Much of the uneasiness of the government upon this head, arises, at
the present moment, from the necessity of promoting vigorously the
spinning by machinery, and, at the same time, the difficulty of finding
employment for the thousands who now maintain themselves by the old
system of spinning by hand, and whom the successful introduction of
the new process will deprive of their ordinary means of subsistence.
Although this is one of those complaints to which we have long been
familiarized in England, and which the people of this country have, at
length, come to perceive is not amongst--
“Those ills that kings or laws can cause or cure,”
the alarm and perplexity of the Belgians, and their earnest
expostulation on finding their employment suddenly withdrawn,
have caused no little embarrassment to their own government;
and a formidable party, both in the country and in the House of
Representatives, have been gravely consulting as to the best means of
securing a continuance of their “ancient industry” to the hand-spinners
at home, by restricting the export of flax to be spun by machinery
abroad!
The practicability of this, and the propriety of imposing a duty upon
all flax shipped for England, was understood to be the subject of
inquiry by the commission despatched by the Chambers to England, which
consisted of Count d’Hane, a member of the upper house, M. Couls, the
representative for the great linen district of St. Nicolas, and M.
Briavionne, a successful writer upon Belgian commerce, and one or two
other gentlemen connected with the linen trade.
The application of machinery to the manufacture of linen yarn,
though comparatively recent in its introduction into Belgium, has,
nevertheless, made a surprising progress, and bids fair, if unimpeded,
to maintain a creditable rivalry with Great Britain. The offer by
Napoleon, in 1810, of a reward of a million of francs for the discovery
of a process by which linen could be spun into yarn with the same
perfection as cotton, naturally gave a stimulus to all the artisans
of the empire, and almost simultaneously with its promulgation, a
manufacturer of Belgium, called Bawens, announced his application of
the principle of spinning through water, which is now in universal
use. The old system of dry spinning, however, still obtained and
was persevered in till superseded, at a very recent period, by the
invention of Bawens, improved by all the subsequent discoveries in
England and France.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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