| 1833 | the revenue was | £3,441,519 | and | |
| the expenditure | 3,765,993 | excess | £324,474 | |
| 1834 | the revenue was | 3,371,182 | and | |
| the expenditure | 3,554,960 | excess | 183,778 | |
| 1835 | the revenue was | 3,695,225 | excess | 112,852 |
| the expenditure | 3,582,373 | |||
| 1836 | the revenue was | 3,382,286 | and | |
| the expenditure | 3,469,031 | excess | 86,746 | |
| 1837 | the revenue was | 3,436,468 | and | |
| the expenditure | 3,817,621 | excess | 381,153 | |
| 1838 | the revenue was | 3,784,253 | and | |
| the expenditure | 3,885,232 | excess | 100,979 | |
| 1839 | the revenue was | 4,163,821 | and | |
| the expenditure | 4,476,613 | excess | 312,792 |
The interest upon the national debt of the independent state exceeds at the present moment £800,000 a year. Besides, during the Dutch regime, it appeared that in Belgium, as in Ireland, the malcontents bore the most trifling proportion of the national burthens, the revenue of the three years preceding the revolt being paid in the proportion of sixteen florins per head for every inhabitant of Holland, and only ten for those of the Netherlands.
Another grievance, no less Irish than Belgian, was that the number of representatives was not regulated exclusively in proportion to the population of the two states, totally irrespective of the relative territory and possessions of each—and although the representation was exactly divided, one half of the States General being Dutch and one half Belgian, a division warranted by the large territorial interests of the former; the patriots and their disturbers complained “Si l’on nous avait attribué une représentation en rapport avec la population, NOUS AURIONS DOMINÉ LE NORD.”[33] The frankness of this avowal has not yet been imitated by the Repealers of Ireland; but its aspiration is not the less manifest in the similarity of their pretensions; and the frequent references of the Irish agitator in the House of Commons to the relative population and comparative electoral constituencies of the counties of England and Ireland, irrespective of their relative wealth and property, parrotted as they have recently been by members of her Majesty’s government, may no doubt be construed into an ill-concealed adoption of the sentiments of the repealers of Belgium.
These, and a few other minor points, were the burthen of all the civil grievances against which the oppressed patriots of Belgium had to protest; and it is not difficult to perceive that it required but a little complaisance on the part of the Dutch government to redress them, although it is too late to regret that that redress was not timely applied. It is impossible, however, for any sober minded citizen to discern in the entire mass of these complaints, even in all their aggravation, any adequate ground for a resort to the last remedy of oppression—war, and revolution; and in vain would the restless promoters of the revolt have laboured to inflame the populace by rhapsodies on the glory of independence, or diatribes against the pronunciation of Dutch,—in vain would they have attempted to sting them into madness by calculations of finance, or lamentations over the exclusion of some provincial orator, from a seat in the legislature or a portfolio in some public bureau,—all these whips and stimulants would have been powerless and unfelt, had not religion been introduced in association with each, and the ascendancy of the Roman Catholic church been made the alpha and the omega—the beginning and the end—the burthen of every complaint, and the object of every exhortation.
The avowed cause of the dissatisfaction of the clergy, was that the King was a protestant, and that protection and full toleration was extended to all sects and religious communities. The genius and pretensions of the Roman Catholic church seems, down to the present hour, to have undergone less modification in Belgium than in any other country of Europe, with the single exception, perhaps, of Rome itself. It was to preserve it in all its integrity that Philip II. and the Duke of Alva for thirty years exhausted the blood and treasure of Spain in its defence, and down to the present hour, its clergy exhibit a practical gratitude for their devotion, by the uncompromising assertion of every attribute for which they contended. Belgium is, at this moment, the most thoroughly catholic country in Europe, and the recent exploits of the Archbishop of Cologne attest the power of its example and its influence even over the adjoining states.
Under the dominion of Austria, the authority of the church had been recognized by the crown, in all its plenitude and power, and the subsequent union of Belgium to France in 1795, was eagerly resisted by the clergy, who naturally saw in it the subversion of their power before that of the Goddess of Reason. But even the influence of twenty years of intimate association with France, proved incapable to diminish the ardent subjection of the Belgians to their priesthood, or temper the ambition of their prelates and their clergy; and when, at length, the clasps which held together the empire of Napoleon, flew asunder in 1814, the utmost desire of the priesthood was to have Belgium again restored to her ancient masters, and re-constructed as a province of Austria, in which event, they calculated that the elevation of the church would follow, as of course. This, however, European policy forbade; and when, in 1814, the prelates of Flanders found themselves abandoned by their chosen sovereign, who accepted, in exchange, the more attractive provinces of Italy, and handed them over to one of the most Protestant monarchs in Europe, their consternation was unbounded, and in the extravagance of their disappointment, they had the madness to address a memorial to the Congress of Vienna, which is well worthy of being preserved as an authentic manifesto of the pretensions of the Roman Catholic church in modern times.[34]
It bears date in October, 1814, and is signed by the vicars-general of the Prince de Broglie, who was then Bishop of Ghent. It sets out by an exposition of a principle learned, they say, from experience, that it is indispensable for a catholic country passing under the government of a protestant sovereign, to stipulate for the free exercise of its own worship, and for placing all its ancient rights and privileges beyond the reach of any interference of the state (“hors de toute atteinte de la part du Souverain”). The religion of Luther, the vicars-general proceeded to remind the Congress, is merely tolerated in Germany beside that of Rome, although it is very absurd to approve of two doctrines that contradict each other; but in Belgium, the latter has been distinctly recognized from immemorial time, and they, therefore, feel it is incumbent on them early to demand a formal guarantee for its exclusive exercise, “l’exercice exclusif,” which had been secured to them, at former times, by the most solemn treaties. They warn the Prince of Orange, that he will find it his future interest, as well as that of Europe in general, whose object it must be to have Belgium peaceful and contented, to enter into an inaugural compact with the church, regarding the maintenance of all its ancient authority, and candidly intimate that the result shall never be satisfactory, if their own demands are not complied with in the following particulars:—First, the exclusive establishment of the Roman Catholic religion, with this exception, that the royal family and the court may have a place of protestant worship in their palaces or chateaus, but that on no pretence whatever, is a protestant church to be erected elsewhere. The words of this postulate are as distinct as their import is remarkable in the nineteenth century:—“Avec cette exception, que le Prince Souverain et son auguste famille seront libres de professer leur religion, et d’en exercer le culte dans leurs palais, chateaux, et maisons royales, ou les seigneurs de sa cour auront des chapelles et des ministres de leur religion, sans qu’il soit permis d’ériger des temples hors de l’enceinte de ces palais, sous quelque pretexte que ce soit.” Secondly, that the church was to have absolute dominion in all matters concerning its own affairs. Thirdly, that the Council of State was to be composed exclusively of Roman Catholics, including two bishops of the establishment. Fourthly and fifthly, that a nuncio should be received from the Roman See, to treat with the council, and a new concordat obtained with the Pope. Sixthly, that it was indispensably essential, in order to provide a perpetual maintenance for the clergy beyond all control of the state, that tithes should be re-established throughout Belgium; the protestants, of course, contributing to the maintenance of the church from which they dissented! Seventhly, the re-establishment of the university of Louvain; and lastly, the restoration of the monks and religious orders which had been suppressed by the Emperor Joseph II, and “as one of the most excellent means, and, perhaps, the only one, at the present day, to secure to youth the blessings of an education combining, at once, the principles of genuine religion and the acquirements of human learning, the re-establishment of the Jesuits throughout Belgium.[35]”
Whether this extraordinary document was really framed with a view to influence the deliberations of the Congress, or written with a full anticipation of their ultimate conclusion, and designed only as a defiance and a bold forewarning of the consequence, it had but little weight at Vienna, and the provinces were consigned, without the required stipulations, to the King of Holland.
The constitution of the new state was based upon principles of the most unrestricted toleration and protection for all denominations of religion. But toleration and freedom of opinion are the very essence of the reformation, and the Roman Catholic clergy had the discernment to perceive that no more effectual system could have been established for the silent but ultimate subversion of their church, than by reducing it to an equality with every other, thus lending the authority of the state in ascribing to many the possession of that saving faith, which it is fatal to the very spirit of catholicism to have attributed to any but one—and that one, herself. Equal rights and protection were to her more pernicious than proscription and persecution, and no other course was left to her than that precisely which she adopted to protest against toleration in the first instance, and to revolt against it in the end.
By an arrangement of the new government, no public functionary or officer connected with any department of the state, was to enter upon his functions before having taken an oath to maintain all the principles and observe all the enactments of the Constitution. But as amongst these were comprised the fundamental law of “toleration,” another manifesto was instantly issued by the prelates, prohibiting all Roman Catholics from subscribing to the obnoxious oath, as subversive of all the principles of the church of Rome, and ruinous to her attributes and claims!