This research is made possible by a grant from the Concilium on International and Area Studies. I should like to express my thanks to my dissertation advisers John C. H. Fei and William N. Parker for their help and encouragement. In addition, I am indebted to many of my friends and colleagues, especially Stephen DeCanio, Jan deVries, Nachum Gross, Yoav Kislev, and Rick Levin. The usual warning about the author's sole responsibility is in order.

¹ Belgium is covered to some extent in Landes, D., The Unbound Prometheus (Cambridge: University Press, 1969)Google Scholar, Ch. 3 and in Henderson, W. O., Britain and Industrial Europe, 1750–1870, 2nd ed. (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1965), pp. 102–38Google Scholar. (The latter deals only with the interaction of Britain and Belgium.) The basic facts with respect to Belgium can also be found in the somewhat unbalanced contribution of Jan Dhondt and Marinette Bruwier to the Fontana Economic History of Europe, Vol. 4, Sec. 1. A more useful, though brief, summary of Belgian development in this period can be found in Milward, A. S. and Saul, S. B., The Economic Development of Continental Europe, 1780–1870 (London: Allen and Unwin, 1973), pp. 292–296Google Scholar, 432–453. The Netherlands has been virtually untouched by Englishspeaking economic historians, and nonspecialists have to rely on translated work, sometimes in abridged form. A recent article of a very general nature is Houtte, J. A. Van, “Economic Development of Belgium and the Netherlands from the Beginning of the Modem Era,” The Journal of European Economic History, I (Spring 1972), 100–120.Google Scholar

² Municipal Archives, Ghent, File K2–1 (G).

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⁵ Briavoinne, De l'Industrie, Vol. I, pp. 252–262. On the relative backwardness of the Belgian iron industry around 1820 see G.M. Roentgen, “Berigt van den Toestand van Ijzerwerken in de Waalsche Provinciën,” [Report on the Situation of the Iron Works in the Walloonic Provinces] (1823). Edited with an introduction by Boer, M. G. De, Economisch-Historisch Jaarboek, Vol. IX (1921), pp. 103–149.Google Scholar

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⁷ de Montalivet, J. P. B., Exposé de la Situation de l'Empire (Paris: Imprimerie Impériale, 1813), pp. 48–49Google Scholar. Montalivet's figures are, however, somewhat inconsistent and his data for the départment of Jemappes (Hainault) for example seem too low. For an analysis of Montalivet's data see Craeybeckx, J., “Les Débuts de la Revolution Industrielle en Belgique et les Statistiques de la Fin de l'Empire,” in: Mélanges offerts á G. Jacquemyns (Brussels: Université Libre de Bruxelles, Éditions de l'lnstitut de Sociologie, 1968), pp. 115–144.Google Scholar

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⁹ , Briavoinne (1839), De l'lndustrie, II, p. 374Google Scholar puts the number of spindles in 1830 at 440,000. In 1835 the number is estimated at 383,320 of which more than 300,000 are “active.” Cf. Heuschling, X., Essai sur la Statistique Générale de la Belgique, 2nd ed., (Brussels: Établissement Géographique Faubourg de Flandre, 1841), p. 9.Google Scholar

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¹¹ Demoulin, R., Guillaume l^er et la Transformation Économique des Provinces Beiges (Liège: Bibliothèque de la Faculté de Philosophie et Lettres de l'Université de Liège, 1938), p. 322.Google Scholar

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¹³ Briavoinne (1839), De l'lndustrie, II, p. 290. Heuschling, Essai, p. 100.

¹⁴ Demoulin, Guillaume 1^er, p. 315.

¹⁵ Schöller, P., “La Transformation Économique de la Belgique de 1832 à 1844,” Bulletin de l'Instttut de Recherches Économiques (Louvain), XIV (1948), 585.Google Scholar

¹⁶ Statistique de la Belgique, Récensement Générale (1846), Industrie (Brussels: Ministerè de l'lntérieur, 1851), pp. x,Google Scholar xi. The figure cited is more than 380,000. Cf. footnote 9.

¹⁷ Imports average about 5,000 tons in the first years of the 1830's, rising to double that figure in 1850. Statistique de la Belgique, Tableau Générale du Commerce avec des Pays Étrangères (Brussels: Ministère de l'lntérieur, 1838Google Scholar and subsequent years).

¹⁸ Schöller, “La Transformation,” p. 594.

¹⁹ This is pointed out by F. Mendels, “Industrialization and Population Pressure in Eighteenth-Century Flanders,” unpublished dissertation, University of Wisconsin, 1969.

²⁰ Dillen, J. G. Van: Van Rijkdom en Regenten, [On Wealth and Regents, Handbook of the Economic and Social History of the Netherlands During the Republic] (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1970), pp. 540–557.Google Scholar

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²⁶ Boot, Twentsche Katoennijverheid, Appendix 2.

²⁷ Ibid., p. 71.

²⁸ For the Netherlands: Staatkundig en Staathuishoudkuhdig Jaarboekje, [Yearbook of Politics and Political Economy], VIII (1855), p. 69Google Scholar; for Belgium: Statistique de la Belgique, Industrie, pp. x-xi.

²⁹ Schöller, “La Transformation,” pp. 592–594.

³⁰ Statistisch Jaarboekje, [Statistical Yearbook of the Netherlands], I (1851), p. 218Google Scholar (2).

³¹ Figures cited by H. Baudet, “De Dadels van Hassan en de Start der Nederlandse Industrialiteit,’ [The Start of Dutch Industrialism], in: Bedrijf en Samenleving, [Enterprise and.Society], Festschrift presented to Prof. Brugmans, I. J.( Alphen on the Rhine: N. Samson, 1967), p. 3.Google Scholar

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³⁷ Demoulin, Guillaume 1^er, pp. 157–181.

³⁸ For a summary see J. H. Van Stuijvenberg, “Economische Groei in Nederland in de 19^e Eeuw: een Terreinverkenning,” [Economic Growth in the Netherlands in the Nineteenth Century: A Reconnaissance] in: Bedriff en Samenleving, pp. 195–225 and works quoted there.

³⁹ Brugmans, Arbeidende Klasse, p. 67.

⁴⁰ Van Houtte (1972), “Economic Development,” p. 108. Mendels, F., “Protoindustrialization: The First Phase of the Industrialization Process,” Journal of Economic History, XXXII (March 1972), 241–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

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⁴⁵ Habakkuk, American and British Technology, pp. 43–45.

⁴⁶ This is emphasized for Belgium in Cameron, R.: Banking in the Early Stages of Industrialization (New York: Oxford University Press, 1967), pp. 130–131Google Scholar. For the Twente area in the Netherlands this is argued by Boot, Twentsche Katoennijverheid, pp. 265–268, 276. Similar arguments have been made for France by Landes, The Unbound Prometheus, pp. 130, 131n, and for England, among others, by Crouzet, F., “Capital Formation in Great Britain During the Industrial Revolution,” in Capital Formation in the Industrial Revolution (London: Methuen, 1972), p. 188.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ Habakkuk, American and British Technology, p. 28 argues that capitalists behaved as if capital had cost them nothing. In these situations it may be preferable to abstract altogether from the concept of a “return to capital” and to view profits as a (quasi) rent. Cf. Salter, Productivity and Technical Change, p. 6 1.

⁴⁸ This term is borrowed from Hymer, S. and Resnick, S., “A Model of an Agrarian Economy with Non-agricultural Activities,” American Economic Review, LIX (Sept. 1969), 493–506. In the present context the Z-good plays a somewhat different role, since it is sold in the market rather than consumed on the spot.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ Mendels, “Protoindustrialization,” p. 243.

⁵⁰ For a proof, see Appendix.

⁵¹ Lewis, W. A., “Economic Development with Unlimited Supplies of Labor” The Manchester School, XXII (May 1954)Google Scholar, repr. in Agarwala, A. N. and Singh, S. P. (eds.), The Economics of Underdevelopment (New York: Oxford University Press, 1958), pp. 400–449Google Scholar. See also, “Unlimited Labor: Further Notes,” The Manchester School, XXVI (January 1958), 1–32.Google Scholar

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⁵⁴ This point has been raised by Klein, P. W. in Kapitaal en Stagnatie tijdens het Hollandse Vroegkapitalisme, [Capital and Stagnation during the Period of Early Capitalism in Holland] (Rotterdam: Universitaire Pers, 1967), pp. 8–9.Google Scholar Curiously enough, Klein makes the argument in reference to Holland, ignoring the comparatively high wages there.

⁵⁵ All figures from Smits, E., Statistique Nationale, Développement des 31 Tableaux Publiés par la Commission de Statistique (Brussels: H. Tarlier, 1827), Annex Table I.Google Scholar

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⁵⁷ Hogendorp, K. G. Van, Bijdragen tot de Huishouding van Stoat in het Koninkrijk der Nederlanden, [Contributions to the Political Economy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands] (Amsterdam: K. H. Schadd, 1825), Vol. V, p. 167.Google Scholar

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⁶⁴ Génart, Industrie Cloutière, p. 26.

⁶⁵ Roentgen, “Berigt,” p. 149.

⁶⁶ Van Dillen, Van Rijkdom, p. 553. Vries, Joh. De, De Economische Achteruitgang der Republiek in de Achttiende Eeuw, [The Economic Decline of the Dutch Republic in the Eighteenth Century] (Amsterdam: J. Van Campen, 1959), p. 107.Google Scholar

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