The Spell of Belgium Part 8

CHAPTER VIII

BELGIUM'S WORKSHOPS

Belgium was slightly larger than the State of Ma.s.sachusetts, yet she ranked eighth among the nations in wealth, and sixth in commerce.

Antwerp was one of the five great ports of the world, with more dock-room than New York.

Several favouring conditions enabled her to compete so successfully with her big neighbours. Rivers and ca.n.a.ls gave her inland cities easy access to the sea. Much of the raw material for her foundries and factories was to be found within her own boundaries, while fuel for her engines was furnished cheaply by her own mines. Most important, perhaps, labour was abundant, low of cost, and highly skilled. In her people really lay Belgium's greatest strength, for they are hardy and thrifty, and peculiarly skilled as mechanicians.

They used to say that while France furnished mankind with their luxuries, Belgium supplied them with their necessities. But this is not wholly true, for the smaller country is celebrated for its exquisite lace and superb tapestries, while the gardens of Ghent raised orchids, azaleas and camellias for the flower-markets of France, Germany, England and even America.

These were the exports of Belgium, in the order of their importance: coal, iron, steel and zinc; firearms; gla.s.s; cement; ceramics; cotton, wool and flax; furniture and lace.

The centers of the metal, coal and gla.s.s industries were in the Walloon districts, especially in Charleroi and Liege, while the textile centers were, for the most part, in Flanders.

The story of how coal was first discovered in Belgium has been told a thousand times, but rarely, I think, in America. It seems that in a village not far from Liege there lived--some seven hundred years ago--a poor blacksmith named Houllos. One day he found himself quite out of money. He could not work to earn more, because he had no wood to heat his forge. While he sat bewailing his fate a mysterious stranger appeared and asked the cause of his woe. When he had heard the mournful story, "Take a large sack," said he, "and go to the Mountain of the People. There you must dig down three feet into the earth. You will find a black, rocky substance, which you must put into the sack and bring home. Break it up, and burn it in your forge." This is the reason why, in Belgium, coal still bears the name of _huille_, in memory of the blacksmith of Liege. Some think the stranger was an Englishman, since coal was already in use in London. But tradition has insisted that _ange_ and not _Anglais_, is the proper word, and that Houllos entertained an angel.

Near Mons are the great mounds of slag which were begun in the earliest times and look today not unlike the pyramids of Egypt. Whatever the origin of the mining industry in Belgium, there is nothing idyllic about the conditions there in modern times. The coal region of the Borinage is known as Le Pays Noir, and it certainly deserves the name.

The miners are called _Borains_, or coal-borers. "They live both on the earth and in the earth, delving amid the black deposits of vast primeval forests." Owing to their former long hours, which have been somewhat shortened in late years, the present generation is dwarfish, the men often under five feet and the women still less. Most of them cannot read or write, and they have little pleasure save what comes from beer. (More beer was sold per head in Belgium than even in Germany.) Of the hundred and twenty-five thousand miners in the country, three-quarters belonged to Hainault.

There are in all over a hundred coal mines in Belgium, the area of those that were worked amounting to over ninety thousand acres, and of those not worked to forty thousand more. A new coal field has been discovered in the north but has not been exploited as yet. Although the home consumption was steadily increasing, and averaged nearly three tons per capita, large amounts were exported to France and Holland. It was sold at a closer margin than in any other of the mining countries.

Mining was commenced on the out-crops eight or nine hundred years ago, but it was only when steam-engines were invented that the miners were able to reach the deeper parts of the coal measures, and the yield was greatly increased.

Firearms have been manufactured in Liege since midway in the fourteenth century. The first portable arms were the cannon and handgun, both adjusted to very heavy, straight b.u.t.t-ends and very difficult to handle.

They were loaded with stones, lead or iron b.a.l.l.s. The musket and arquebus came later, and had matchlocks, an idea suggested by the trigger of the crossbow.

The first exporters of Liege arms were naildealers, who possessed from immemorial times commercial relations with the most distant countries.

After the invention of the flint-lock in the seventeenth century the gun trade made rapid progress. The number of workmen became enormous. The superiority of Liege arms was recognized all over the world, and the gunworkmen received offers of high salaries to induce them to go to France, England, Germany and Austria. Several of them were engaged to work at the Royal Manufactory of Arms at Potsdam. Much of the best work was done at the worker's own house, and in order to prevent any decline in the individual skill of the men to whom Liege owed so much of its fame, the union of manufacturers of arms created a professional school of gunnery, where they could be specially trained. In this way they hoped to avoid the danger that the facility which machinery gives the workman would cause him to lose interest in his hand-work at home, which requires such varied knowledge and ability.

Cotton spinning was one of the most important textile industries. Over a million spindles were employed, most of them in the two provinces of Hainault and Brabant, and in the city of Ghent. Most of the cotton came from America and Egypt.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _An Old Lacemaker_]

Verviers, in Liege, was the center of the wool-spinning industry. Here again the superior skill of the artisans established the reputation of the Belgian article. Most of the wool came from Australia and the Cape.

For its flax spindles, however, Belgium raised its own material. The flax of Courtrai was considered the best in all Europe. More than half the finished thread was exported to England. The abundance of this material doubtless led to the early development of lace-making, for which the women of the country became so famous.

Flanders claims to be the birthplace of pillow-lace--_dentelles aux fuseaux_--and disputes with Italy the invention of lace generally. In earlier times drawn or cut work was often confused with lace, as was embroidery of one sort or another, and for this reason it is difficult to trace the art definitely back to its beginning. Ornamental needlework was done in Old Testament days, for Isaiah mentions those who "work in fine flax and weave networks." But real lace-making--the interweaving of fine threads of flax, cotton, silk, of silver, gold or hair, to form a network--did not appear till the time of the Renaissance, when all the arts of Europe awoke to life. In a chapel at St. Peter's, in Louvain, was an altar-piece painted in 1495 by Quentin Matsys, which showed a girl making lace on a pillow like those still in use to this day.

The manufacture of lace began in Brussels about the year 1400. The city excelled from the first in the quality of the work done there. This was due to the fineness of the thread of Brabant, which the women spun inch by inch with such painstaking care that it defied compet.i.tion. A pound of flax was sometimes trans.m.u.ted into lace worth several thousand dollars.

The lace industry was the only one in Flanders which survived the upheavals of the sixteenth century. Its prosperity alone tided the distracted people over their difficulties and saved them from the ruin which threatened. The women plodded on at their slow task, hour after hour, thread after thread, for a pitiful few cents a day, and never knew that they had saved their country. "They are generally almost blind before thirty years of age," wrote an early chronicler.

The women of Belgium have always been specially adept with the needle, and it may be that the rainy weather so prevalent there had something to do with the development of this indoor industry. Certainly lace-making is--or was, until very recently--practised in all the provinces except Liege, and in some districts it could be said that every woman, young or old, handled the bobbins or the needle. It was, indeed, the national industry.

As a rule, the women worked to order and by contract, and were paid by the piece. The lace, when finished, was handed over to the local middleman, who, in turn, sold it to the contractors in the cities. The children learned the art from their mother or--more often--from the nuns in the various convent schools. They would enter these schools when six or eight years old, and often remained there till their marriage. The nuns did much to keep up the ancient traditions of the art, and even in their convents in the Far East today they make a point of teaching the native children to copy European laces.

There are two kinds of lace, point and pillow. The former is made with a needle, and its characteristic feature is the "set-off" of the flowers.

The needle laces, of Belgium are divided into Brussels point, Brussels applique, Venice, rose and Burano points.

Several cla.s.ses of workers are needed for each piece--those who make the openwork ornaments and the flowers, and those who apply them on to the background, a very delicate task. Brussels point is the finest example of this form of lace, and indeed of any lace made in Belgium at the present time. The designs are very elaborate, with the flowers often in relief. Modern Brussels point is, however, too frequently an imitation, with flowers sewn on to a machine-made net that is often rather coa.r.s.e, while the application is done by unskilled fingers.

Of pillow lace there are many kinds, and their chief characteristic is the outline of the design. The lace is made on a cus.h.i.+on or pillow which stands on a frame, with little spools or bobbins for the threads, and pins for fixing the lace on the pattern.

The best kinds of pillow lace are d.u.c.h.ess, Mechlin, and Valenciennes.

"Valenciennes the eternal," they called it, because by working fourteen hours a day for a year you made less than half a yard. Marie Therese had a dress of it which took a year to make and cost fourteen thousand dollars. Considering that the workers received barely a cent an hour, one gets some idea of the magnitude of the task. The Beguinage in Ghent was the headquarters for the manufacture of this lace, but only a few old nuns remain there now who know the secrets of its making.

Machine-made imitations flood the market, and the former process is too costly to make it worth any one's while to master it.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BRUSSELS POINT LACE.]

Mechlin is the Flemish name for the town of Malines, and both words are used in connection with the lace which originated there. Mechlin is the airiest and most exquisite of laces, but its very delicacy made it too costly, and since it could be so easily and cheaply imitated, it is no longer made by hand. It was constructed in one piece, with no application, a flat thread forming the flower and giving it almost the appearance of embroidery. Napoleon, who admired it greatly, cried out when he saw the delicate spire of Antwerp Cathedral that it was like "_la dentelle de Malines_."

In spite of the fact that the art of making lace had fallen upon hard days, the lacemakers' ball was still an important event of the season when we were in Brussels. It came in carnival week, and was the occasion on which the Societe de la Grande Harmonie received the King and Queen.

It interested me to see how Their Majesties were welcomed by such a representative body of middle-cla.s.s citizens--there was the most genuine enthusiasm I have ever seen shown towards royalty.

The Diplomatic Corps had been invited to attend, and we were taken to a platform at the end of a great room, where the royal chairs were placed, and chairs in rows for the Corps and the Court and the Ministers of State. Beyond the columns which divided the hall into three parts were arranged the seats for the members of the society. The center of the floor remained clear, and here the tableaux and pageants representing the various stages in the history of lace were performed.

In their pageant the lacemakers all wore examples of their craft.

One of the prettiest incidents occurred when the groups of costumed personages separated and there pa.s.sed along the length of the ballroom floor two little children, a boy and a girl, dressed as a page and a miniature lady-in-waiting. They advanced slowly, and presented to the King and Queen books which told of the evening's entertainment. The Queen rose and apparently questioned the president of the society about the little girl who stood so shyly before her. Then, taking the book, she stooped down and kissed her. It was very prettily and naturally done, and caused a round of appreciative applause and cries of "Long live the Queen!"

Another attractive feature was that of the tiny children who represented the Flemish lacemakers, each one wearing the costume of the trade. They pa.s.sed in procession before the Queen and each, with a little courtesy, laid a bouquet of flowers at her feet.

I was surprised to find that Brussels was the market for lace from all over the world, and that foreign laces of every description were copied there by the skilful _dentellieres_. This was still true, in spite of the marked decline which the industry had shown of late, especially since the introduction of machinery.

Where a generation ago one hundred and fifty thousand women were employed, in 1910 there were barely twenty thousand. Their product had lost in quality, too, as well as in quant.i.ty. The old nuns who did the wonderful, intricate st.i.tches, were dying off and there were none to take their places. The pattern-makers, also, were contenting themselves with easier designs. Belgium was "speeding up," with the rest of the world, and the painstaking arts had to suffer. Modern laces are carelessly made, in comparison with those of former days, and from inferior designs.

The wages paid those who still work at the craft seem low indeed, especially when the long years of apprentices.h.i.+p are considered.

Verhaegen, in statistics collected in 1910, cites a girl of thirteen who was working ten hours a day, making in fifty-five hours a meter of Cluny lace for which she received about fifty cents. Children of fourteen were working seventy-two hours a week for something less than a cent an hour, and grown women earned little more. The workers were not organized, and the middlemen seem to have prospered accordingly.

But the pay was low in all branches of industry, even those which were well organized. An English writer noted that the rate of wages per hour for men in Belgium was only about half that prevailing in Britain, while the cost of living was nearly the same. The average earnings of the breadwinner of the family were about $165 a year. These facts certainly account for the development of cooperation.

This movement, which had a great vogue throughout the country, started in Ghent in 1873. Bread was scarce, and famine prices prevailed. A group of poor weavers conceived the idea of baking for themselves and their friends at cost. Their capital consisted of the vast sum of seventeen dollars and eighteen cents. Their bakery was in a cellar, and their utensils were antiquated. They could not afford a dog to deliver their wares, which were taken from door to door in a basket. But this was only the beginning. The "free bakers," as they called themselves, came to have for their headquarters one of the finest buildings in Ghent.

A few years later Edouard Anseele, realizing the power of the new movement, decided that it should be identified with Socialism for their mutual benefit. To that end was organized the Vooruit, which has branches all over Belgium, and in other countries as well.

Instead of returning the profits made on bread sold at market prices to the purchasers, as had been originally done, a percentage was retained for the support of the organization in its various departments. There was a mutual benefit fund, for instance: bread was sent to members out of work; a doctor went to those who were ill; a trained nurse was at hand to look after the first baby and to instruct the mother in its care.

When the Church set up rival bakeries, the Vooruit went farther. It established its first "_maison du peuple_," which has since been duplicated in many places. Every need of the people was supposed to find here its satisfaction. There was a cafe, with tables in the park, and lights and music. There were lectures, dances, debates, concerts, movies. There was a theater where the actors and the plays were chosen by the vote of the audience, which, by the way, strongly favoured their own Maeterlinck. Besides a library and a day nursery, there was a big department store, and in the same building were the headquarters for all the allied and friendly organizations--trade unions, cooperative and socialistic societies, and so on.

One of the most interesting activities of the Vooruit was the traveling club for children, bands of whom went from town to town, picking up recruits as they went, seeing their own land first, then--this was before the war--crossing the border into France or Germany, where the local Vooruits made them welcome. A common practice was for children of the French and Flemish parts of the country to be exchanged for long visits, so that they might have a chance to learn each other's language.

When the organization, which had always before refused to sell alcoholic drinks, found itself bitterly opposed by the liquor interests, especially in the mining districts, it built breweries of its own. In this way it was able to give the working men pure beer at a very low cost.