The condition of this wonderful economic development was the opening of the Scheldt. For nearly two centuries and a half the country had been cut off from the outside world and obliged to live on her own resources. We have seen how, during the fifteen years of union with Holland, the trade of Antwerp had made considerable progress, and how, in spite of Dutch resistance, the freedom of international rivers proclaimed by the Vienna Congress was applied to the Lower Scheldt. The 1839 settlement placed the river, below Antwerp, under the joint control of a Belgo-Dutch commission. The only obstacle still in the way was a toll of one florin and a half which King William had persisted in levying on all ships going and coming from the port. In 1863, after laborious negotiations undertaken by Baron Lambermont, Belgium was able to buy off these tolls from Holland for the sum of 36,000,000 francs. The stream was at last definitely free, at least in time of peace. Placed under normal conditions, with the help of numerous waterways spreading over the interior of an exceptionally rich country, Antwerp was bound to reconquer rapidly the situation it had occupied under Charles V. In 1840 about 1,500 ships, with a tonnage of 24,000, entered the port. In 1898 the annual tonnage had reached 6,500,000, and in 1913 over 25,000,000. Though such figures were undreamt of in the sixteenth century, the nature of the Antwerp trade remained very similar. The Antwerp merchants were really brokers or warehousers, and most of the merchandise brought to the port from all parts of the world was re-exported to other countries. So that in trade, as in industry and agriculture, the permanence of certain characteristics, determined by the land and the race, are preserved to this day. The absence of a national merchant fleet, which was equally apparent in the sixteenth century, did not affect imports and exports, which increased respectively from 98,000,000 francs and 104,500,000 francs in 1831 to 6,550,000,000 francs and 5,695,000,000 francs in 1910. The Government undertook various great public works in order to allow the country to benefit fully from this extraordinary activity. In 1906 a law was passed voting large credits for the extension of Antwerp's maritime installations. When these works are completed they will give to the port 60 kilometres of quays instead of 21. In 1881 the enlargement of the Terneuzen canal permitted large ships to reach Ghent; the new port of Bruges and the Zeebrugge canal were inaugurated in 1907, and an important scheme, whose result will be to connect Brussels with the sea, begun in 1900, is still in progress.