436 BELGIUM. 



inferior quality. The linen manufacture was threatened with extinction some years 

 ao-o, but was saved through the substitution of machinery for hand labour. To 

 Belgium this was a vital question, for that branch of industry employed over 

 350,000 hands, most of them in Flanders. Hand-looms and spinning-wheels have 

 now almost disappeared, being used only for domestic fabrics and for the thread 

 required by the lace-makers.* 



Lace-making has been carried on in Belgium since the fourteenth century. It 

 employs about 150,000 women, and lace of every description and colour is turned 

 out annually to the value of £4,000,000. The price paid for this kind of labour 

 is barely sufficient to defray the cost of living, and no class has physically 

 deteriorated in a more marked manner than the poor girls employed in the produc- 

 tion of these delicate fabrics. 



Straw plaiting, a cottage industry, on the other hand, adds to the wealth of 

 the districts in which it is carried on. The cretaceous soil of the valley of the 

 Jekker, or Jaer, near Maastricht, is credited with bleaching the straw and render- 

 in o- it supple, and the plaiting made there is almost as highly esteemed as that 

 of Italy, t 



The manufacture of sugar and biscuits, the brewing of beer, and the distilling 

 of spirits are carried on for the most part in huge establishments. Some idea of 

 the extension of Belgian manufacturing industries may be obtained by considering 

 the increase in the number and horse-power of steam-engines. In 1800 there were 

 only 27, in 1838 1,044, in 1876 12,638 engines, these latter representing 540,000 

 horse-power, or the manual labour of 13,000,000 men. But whilst the machines 

 are at work, the men, too frequently, are condemned to involuntary idleness. 

 Every commercial crisis results in the impoverishment of thousands of labourers, 

 and their consequent physical deterioration. The great poverty of the people may 

 be judged of by the fact that the estimated rental of half the dwelling-houses 

 throughout the country is under 33s. a year, and 782 out of every 1,000 consist 

 only of a ground- floor. 



Commerce. 



The commerce of Belgium has increased in the same proportions as its manu- 

 facturing industries. The cities of that country have ever been the seats of a 

 flourishing commerce. As early as the days of the Boman Empire the Menapians, 

 living in what is now Belgium and Bhenish Prussia, supplied Italy with linen, 

 geese, and hams. Great, too, was the prosperity of the Flemish cities during 

 the centuries which preceded the religious wars. But even the most prosperous 

 of those bygone ages sink into insignificance when compared with the present 

 times. The trade of no other country in Europe has increased as rapidly as 

 that of Belgium since it acquired its independence. This trade exceeds that 



* In 1873 there were 1.020,000 spindles in Belgiam, iiuluding 800,000 fur cotton. 



t Value of straw plaiting made in the district of the Jaer, £260,000 annually. (E. de Luveleye.) 



