The Slave Trade, Domestic and Foreign / Why It Exists, and How It May Be Extinguished

by Henry Charles Carey

"If in the midst of the very kindness which made him at home upon the briefest acquaintance, he should perceive an attentive politeness, approaching so near to formality as now and then to embarrass him, he would soon be brought to understand and admire it as the expression of habitual consideration for the feelings of others. He would value it the more when he learned from its universality, that what was elsewhere chiefly a thing of manners and education, was there a genial instinct developed into a social charity."—P. 207.

The "popular element is fully at work," and it requires, says the same author, but a comparison of the present with the past, "to remove all doubts of the present, and to justify the happiest augury." "The lotos of freedom has," he continues—

"Been tasted, and it cannot readily be stricken from their lips. So long as the more important guaranties are not altogether violated—so long as the government substantially, dedicates itself to the public good, by originating and fostering schemes of public usefulness, it may take almost any liberties with forms and non-essentials. Much further it will not be permitted to go, and every day diminishes the facility with which it may go even thus far. Every work of internal improvement, which brings men closer together, enabling them to compare opinions with readiness and concentrate strength for their maintenance; every new interest that is built up; every heavy and permanent investment of capital or industry; every movement that develops and diffuses the public intelligence and energy, is a bulwark more or less formidable against reaction. Nay, every circumstance that makes the public wiser, richer, or better, must shorten the career of arbitrary rule. The compulsion, which was and still is a necessary evil for the preservation of peace, must be withdrawn when peace becomes an instinct as well as a necessity. The existence of a stringent system will no longer be acquiesced in when the people shall have grown less in need of government, and better able to direct it for themselves. Thus, in their season, the very interests which shall be consolidated and made vigorous by forced tranquillity will rise, themselves, into the mastery. The stream of power as it rolls peacefully along, is daily strengthening the banks, which every day, though imperceptibly, encroach on it." —P. 381.

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BELGIUM.

Belgium is a country with four and a half millions of inhabitants, or about one-half more than the State of New York. It is burdened with a heavy debt assumed at the period of its separation from Holland, and it finds itself compelled to maintain an army that is large in proportion to its population, because in the vicinity of neighbours who have at all times shown themselves ready to make it the battle-ground of Europe. In no country of Europe has there been so great a destruction, of property and life, and yet in none has there been so great a tendency toward freedom; and for the reason that in none has there been manifested so little disposition to interfere with the affairs of other nations. It is burdened now with a taxation amounting to about twenty-three millions of dollars, or five dollars and a half per head; and yet, amid all the revolutions and attempts at revolution by which the peace of Europe is disturbed, we hear nothing of the Belgians, whose course is as tranquil as it was before the days of 1848—and this is a consequence of following in the path indicated by Adam Smith.

The policy of Belgium looks more homeward than that of any nation of Europe. She has no colonies, and she seeks none. To a greater extent than almost any other nation, she has sought to enable her farmers to have local places of exchange, giving value to her labour and her land. Where these exist, men are certain to become free; and equally certain is it that where they do not exist, freedom must be a plant of exceedingly slow growth, even where it does not absolutely perish for want of nourishment. If evidence be desired of the freedom of the Belgians, it is to be found in the fact that there is nowhere to be seen, as we are on all hands assured, a more contented, virtuous, and generally comfortable population than that engaged in the cultivation of her fields. The following sketch is from a report published by order of Parliament, and cannot fail to be read with interest by those who desire to understand how it is that the dense population of this little country is enabled to draw from a soil naturally indifferent such large returns, while the Hindoo, with all his advantages of early civilization, wealth, and population, perishes of famine or flies from pestilence, leaving behind him, uncultivated, the richest soils, and sells himself to slavery in Cuba:—

"The farms in Belgium rarely exceed one hundred acres. The number containing fifty acres is not great; those of thirty or twenty are more numerous, but the number of holdings of from five to ten and twenty acres is very considerable.

"The small farms of from five to ten acres, which abound in many parts of Belgium, closely resemble the small holdings in Ireland; but the small Irish cultivator exists in a state of miserable privation of the common comforts and conveniences of civilized life, while the Belgian peasant farmer enjoys a large share of those comforts. The houses of the small cultivators of Belgium are generally substantially built, and in good repair; they have commonly a sleeping room in the attic, and closets for beds connected with the lower apartment, which is convenient in size; a small cellarage for the dairy, and store for the grain, as well as an oven, and an outhouse for the potatoes, with a roomy cattle-stall, piggery, and poultry loft. The house generally contains decent furniture, the bedding sufficient in quantity, and an air of comfort, pervades the establishment. In the cow-house the cattle are supplied with straw for bedding; the dung and moisture are carefully collected in the tank; the ditches had been secured to collect materials for manure; the dry leaves, potato-tops, &c. had been collected in a moist ditch to undergo the process of fermentation, and heaps of compost were in course of preparation. The premises were kept in neat and compact order, and a scrupulous attention to a most rigid economy was everywhere apparent. The family were decently clad; none of them were ragged or slovenly, even when their dress consisted of the coarsest material.

"In the greater part of the flat country of Belgium the soil is light and sandy, and easily worked; but its productive powers are certainly inferior to the general soil of Ireland, and the climate does not appear to be superior. To the soil and climate therefore, the Belgian does not owe his superiority. The difference is to be found in the system, of cultivation, and the forethought of the people. The cultivation of small farms in Belgium differs from the Irish: 1. In the quantity of stall-fed stock which is kept, and by which a supply of manure is regularly secured; 2. In the strict attention paid to the collection of manure, which is skilfully husbanded; 3. By the adoption of rotations of crop. We found no plough, horse, or cart—only a spade, fork, wheelbarrow, and handbarrow. The farmer had no assistance besides that of his family. The whole land is trenched very deep with the spade. The stock consisted of a couple of cows, a calf or two, one or two pigs; sometimes a goat or two, and some poultry. The cows are altogether stall-fed, on straw, turnips, clover, rye, vetches, carrots, potatoes, and a kind of soup made by boiling up the potatoes, peas, beans, bran, cut-hay, &e., which, given warm, is said to be very wholesome, and promotive of the secretion of milk. Near distilleries and breweries grains are given.