The information which I received from M. De Smet, M. Voortman, M. de Hemptine and others, more than confirmed, in its every particular, this deplorable exposé of M. Briavionne. Belgian prints are constantly undersold by from 10 to 15 per cent by English goods, imported legitimately into their market, notwithstanding a duty of a hundred florins upon every hundred kilogrammes, an impost which being assessed by weight, falls heavily on that class of goods which are the great staple of England, and amounts to about _six shillings_ upon a piece of the value of _fourteen_. Nor is this all--their market is systematically beset by smugglers across the frontiers of France and Holland, who, inundating it with French and English goods, exempt from duty, have reduced the price of Belgian production to an ebb utterly incompatible with any hope of remuneration. This is an evil, however, to which not their peculiar branch alone, but every protected manufacture in the country is equally liable, and for redress of which they have vainly invoked the interference of their legislature--the mischief is of too great magnitude to be grappled with or remedied. The only relief which their government has attempted, has been by the deplorable expedient of themselves supplying capital to sustain the struggle. A manufactory, however, which they undertook to support, at Ardennes-on-the-Meuse, constructed with machinery upon English models, and conducted by English managers, became an utter failure and was abandoned; and in like manner, an association which they had encouraged to attempt an export trade, after numerous shipments to Portugal, the Mediterranean, the East Indies, South America, and the United States, became utterly insolvent, and involved the government in a loss of 400,000 francs. In the mean time, England and France monopolise the most profitable portions of their trade, the latter supplying them, almost exclusively with the more costly articles of ornament and fancy, and the imports of medium goods from the former having been, in the first six months of the present year, upwards of 17,000 pieces more than in 1839.