DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.1367#0155
w
RECOLLECTIONS OF
CHAPTER XIV.
BELGIUM.
Returning to the Machine Gallery at the point where we
left it, we find ourselves in the Belgian exhibition. Belgium
has been favoured by nature in more than one way. It
produces the most useful metals, and the coal necessary to
work them ; hemp and flax grow admirably in its plains, and
its vast meadows impart, by their humidity, a dazzling
whiteness to linen. Man's industrious hand has done -the
rest. Belgium was formerly among the first to open easy in-
land communications by means of canals ; among the first
was it also to construct railways, a task rendered easy, we
must own, by the flat nature of the greater part of the soil.
When we add to these elements of success, the active and per-
severing disposition of its inhabitants, we need not wonder at
the importance acquired by Belgium amongst commercial
nations, an importance much more than proportionate to the
size of its territory.
There was a time, it is true, when some of the Belgian
manufacturers, protected by too indulgent a legislation, derived
their chief trade from counterfeiting the wares of other
countries* but one day they woke from this unhealthy torpor
RECOLLECTIONS OF
CHAPTER XIV.
BELGIUM.
Returning to the Machine Gallery at the point where we
left it, we find ourselves in the Belgian exhibition. Belgium
has been favoured by nature in more than one way. It
produces the most useful metals, and the coal necessary to
work them ; hemp and flax grow admirably in its plains, and
its vast meadows impart, by their humidity, a dazzling
whiteness to linen. Man's industrious hand has done -the
rest. Belgium was formerly among the first to open easy in-
land communications by means of canals ; among the first
was it also to construct railways, a task rendered easy, we
must own, by the flat nature of the greater part of the soil.
When we add to these elements of success, the active and per-
severing disposition of its inhabitants, we need not wonder at
the importance acquired by Belgium amongst commercial
nations, an importance much more than proportionate to the
size of its territory.
There was a time, it is true, when some of the Belgian
manufacturers, protected by too indulgent a legislation, derived
their chief trade from counterfeiting the wares of other
countries* but one day they woke from this unhealthy torpor