No. 51.
Mr. Wilson
to Mr. Evarts.
Brussels, February 16, 1880. (Received March 1.)
Sir: I have the honor to inclose herewith a pamphlet containing specific information in relation to the opening and management of a permanent exhibition of arts, science, commerce, and industry in this city.
[Page 68]Although this exhibition will not in any way be connected with the strictly national one intended to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the independence of Belgium, it is the intention of the council of administration to open it to the public about the same time, in order that it may contribute to the ensemble of attractive spectacles with which Brussels proposes to celebrate the approaching anniversary of the national independence.
As this, however, is intended to be a permanent exhibition of international products of the character indicated in the title-page of the inclosed pamphlet, I cannot but think it would afford a fine opportunity of keeping permanently before the eyes of the people of this city and many others on the continent, who frequently visit Brussels, our new and ingenious products of mechanical art and science.
I have long advocated the establishment of sample rooms in the larger cities of Europe, as the most efficient mode of introducing our manufactures, but this has been attended with so many difficulties in the selection of proper persons to take charge of them, and the securing of a sufficient number of consignments, that the experiment has not yet been fully tested. But here is an opportunity of exhibiting and offering for sale the work of our artists and artisans, in a most attractive building, and upon reasonable conditions, which, it seems to me, ought not to be disregarded. The central position of Brussels secures to it annually a large number of persons from other portions of the continent, who either come here on business, or are passing through to other cities, and this, with the character of the projectors of this scheme, and their published conditions of exhibition and sale, ought to induce many of our manufacturers, who wish to extend their trade, to embrace this opportunity of entering into a competitive exhibition of the merits of their wares with the manufacturers of Europe. For the permanent exhibition of a vast number of our small ingenious inventions used in the daily life of every householder, I think it an admirable opportunity, and if a number of inventors or exporters of these articles were to join and rent a given space together in which to exhibit their wares, the cost to any one of them would be but trifling.
I am, &c.,
Chargé d’Affaires ad interim.