Before the war, Belgium was the most productive agricultural district of Europe. The secret of her prosperity is generally attributed to the small number of large estates and to the great area cultivated by small owners, 48 per cent. of the cultivated area being covered by farms of 2-1/2 to 7-1/2 acres. It must be added that, during the last twenty years, powerful producers' co-operatives, or "Boerenbonden," have grouped agriculturists and given them important advantages with regard to credit and insurance. The inbred qualities which have rendered this development possible are, however, to be found in the race itself. Again and again, in the course of centuries, the Belgian peasant has come to the fore under every political régime and every system of landholding. He has had to conquer the country from the sea, protect it against its incursions and to repair periodically the havoc caused by war. The memory of physical and social calamities has been handed down the ages, and the present system of small-ownership and co-operative societies is only the result of centuries of incessant toil.
The conservative spirit of the peasants and farmers is illustrated by the opposition made to the project of the Liberal Minister Rogier, in 1833, to build the first railway in Belgium. It was argued that this would be a considerable waste of fertile soil and would frighten the cattle. The first railway line, between Brussels and Malines, was nevertheless inaugurated on May 5, 1835, and since then, such enormous progress has been realized that, before the war, Belgium occupied the first place in Europe with regard to the development of its railway lines. All other means of communication have been similarly developed. In 1913 the country possessed 40,000 kilometres of roads, 4,656 kilometres of railway line, 2,250 kilometres of light railways, and 2,000 kilometres of inland waterways.
THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION
The first consequence of the Revolution was to disorganize Belgian industry, which had lost the Dutch market, the powerful works of Cockerill, at Seraing, being among the few which did not suffer from the change. The introduction of machinery in a country so rich in coal-fields not only restored the situation but enormously increased industrial production in the Southern districts. In 1830 only 400 machines were used, with a total of 12,000 horse-power; in 1902 these figures had risen to 19,000 machines with 720,000 horse-power, without taking into account railway engines (718,000 horse-power).
The distribution of the various industries in the different parts of the country did not vary very much from that existing under previous régimes. Broadly speaking, no new development took place, every centre remaining in the situation determined by coal or the presence of raw material. The principal centre of the textile industry remained at Ghent, near the hemp-fields of the Lys; metal-works, glass-works, etc., were still grouped close to the four main coal-fields in the region of Mons, La Louvière (Centre), Charleroi and Liége; the number of men engaged on industrial production before the war had reached 1,500,000, among whom were 153,000 miners, over 149,000 metal workers, and over 129,000 textile workers.
But it is not so much to the number as to the quality of her workmen that Belgium owes her great industrial prosperity. This may be accounted for by the fact that a great number of industrial workers never lost touch with the land. Belonging, most of them, to agricultural districts, they do not settle permanently around their factories, and between the country and the great centres there is a continuous exchange of population. The hard-working qualities of mechanics and artisans are inherited from the peasants, and there is a considerable reluctance, on their part, to crowd into big cities, cheap railway fares allowing them to live around the towns where they work during the day.
TRADE OF ANTWERP
The condition of this wonderful economic development was the opening of the Scheldt. For nearly two centuries and a half the country had been cut off from the outside world and obliged to live on her own resources. We have seen how, during the fifteen years of union with Holland, the trade of Antwerp had made considerable progress, and how, in spite of Dutch resistance, the freedom of international rivers proclaimed by the Vienna Congress was applied to the Lower Scheldt. The 1839 settlement placed the river, below Antwerp, under the joint control of a Belgo-Dutch commission. The only obstacle still in the way was a toll of one florin and a half which King William had persisted in levying on all ships going and coming from the port. In 1863, after laborious negotiations undertaken by Baron Lambermont, Belgium was able to buy off these tolls from Holland for the sum of 36,000,000 francs. The stream was at last definitely free, at least in time of peace. Placed under normal conditions, with the help of numerous waterways spreading over the interior of an exceptionally rich country, Antwerp was bound to reconquer rapidly the situation it had occupied under Charles V. In 1840 about 1,500 ships, with a tonnage of 24,000, entered the port. In 1898 the annual tonnage had reached 6,500,000, and in 1913 over 25,000,000. Though such figures were undreamt of in the sixteenth century, the nature of the Antwerp trade remained very similar. The Antwerp merchants were really brokers or warehousers, and most of the merchandise brought to the port from all parts of the world was re-exported to other countries. So that in trade, as in industry and agriculture, the permanence of certain characteristics, determined by the land and the race, are preserved to this day. The absence of a national merchant fleet, which was equally apparent in the sixteenth century, did not affect imports and exports, which increased respectively from 98,000,000 francs and 104,500,000 francs in 1831 to 6,550,000,000 francs and 5,695,000,000 francs in 1910. The Government undertook various great public works in order to allow the country to benefit fully from this extraordinary activity. In 1906 a law was passed voting large credits for the extension of Antwerp's maritime installations. When these works are completed they will give to the port 60 kilometres of quays instead of 21. In 1881 the enlargement of the Terneuzen canal permitted large ships to reach Ghent; the new port of Bruges and the Zeebrugge canal were inaugurated in 1907, and an important scheme, whose result will be to connect Brussels with the sea, begun in 1900, is still in progress.
Economic renaissance was accompanied by a corresponding increase in the population. From 4,000,000 in 1831 it rose to 5,000,000 in 1870, and to 7,500,000 in 1911. With a density of 652 persons per square mile, Belgium became the most thickly populated country in the world and only consumed a fourteenth part of her industrial production. The necessity of finding new markets abroad and of discovering some substitute for the loss of the Dutch colonies, which had proved so helpful during the period of union with Holland, might have been felt by any far-sighted statesman. Leopold I had already devoted some attention to the problem. He encouraged several Belgian settlements in Rio Nuñez, where a regular protectorate was established for a short time, in Guatemala and in various parts of Brazil. None of these enterprises, however, bore fruit, and the problem was still unsolved when Leopold II ascended the throne in 1865.