The document in which this passage occurs is in every respect a very remarkable one;[6] it emanates from the entire body of the trade in Belgium, not from those of Ghent alone, where the revolution is known to be unpopular, but those also of Brussels where it originated, of Courtrai, Renaix and St. Nicholas. It makes a disclosure of the difficulties under which the national commerce is suffering and their causes; and suggests expedients for the remedy in terms as frank as they are forcible. After stating that in England, France, Germany and America, the manufacture of cotton has increased since 1829 from 50 to 75 per cent., they proceed to show that in the same space of time, it has declined in Belgium not only in profits but in actual amount. “In Brussels,” they say, “at the time of the revolution there were _four_ factories of the first class in full action: at present there is but _one_, and even it has ceased to work, and four minor establishments have utterly disappeared within the same space of time; the proprietors of such as have not broken down by bankruptcy, taking advantage of such accidents as the burning of their mills to escape from the trade, or withdrawing with their capital to Holland. In the face of our country, with our hands upon our hearts, we declare solemnly that the cotton trade of Belgium has been sinking continually since the events of 1830; that it is verging to ruin, and that its destruction is to be traced to the neglect of the legislature to adopt an effectual line of commercial policy for its protection.” After disclaiming all implication of the cotton trade in the over speculation and imprudences which had ruined other branches in the years preceding, they go on to say, that “notwithstanding every circumspection and expedient that, as prudent men, they could adopt to make head against the storm, they find themselves silently and fatally undermined by an evil which they have long foreseen, and against which they have been guarding since the revolution with less success than earnestness. _They find themselves overwhelmed and crushed “(dominés et écrasés)” by foreign competition._ Their home market every day wrested from them, and the little space over which they can distribute the produce of their industry, becoming every hour more circumscribed and contracted. Only look to the situation of the trade in Belgium, and it will present to you something remarkable, and at first inexplicable. The Belgian possesses all the skill and ability of his competitors; his position for commerce is advantageous, and in some departments the wages of labour, if not more favourable, are at least equally so with those of other countries; and notwithstanding all, we are utterly unequal to contend with them, and the struggle must inevitably be mortal in the long run: “_la lutte nous deviendra mortelle à la longue_.”