Belgium, Vol. 1 (of 2)

by Sir James Emerson Tennent

But even here lay the seeds of unforeseen dissentions. Belgium, all whose notions of commercial policy were formed upon the false and narrow basis of France, was perpetually calling for protective duties, bounties and prohibitions, without which her artisans were sinking under the effects of foreign competition; whilst to the Dutch, with their spirit of traffic and fleets of shipping, every restriction upon absolute free trade was a positive interception of gain. This antagonism of interests led to perpetual animosity in the states-general upon all questions of customs and imposts, and to such an extent did Holland give way upon these points, in order to protect the interests of Belgium at the sacrifice of her own, that a well informed author observes that, “even supposing the desire for separation had not arisen in Belgium, the Dutch, ere long, would have been forced to call for this divorce in order to save Amsterdam and Rotterdam from ruin.” It is more likely, however, that the march of manufacturing prosperity in Belgium, and the increased demand and consumption of her produce would have ultimately compensated her commercial colleague for all intermediate loss.[30]

But added to these pecuniary squabbles, there were deeper and less tangible causes of mutual repulsion, differences of language and religion, and local prejudices and antipathies, out of which speedily sprung an infinity of definite “grievances,” which timely and conciliating interference and constitutional reforms might have allayed; but which, there can be no doubt, were obstinately and fatally neglected by the King of Holland, and his irresponsible ministers; and though it is absurd to regard them, even if unredressed, as justifiable grounds for revolution, they led ultimately to the expulsion of the family of Nassau from the Netherlands.

It seems to be admitted upon all hands, that in this the King of Holland was seriously to blame, and that whilst the political causes of complaint were all capable of easy removal or redress, they were overlooked in his anxiety to stimulate and promote the commercial prosperity of the country. From the outset, he aimed at eradicating the French institutions, to which, during the twenty years of their connexion with that country, the Belgians had become strongly attached, and to assimilate them to the model of Holland. His conduct, in this attempt, was strongly contrasted with the prudence of the King of Prussia, who having received his Transrhenan provinces under precisely similar circumstances, had never once attempted to interfere with those habits and local constitutions to which the people had become familiarised. He even ventured to remonstrate with the King of Holland on the impolicy of his course, and to warn him of the discontents it was likely to engender, but received only a pettish reply that, “his Majesty was old enough to act for himself,”—a rebuff which the Prussian monarch is said to have retorted when, at a subsequent period, the King of Holland applied to him for assistance to reconquer Belgium, and he accompanied his refusal with a remark, that he presumed “his Majesty was old enough to fight for himself.”

This unwise neglect of the political grievances of Belgium, cannot be compensated by the King’s exclusive devotion to its manufacturing and substantial interests; and even in this, it is doubtful whether his zeal did not hurry him into an unwise extreme. His great ambition was to render his people “a nation of shopkeepers,” and develop as thoroughly the manufacturing resources of Belgium, as industry and care had matured the agricultural and commercial riches of Holland. There was no labour, no expense, no care, no experiment left unemployed to give life and impulse to their grand object. One engrossing topic was uppermost in his mind; which was not inaptly compared to a “price current,” solely influenced by the rise and fall of produce, or the fluctuations of the funds. The inventions of Watt and Fulton stood higher in his estimation than the achievements of Frederick or Napoleon. He protected the arts, not so much from admiration as policy, and he countenanced literature, not from any devotion to letters, but because it created a demand for articles of commerce. In short, there was nothing classic, inspiring or chivalrous in his bearing, all was material, positive and mathematical. Business was his element, his recreation; and amusement, but a robbery of that time which he thought he ought to devote entirely to his people. He loved to surround himself with practical men, and he gained the good will of all the great commercial and financial aristocracy by the attention he paid to them, individually and collectively. It is incontestible, that if the happiness and welfare of a nation had depended on the laborious exertions and unremitting devotion of the sovereign to commercial affairs, then Belgium ought to have been as contented as it was prosperous, and its sovereign the most popular monarch in Europe.[31]

Under the auspices of such a sovereign, Belgium, during the fifteen years of its connexion with Holland, attained a height of prosperity which no human being presumes to question. Agriculture, recovering from the sad effects of war, and receiving an augmented impulse from the demand created by the commerce of Holland, speedily attained the highest possible point of prosperity—mines were opened, coal, iron and all other, mineral wealth extensively explored; manufactures and machinery were multiplied to an extent beyond belief, and the trade of Antwerp even outstepped that of Holland in exporting the produce of Belgium. Roads, canals and means of communication were constructed with surprising rapidity; sound and practical education was universally diffused, in short, every element of material prosperity became fully developed, and what rendered the progress of the nation the more important, was the fact that it was not intermittent or capricious, but exhibited one steady march in its ascent in each successive year, from the period of the union to the hour of its disruption.[32]

In such a combination of circumstances, one is impatient to discover the specific causes of discontent which could inflame an entire population into all the fury of revolt, and to the expulsion by blood and the sword of a King, under whose sway they acknowledge themselves to be debtors for so many blessings. This is not the place to canvas their merits, but in merely enumerating the principal grievances of which they complain, the “griefs Belges,” as they were specially headed in the newspapers of the time, it is impossible to avoid being struck with the identity between the vast majority of the pretexts for revolt propounded by the “patrioterie” who Repealed the Union in Belgium, and the “patriots” who clamour for “the Repeal of the Union” in Ireland. Nor did this similarity escape the promoters of the revolution in either country. In Ireland, it has been ostentatiously and perseveringly dwelt upon, and even down to the present hour, the example of the Belgians is paraded as an incentive to the ambition of the enemies of British connexion; and in Belgium, even before the revolution, the position of the two countries, as regarded their several legislative connexions with England and Holland, was the subject of repeated comparisons and condolence. The “Belge,” a journal which was active in the encouragement of the movement, thus alludes to the coincidence of their circumstances in 1830. “Belgium has been long the Ireland of Holland, the relation of the dominant power has been in almost every particular, that of “the Sister Island” to England—with the intolerable addition, however, that while Ireland has had the less population by far, Belgium had by far the greater—that Belgium paid much more than her proportion of the taxes, whilst Ireland paid much less—that Ireland often sent her inhabitants to share in the distribution of places, pensions and honours, whilst such a distribution amongst the Belgians was of extremely rare occurrence.”

But the similarity consists not less in the ostensible grounds for revolt, than in the identity of the actual instruments and agents. In Belgium, as in Ireland, they were the uneducated and bigotted mob, inflamed by the half-educated press, and led on by a propaganda of priests and a crowd of unsuccessful and hungry lawyers. In both countries, too, the leaders of the movement, whatever may have been their real and secret sentiments, ostensibly professed to seek merely a redress of grievances, and to start with alarm at the idea of separation; their only desire being a federative union under the same crown, but with a distinct administration. The Belgian, however, soon felt that he wanted a power, which there is but little reason to ascribe to the Irishman of saying “thus far shalt thou go, and no farther,” and the stimulants applied to the versatile vanity of the people, soon rendered them impatient of any proposition short of actual independence. An unfortunate phrase in the treaty of Paris that Belgium was to be to Holland “as an accession of territory,” was construed into a national indignity, notwithstanding the expression of perfect equality and “fusion” which pervaded every other passage of the document, and the cry of “a nation no longer a province” became forthwith the aspiration of every discontented coterie. That distinction they have, at length, attained, and enjoy the barren eminence of a throne, but unfortunately without either the power, the wealth, or the influence as an European state, that are essential to give it dignity and stability.

There are, however, some points of marked distinction between the two cases, inasmuch as whilst the Irish sufferers clamour for assimilation to England, those in Belgium flew to arms against assimilation with Holland; and, besides the Belgian repealer pursued his object of separation notwithstanding the admitted prosperity of his country, whilst the Irish one, less barefaced, tries eagerly to invent a case of distress in order to justify his treason. Above all, there is this happy difference, that whilst in Belgium the repeal has been achieved at the expense of national prosperity, Ireland has still the opportunity to reflect and to be warned by her lamentable example.

The civil grievances of the revolutionists arose out of certain measures of the King, in some of which he was manifestly wrong; his attempts to render Dutch the national language for all public documents in certain provinces—to abolish trial by jury, which had been established by the French—to remove the supreme court of judicature to the Hague—and to introduce the principles of Dutch law into all their pleas and proceedings. The two latter were the usual vexatious manifestations of the spirit of centralization, which a prudent government would never have attempted to force upon the unwilling prejudices of a nation; and the substitution of the Dutch tribunal for the trial by jury would have been a substantial injustice, had the people been unanimous, or even, in a considerable proportion, favourable to it; but in the divisions upon the question in the States General, large bodies of the Belgian representatives were found voting constantly against it; and even now, notwithstanding its re-establishment, it has become more and more unpopular, and even those who supported it in 1830, refuse to sit upon juries themselves, or to uphold the system by their co-operation. The alteration of the language was an unwise attempt to force upon four millions of Belgians the dialect of three millions of Dutch. This has, however, been sought to be defended by stating, that of the entire population of the united kingdom, one fifth alone spoke French, namely in Hainault, the Waloons, South Brabant, and a part of Luxembourg; and the remainder dialects of German, in the proportion of two fifths Dutch, and two fifths Flemish. The imposing Dutch upon the entire was not, therefore, more unjust than would have been a similar imposition of Flemish, and yet, within this very year, the party who reviled the one to the death in 1830, have begun to petition the legislature for the other! They are contented now to abandon French, which they then contended for, and to accept the barbarous patois of Flanders as its substitute, which would be equally unintelligible to the Waloons, and even in those districts of Antwerp which border upon Holland.

Another complaint had reference to the disproportionate distribution of government patronage between the subjects of Holland and Belgium, in which there may have been much truth, and to which the government did not take the most wise nor the most soothing steps to reconcile the minority, by ascribing it to the dearth of talent amongst their countrymen. Like the Irish, the Belgian agitators protested against the taxes of Belgium being made applicable to the discharge of the national debt, of which the largest proportion had been contracted by Holland before the period of the union—but having by the Revolution secured the management of the national revenues in their own hands, an evil of more serious magnitude has been discovered, in the fact, that the expenditure of Belgium in every year since the Revolution, with the single exception of 1835, has exceeded the revenue by some millions of francs. In 1831 and 1832 this was strikingly the case, the expenses of the war and of new establishments leading in the former year to an expenditure of upwards of four millions, and in the latter to eight millions sterling. In