BELGIC AND PRUSSIAN MANUFACTURES.
Tile encouragement of manufactures to any extent and of every kind, is at pre- sent the favourite object of attention of most of the great potentates of Europe. They consider only the establishment of such in their own respective territories, by exacting heavy ditties on the importation of foreign manufactures. BONAPARTE gave the impulse, and the sovereigns have not forgotten his les- sons. All his bad institutions have been retained by them ; such as heavy taxes, prohibitory duties on British manufactures, an espionage police, conscript militia, and the wading through an entire establishment of a bureau from the lowest clerk to the Minister of the Interior, for the smallest application of money to repair a road, a bridge, or a church.
The King of the Netherlands is wisely getting rid of these absurdities ; but manufactures are his favourite hobby. He is at present partner in several fabrics, and the good-humoured Belgians persist in calling the firms of souse of them, " Messrs. Cockerel', King, and Co."
'fhe history of Mr. COCKERELL is that which is connected with the sudden extensions of the manufactures of the ten ancient Austrian provinces, and those of the-county of Liege, as also of the manufactures of Aix la Chapelle and'Elberfelt near the Rhine, both now comprehended in the Prussian territory. Liege was cele- brated for its iron manufactures nearly two hundred years ago ; and the cloths of
Verviers were famous in the fourteenth century. Aix la Chapelle has manufactured cloth above five hundred years. It was probably the warm sulphureous waters of that town which first attracted the notice of clothiers. The rough wool is still washed in the public street, by means of the warm springs, to a dazzling white colour. So steady and persevering are the fabrics of this town, that the respectable house of I ZAAC S. and Co., at Bourchette, close to Aix la Chapelle, can show records of their house having been in business for nearly three hundred years. Several other houses can claim a hundred years' standing in the same trade of clothiers. Several Verviers houses are of very long standing, and the respectable house of Fisenuacii of Stavelot have pursued the tanning trade for above one hundred and fifty years. But the wool was all hand spun till within these thirty or forty years ; when small spin- ning-jennies were in troduced,and every cottager had his machine, which was worked by his children ; but about the year 1806, a poor Englishman found his way to Verviers, offered to make a model of a machine to spin fifty times more wool than a Jenny could ; and being encouraged, he soon produced his model, having ap- parently been bred a carpenter, to M. SIMMONET, one of the principal manufac- turers of that town. bt. SIMNIONET was satisfied, treated for a machine, and it was erected. The poor carpenter was COCKERELL; the machine, Arckright's adapted to wool. But it was necessary to erect such machines in the towns where no water could be had to work them. COCKERELL called to his assistance a Sir. H000sos, and they constructed at Liege a steam-engine to drive the machinery. Orders followed so rapidly on them, that COCKEREL!. established an iron numufac- tory near Liege, which in process of time has grown up into the very complete iron-fouadery, &c. of Seraing-the very Carron-works of Belgium. The clothiers of Aix la Chapelle were as clear-sighted. as those of Verviers; and steam-engines arose in all parts, to work all the machinery used, till the fabric was brought to perfections in the very complete and compact works of the long-established house of KELTENER and Co. There,-as in Mr. Gorr's works at Leeds, the whole operation, from the rough wool to the broad cloth finished for the shops, is per- formed n ithitt an enclosure in the veryloom itself. Comtauxu, entered into nrany different manufactures, and extended his irons establishments to the neighbour- hood of Berlin, and to Castlenauderay in the South of France, where small cutlery had long been manufactured. He has reaped the fruits of his industry, in being what the Belgians call en millionaire. I should have mentioned that there are
extensive pin and needle manufactories of very ancient establishment around Aix la Chapelle; and the towns of Stavelot and Maimady, each having a popu Winn of five, six, or seven thousand souls, are entirely devoted to hustling leather. Many new wool-spinning machines are now erecting on the river that passes by Verviers ; and there is every appearance of the Belgians falling into excess of production in yarns and cloth, as we per iodically do in the cotton trade. I shall resume the subject of Belgian and Prussian manufactures shortly.
A SPECTATOR its THE NETHERLANDS.
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