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 only employ 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 the slightest speculation 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 Belgium vary 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 knowledge and 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 about six shillings upon a piece of the value of fourteen. 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. The merchants 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 with Holland, 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 railroad from 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 national experiment, 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.