conquer or force for them a market and consumption proportionate to their means of production. Year after year their exports have been growing less and less since 1830. In 1833, according to a return in the volume of M. Briavionne,[5] they exported _a million_ of kilogrammes of cotton goods; in 1834, _nine_ hundred thousand; in 1835, _seven_; in 1836, _six_; in 1837 upwards of _five_; in 1838 and 1839, upwards of _four_; a reduction of sixty per cent. upon the trade in the short period of six years! In the meantime, as the Belgian spinners are inferior to the English and French in the production of the finer description of goods, the importations of these direct, during the same period, have suffered no material diminution, whilst their introduction by smuggling and contraband, is still carried on to an extent which M. Briavionne states to be beyond calculation. It is a matter to me utterly inexplicable, that under such an aspect of affairs, the number of power looms has been, nevertheless increasing from year to year, and Ghent has, at this moment, 2000 _more_ than it had in 1830. The fact is admitted, and imperfectly accounted for in a memorial presented this year to the legislature from the cotton manufacturers of Belgium, who ascribe the increase to the expectation that the government would speedily redeem its pledge of 1835, and place the trade on such a footing of protection and encouragement as would restore to it that prosperity in which it basked before the revolution of 1830, and in the interim that it was indispensible to make extraordinary efforts in order to keep the trade alive at all.