De
Celles--to the Pope in 1827 to endeavour to negotiate a Concordat. It
was accomplished. By Article III of the Concordat, there were to be
eight bishops in the Netherlands instead of five. They were to be chosen
by the Pope, but the king was to have the right of objection, and they
were required to take the oath of allegiance. The course at the
_Collegium Philosophicum_ was made optional. William thus yielded on
practically all the points at issue, but prided himself on having
obtained the right of rejecting a papal nominee. The Pope, however, in
an allocution made no mention of this right, and declared that the
decree about the _Collegium_ was annulled, and that in matters of
education the bishops would act in accordance with instructions from
Rome. The government immediately issued a confidential notice to the
governors of provinces, that the carrying-out of the Concordat was
indefinitely postponed. Thus the effort at conciliation ended in the
humiliation of the king, and the triumph of the astute diplomacy of the
Vatican.

The financial situation, as we have seen, was from the outset full of
difficulty. The king was personally parsimonious, but his many projects
for the general welfare of the land involved large outlay, and the
consequence was an annual average deficit of seven million florins. At
first the revenue was raised by the increase of customs and excise,
including colonial imports. This caused much dissatisfaction in Holland,
especially when duties were placed on coffee and sugar. The complaint
was that thus an undue share of taxation fell on the maritime north. In
order to lighten these duties on colonial wares, other taxes had to be
imposed. In 1821 accordingly it was proposed to meet the deficit by two
most unwise and obnoxious taxes, known as _mouture_ and _abbatage_. The
first was on ground corn, the second on the carcases of beasts, exacted
at the mill or the slaughter-house--in other words on bread and on
butcher's meat. Both were intensely unpopular, and the _mouture_ in
particular fell with especial severity on the Belgian working classes
and peasantry, who consumed much more bread per head than the Dutch.
Nevertheless by ministerial pressure the bill was passed (July 21, 1821)
by a narrow majority of four--55 to 51. All the minority were Belgians,
only two Belgians voted with the majority. It is inconceivable how the
government could have been so impolitic as to impose these taxes in face
of su