ANTWERP.
THE Belgian Chamber of Deputies decided, on Saturday last, by a majority of fifteen, to proceed at once with the completion of the for- tifications of Antwerp. Though the debate was of an unusually stormy character, this decision on the part of the Belgian Govern- ment would scarcely have excited more than a passing interest, had not the whole subject been lately discussed, with a certain show of animosity, by the French journals. One portion of the French press has discovered a mysterious connexion between the fortification of Antwerp and the recent visit of King Leopold to this country. It is also urged that Belgium, whose neutrality has been guaranteed by the Five Powers, has no need of fortifica- tions; and the whole scheme is met by objections chiefly of a po- litical and economical kind. The Russian organ, on the other hand, Le Nord, boldly asserts that existing treaties forbid ex- pressly the fortification of Antwerp, and urges that Belgium, as a neutral. Power, has no right to carry out the project now at length adopted by the Chamber. At Brussels the right to fortify Antwerp seems almost to have been taken for granted. Anyhow, General Chazal (son of the Chazal who voted that sentence of death should be recorded against Louis XIV.), and who has taken a leading part in political events during the last fifty years, does not appear to call the right in question: the whole discussion, indeed, was conducted rather on financial' grounds, than with reference to treaties. The truth is that, in a clause of the treaty of peace signed at Paris, in May, 1814, it is distinctly laid down that the port of Antwerp shall thenceforth be solely a commercial port, and it is also true that this clause was ratified by the Congress of Vienna. But it does not seem that the question was considered by the framers of the treaty of twenty-four articles, drawn up in 1831, and finally adopted in 1839. The question must now go before the Senate, and it is needless to repeat, in detail, the arguments used by the Inclepen-dance Beige in replying to the French press. It is, per- haps, worth while to observe that concurrently with the decision of the Belgian chamber, Lille has been made, for the first time, the head-quarters of a great military command, under the newly-created Due de Magenta.
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