The riots in Belgium have abated, after the districts round
Charleroi had been reduced to a kind of anarchy, and the General Commanding-in-Chief, General van der Smissen, had placed them in a state of siege. The complaint of the miners and factory-hands is that their wages have fallen gradually to three francs a day, or fifteen shillings a week, and that they can no longer live; and their demand is that the State should either force the proprietors to give them more, or should expropriate the mines and factories, and work them itself. To this the Premier, M. Beernaert, replies that profits have declined within the district to an average of 2 per cent.; that if the whole receipts were divided among the workmen, the increase would not be twenty francs a year ; and that Government could only resist. They were, however, aware that thousands would now be out of work, the glassworks in particular being arrested by the riots, and £3,600,000 would accordingly be expended on the Public Works, about half this sum being devoted to new railways. The total effect of this plan is that a large system of temporary relief will be opened, which will draw off part of the able-bodied men, but will attract labour from France and Holland, and in the end intensify the competition for the permanent work. It is said to be proved that German and French anarchists are ex- asperating the men, and the Government in Paris is so alarmed, that it has posted a cordon of troops along the frontier, with orders to arrest all immigrant Belgians.
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