halls for concerts, capable of containing two thousand persons, and the entire is finished internally in the style of Louis XIV, with a prodigality of colours, gilding, and ornamental carving that is quite surprising. It is certainly the most beautiful theatre I have seen, as well as one of the most spacious.
The “spectacle” and the opera are still amongst those necessaries in the economy of life in Belgium, which late dinner hours and fastidious taste have not as yet interfered with. Ghent has long been eminent for its successful cultivation of music. A few years since, thechefs d’orchestrein the four principal theatres in the kingdom were all natives of Ghent, and the names of Verheyen, Ermel and Angelet, all born in the same place, are familiar to every amateur of the science. TheSociété de St. Cecile, a musical association, is the most eminent in the Netherlands, and at a concert at Brussels in 1837, where all themusicians of the chief cities of the kingdom competed for a prize; the first honours, two golden medals were given by acclamation to those of Ghent.
The print works of M. De Smet de Naeyer are situated in theFaubourg de Bruges, and, like almost all in the Netherlands, exhibit no division of labour; the cotton being spun, woven, and printed upon the same premises. In the latter department, their productions are of a very ordinary description, and their designs in a very inferior class of art. The machinery was partly French and partly Belgian, of a cumbrous and antiquated construction, compared with that in use in England; but, as the recent improvements in Great Britain have all been conceived with a view to the speediest and cheapest production to meet a most extensive demand, their introduction into Belgium, where the market is so extremely circumscribed, would only be an augmentation of expense, without any correspondent advantage. The works were idle at the moment of our visit.
This important department of manufacture is reduced to the lowest ebb in Belgium by the effects of the revolution of 1830. Previous to this event, the Belgian calico printer being admitted to the markets of Holland and her colonies, had an outlet for his produce, quite sufficient to afford remunerative employment for all his machinery; but when, by her separation from Holland, Belgium was excluded from the Dutch possessions, both in the East and West Indies, and restricted to the supply of her own population, she suddenly found the number of her consumers reduced from betweenfifteenandsixteen millionsto something less thanfour. In articles which are universally produced by the unaided labourof the hand, a limitation on the gross consumption cannot, as a general rule, effect any very material alteration in the individual price, where fair competition shall have already reduced and adjusted it by a remunerative standard. But when it comes to an active competitionwith machinery, the case is widely different; the outlay for apparatusand the cost of labour being almost the same for the production of one hundred pieces as for ten, it is manifest that the man who has a market for one hundred, can afford to sell each one for a much less sum than he who can only dispose of ten—even without including in the calculation the interest of the capital embarked, which must, of course, be ten times the amount upon the small production that it is upon the large. It is her almost unlimited command of markets, and the vast millions of consumers who must have her produce, in her various colonies and dependencies, that, combined with her matchless machinery, places the manufactures of England almost beyond the reach of rivalry as regards the moderation of their price; and thus gives them, in spite of duties, that, in any other case, would amount to a prohibition, a lucrative introduction into those countries themselves, which are fast acquiring her machinery, but look in vain for her limitless markets.
The merchants of Antwerp and the manufacturers of Ghent, had the good sense,probably purchased by experience, to recognize this incontrovertible principle, and foreseeing, clearly, the ruin of their pursuits in the results of the Repeal of the Union with Holland, they loudly protested against the proceedings of the revolutionists of 1830.[26]But, as “madness ruled the hour,” their protestations were all unheeded—they wereoverborne by numbers; and, as the patriots of Ireland, in rejecting the advantages held out to them by Great Britain in the celebrated “commercial propositions” of 1785, adopted as their watchword “perish commerce, but live the constitution;” so the patriots of Belgium, in their paroxysm of repeal, reproached their less frenzied fellow-countrymen with “allowing the profits on their cottons, or the prices of their iron, to outweigh the independence of their country!” The revolution was accomplished in their defiance, and the ruin of their trade was consummated by the same blow.
With respect to the very branch of manufacture which has led to these observations, the printing of calicoes and woollens, M. Briavionne, an impartial historian, and so far as political inclination is concerned, strongly biassed in favour of the revolution, thus details its immediate effects upon it. After describing the rapid decline of the cotton trade in general, since 1830, he goes on to say, “In the department of printing, the results have not been more satisfactory;many of the leading establishments of Ghent, and of Brussels have been altogether abandoned, or their buildings dismantled and converted to other purposes, and their utensils and machinery sold off by public auction. Ghent, in 1829, possessedfifteenprint-works—in 1839 she had butnine; in Brussels, at the same time, and in Ardennes and Lierre, there wereelevenhouses of the first rank, of thesesixhave since closed their accounts. Other establishments there are, it is true, that have sprung up in the interim, but, in the aggregate, the number is diminished. In prosperous years, the production of Belgium might have amounted, before the revolution, to about 400,000 pieces. Ghent, alone, produced 300,000 in 1829, but its entire production, at present, does not amount to 20,000, nor does that of the largest house in Belgium exceed 45,000 pieces.
Nor is this to be ascribed to any want of ability in the Belgian mechanics; on the the contrary, they are qualified to undertake the most difficult work, but they can onlyemploy themselves, of course, when such are in actual demand. They are, in consequence, limited to the production of the most low priced and ordinary articles; fast colours and cheap cloth are all they aspire to. High priced muslins they rarely attempt, and although they have ventured to print upon mousseline-de-laine, they have been forced almost altogether to abandon it. In fact, the double rivalry of France, on the one hand, and England on the other, keeps them in continual alarm, and renders them fearful of theslightestspeculation or deviation from their ordinary line of production. France, on the contrary, enters their market relying upon the elegance and originality of her patterns; and England notwithstanding her heavy and unimaginative designs, conceived in inferior taste, still maintains her superiority by means of her masterly execution and the lowness of her price. Thus, whilst French muslins sell readily for from two to three francs an ell, England can offer hers for forty-five centimes, or even less, and those of Belgiumvary from sixty centimes to a franc and a quarter per ell; not only so, but for that which she can now with difficulty dispose of for sixty centimes, she had, thirty-five years ago, an ample demand at two francs and a half.
This destruction of her home trade by the competition of foreigners, she has sought in vain to retrieve by her shipments abroad; she has exported to Brazil and to the Levant, to the South Sea and Singapore, and finally, she has turned to Germany and the fairs of Francfort-on-the-Maine—in short, she has tried every opening, and found only loss in all. The only market in which she has contrived to hold a footing is that of Holland, and even this is every day slipping from her, although, before the revolution of 1830, it consumed one half of her entire production.
Belgium has not, like England, manufacturers, who, devoting themselves to the supply of the foreign market alone, and bestowing upon it their undivided study and attention, attain a perfect knowledgeand command of it in its every particular; but here, every printer looks to exportation only as an expedient to get rid of his surplus production, after satisfying the demand of his home consumption. Such a system is pregnant with evils, but it is in vain to attempt its alteration so long as we have England for our rival, with her great experience, her vast command of capital, and her firm possession of the trade.”[27]
The information which I received from M. De Smet, M. Voortman, M. de Hemptine and others, more than confirmed, in its every particular, this deplorable exposé of M. Briavionne. Belgian prints are constantly undersold by from 10 to 15 per cent by English goods, imported legitimately into their market, notwithstanding a duty of a hundred florins upon every hundred kilogrammes, an impost which being assessed by weight, falls heavily on that class of goods which are the great staple of England, and amounts to aboutsix shillingsupon a piece of the value offourteen. Nor is this all—their market is systematically beset by smugglers across the frontiers of France and Holland, who, inundating it with French and English goods, exempt from duty, have reduced the price of Belgian production to an ebb utterly incompatible with any hope of remuneration. This is an evil, however, to which not their peculiar branch alone, but every protected manufacture in the country is equally liable, and for redress of which they have vainly invoked the interference of their legislature—the mischief is of too great magnitude to be grappled with or remedied.
The only relief which their government has attempted, has been by the deplorable expedient of themselves supplying capital to sustain the struggle. A manufactory, however, which they undertook to support, at Ardennes-on-the-Meuse, constructed with machinery upon English models, and conducted by English managers, became an utter failure and was abandoned;and in like manner, an association which they had encouraged to attempt an export trade, after numerous shipments to Portugal, the Mediterranean, the East Indies, South America, and the United States, became utterly insolvent, and involved the government in a loss of 400,000 francs. In the mean time, England and France monopolise the most profitable portions of their trade, the latter supplying them, almost exclusively with the more costly articles of ornament and fancy, and the imports of medium goods from the former having been, in the first six months of the present year, upwards of 17,000 pieces more than in 1839.
This is one illustration, and I regret to say, only one out of many of the ruinous effects of the “Repeal of the Union,” In Ghent, from its peculiar position and the active genius of its population, its results have been felt with more severity than elsewhere, though its influence is discernible, to a greater or less degree, in every quarter of Belgium. Themerchants of Ghent, however, make no secret of their dissatisfaction, and exclaim boldly against the indifference or incompetence of the ministry to adopt measures for their redress. In an especial degree, their dissatisfaction manifests itself against the present minister of the interior, M. Liedtz, who having been a lawyer, is presumed to be imperfectly acquainted with commerce, and is said to be as unjustly partial to agriculture, as he is coldly indifferent to trade. One gentleman complained bitterly that having, some time since, accompanied a deputation to an interview with the minister on the subject of the decline of the cotton trade, M. Liedtz abruptly ended the conference, almost before they had opened their grievances, by exclaiming:—“Come, now we have heard enough about cotton—how are your cows?”
In Ghent, business has always been conducted, not only upon an extended scale, but upon the most solid and steady basis; bank accommodation and discounts are unknown,in fact, in Belgium, and a bill, if drawn at all, is, as a general rule, held over to maturity, and collected by the drawer. This may, in a great degree, account for the trifling balances which suffice to produce a suspension of business. In an annual document, published officially, I presume, I perceive that although the number of failures in Ghent for the year 1839, amounted to twenty, the amount of their united deficiencies did not exceed 198,000 francs.[28]
The sufferings of Ghent seem to be so generally admitted, and so unequivocally ascribed to the operation of the revolution, that no scruple or delicacy is observed by the press or the public in ascribing them to its proper cause. A curious illustration of this, we observed in a volume entitled, “Le Guide Indispensable du Voyageur sur les Chemins de Fer de la Belgique,” sold at all the stations on the government railway, and in the case in which I bought my copy, by persons in the government uniform. In a short notice of Ghent, it contains the following passage of plain speaking upon this point. “During the fifteen years of the Dutch connexion, the population, the wealth and the prosperity of Ghent never ceased to increase; manufactures were multiplied, streets enlarged, public buildings erected, and large and beautiful houses constructed; in short, Ghent had become a great commercial city.The revolution of 1830 at once arrested this career of improvement, and Ghent, whose prosperity was the offspring of peace and of her connexion withHolland, now seems to protest, by her silence, against a change which she finds to be fraught to her with ruin.The citadel was only taken when all hope had disappeared of maintaining the supremacy of King William; but,” adds the author, “it is to be hoped that, little by little, the influence of new institutions may rally the hopes of the Gantois, and, at last, reconcile them to the consequences of the Belgian revolution.”[29]And the new institution which is to achieve such a triumph, is to be, of course,the railroadfrom Ostend to Cologne.
Our stay at Ghent had been somewhat longer than our original intention, but we found it a place abounding in attractions, not only from its hereditary associations, but from the enterprising and ingenious character of its inhabitants, and the progress which they have achieved in their multifarious pursuits. Besides, it is always a matter of the deepest interest to observe the success or failure of a great nationalexperiment, such as is now in process in Belgium, where, after an interval of upwards of two centuries, during which they have formed a portion of another empire, its inhabitants are testing the practicability of restoring and supporting their old national independence, notwithstanding all the changes which two hundred years have produced in the policy, the commerce, and the manufacturing power of Europe—changes not less astonishing than those which, almost within the same interval, the discovery of printing has produced in the diffusion of learning, or that of gunpowder in the system of ancient warfare.