58 



BELGIUM. 



I. RECEIPTS. 



1879. 



1. Uirwt taxes 44.413.IHW 44,110.000 



2. Indirect taxes 102,735,500 105,024,500 



8. From means of communication 



(railroads, telegraphs, post, etc.) 108.922,600 110,272,400 

 " i.. 11. i min 10,005,000 



Total expenditures 272,344,317 278,818,548 



The special commerce with foreign countries 

 in 1878 was as follows (values in francs) : 



The transit trade in the same year amounted 

 to 897,347,000 francs. 



The movement of shipping in Belgian ports 

 in 1878 was as follows : 



The length of railways in operation at the 

 close of 1879 was 4*012 kilometres. The 

 length of telegraph-wires was 23,572 kilome- 

 tres, and of lines 5,410 kilometres. The num- 

 her of stations was 708, and the total number 

 of dispatches 3,242,615. The number of post- 

 offices was 638; of letters (ordinary, regis- 

 tered, and insured), 69,026,949 ; of newspapers, 

 69,712,000; of printed matter, 28,041,000; of 

 postal-cards, 16,720,652; and of official corre 

 spondence, 1*0,841,141. 



The Chamber of Deputies, which adjourned 

 December 24, 1880, resumed its sittings on 

 the 25th of January. The conflict between the 

 Church and the Liberals, on the educational 

 question, continued in and out of Parliament. 

 By the gain of a seat by the Clericals, the 

 Liberal majority in the Senate was reduced to 

 four. A parliamentary investigation into thei 

 condition of schools and the character of the' 

 instruction imparted excited the indignation of 

 the Clericals, who appealed to the article of the 

 Constitution which leaves it free to any one to 

 open a school and receive pupils. The purpose 

 of the investigation was to show by the testi- 

 mony of experienced pedagogues and school- 

 inspectors, whose judgment would have weight 

 in the country, that the schools which had 

 been hastily established everywhere by the 

 clergy to compete with the state schools, were 

 taught by incompetent and ignorant persons. 

 The majority in Parliament were moved, by 

 the obstructions cast by the Church party in 

 the way of the new system of education, to 

 take reprisals in the form of a reduction of the 

 budget of Public Worship. 



The Minister of Justice, by request, laid be- 

 fore the Chamber of Deputies a statement of 

 the amount of the stipends paid to the clergy 

 as compared with 1832. There are 4,997 of the 

 lower clergy, whose salaries amount to 4,384,- 

 937 francs, against 2,335,795 for 3,870 stipen- 

 diaries fifty years ago. The lower clergy con- 

 sists of 91 parish priests of the first and 140 of 

 the second class, 2,804 curates, 179 chaplains, 

 1,667 vicars, and seven coadjutors, with ten 

 chaplaincies and ninety-nine vicarships un- 

 filled. The higher clergy and seminaries draw 

 from the state 321,000 francs against 235,232 

 in 1832. 



In the discussion upon the proposed revis- 

 ion of the annual fund for ecclesiastical main- 

 tenance, Minister Bara laid down the principle 

 that the granting of the budget for Public Wor- 

 ship was purely a state act, to be determined 

 from motives of public policy, and that it was 

 based upon no convention between the Church 

 and the state. Jacobs, the Clerical champion, 

 argued on the contrary that the budget was a 

 poor and inadequate indemnity repaid to the 

 Church for the property of which it was robbed 

 in the Kevolution.- The Government refrained 

 from retaliating the hostilities of the clergy by 

 cutting down the salaries of the bishops and 

 the parochial clergy. A motion of the Kadi- 

 cals to do this was voted down by 95 to 26 

 majority. In the budget, which was voted in 

 March, a large aggregate reduction was effected 

 by abolishing chaplaincies, suppressing the pay 

 of supernumerary assistant clergy, and with- 

 holding the annual grants to the ecclesiastical 

 seminaries. The last retrenchment was justi- 

 fied on the ground that these institutions have 

 abundant revenues of their own. Bara an- 

 nounced that the care of souls in the army 

 would devolve upon the parochial clergy. The 

 army he declared to be no more in need of re- 



