GRAPHIC TABLES. TABLE A.-IMPORTS AND EXPORTS, 1760-1820 B.-HIGHEST AND LOWEST PRICES OF 3 PER CENT. CONSOLS, PAGES 26-27 1860-1878. C. PUBLIC INCOME AND EXPENDITURE, 1760-1878 72-73 90-91 D. PRICES OF WHEAT, 1760-1878 E. PROPORTIONAL VARIATION OF PRICES, 1782-1820 G. OPERATION OF THE BANK CHARTER ACT, 1844-1878 I. POPULATION AND WEALTH.-INCOME PER HEAD IN THE 552-553 552-553 A. - PROGRESS OF POPULATION AND WEALTH 558 B. BRITISH EXPORTS-DECLARED VALUE OF BRITISH AND IRISH PRO- 560 C. COURSE OF EXCHANGE-LONDON ON PARIS, 1825-1878 562 D. TREATIES OF COMMERCE AND NAVIGATION BETWEEN GREAT BRITAIN 563 INTRODUCTION. WHILST the Italians were vigorously pursuing their trade in India and Europe, and Spain was renowned for her manufactures; whilst the Hanse merchants were extending their factories, and Portuguese navigators were bent upon maritime discoveries; whilst the Dutch were struggling for independence, and France was planting the seeds of her industries; England was only known as possessing a few articles of commerce of great value. Her wools and her metals were eagerly sought by foreign traders, but she had no ships of her own to carry them abroad. She had many raw materials, but she produced no manufactures for exportation. Nor was her policy respecting foreign trade the most wise. The chief concern of the legislature in those days seemed to be to prevent foreign nations doing with English produce what, after all, the English could not do themselves. Again and again the export of wool was prohibited, or was hindered by prohibitory duties. But the prohibition was ill suited to the practice of appointing the Staple to be held, now at Bruges, now at Antwerp, and now at Calais, to which merchants of the staple were privileged; nor could it be maintained whilst licenses were constantly given for a consideration to foreign merchants to buy as much wool as they found necessary for their manufactures. The people regarded the introduction of foreigners with the utmost jealousy. They resented their competition, they grudged their profits and their advantages. The guilds would not admit them as members, and it was hard for the poor strangers to establish a footing in England, even although Magna Charta had long before declared that all merchants shall have safety in coming to Enginn min samang ni teing through armi (made me fee from any grievous A Trener de corama of éties and corpremade the 12 is beterized by the fire merchants. Taflzel maps Engind have been for the Lombards, Your inter not and nesmie, lacking and insur10: 5 the Femmy, via fer by intestine Essension, found she a loras 1 ni bemme the finders of the woollen SEKS; und die the Engrunts vor text with them the Talost je he! Fear of foreign competitival There is 1 mirersting of genis, which it is folly pen the dive to its resources, and rational wealth will the more prosper. Afer the Latarks the French, and the Flemings be Evis metus ane and settled themselves in their Steelgard And they, too possessed a power of enterprise, an extent of korrela, a fimility with antinental trading, which the English did not possess But a new era advanced. The discovery of the American continent by Columbos, and of a maritime route to India by Vasco da Gama, altered the ecurse and ebaracter of commerce. Till then trade was essentially inland, thenceforth its most conspienous triumphs were to be on the ocean. Till then, the Mediterranean was the centre of international trading. From thenceforth the tendency of trade was towards the countries bordering on the Atlantic. What saving of time, what economy of expense in the commerce with India, what simplicity and certainty in every commercial transaction, did these discoveries produce. And what encouragement did a success so marvellous offer to further maritime discoveries. It was not long, indeed, before England followed the lead of Spain and Portugal. John Cabot and his sons went in quest of land to North America; Drake went to circumnavigate the globe; Chancellor sailed up the White Sea to Russia; Willoughby went on his ill-fated voyage in search of a north-eastern passage to India; Sir Walter Raleigh explored Virginia; the Merchant Adventurers pushed their adventures to Spain and Portugal; and English ships began to be seen in the Levant. Meanwhile, English trade enlarged its sphere, English bravery at sea became most conspicuous, and English industry advanced apace. But as the people began to be conscious of their power, they fretted at the shackles of monopoly, which their Sovereigns granted with unsparing hand. It was hard for the bulk of English traders to be shut out from nearly every industry by privileges and concessions conceded to the few. And harder still, that when they made remonstrances against the abuses, Queen Elizabeth caused it to be signified that she hoped her dutiful and loving subjects would not take away her prerogative, which is the choicest flower in her garden, and the principal pearl in her crown and diadem.' We need not wonder that when King James followed in the same course, and exhausted the patience of the people, Parliament interfered, by enacting that all grants for monopolies should be revoked and forbidden for all time to come. Seldom, however, nobler deeds, deeds pregnant with more mighty results, were accomplished, than in the last days of the House of Tudor, and during the reign of the Stuarts. Then it was that Gresham ennobled commerce by his sumptuousness and wisdom. Then it was that England stretched her colonial power, and that a company of English merchants began to trade in India, and founded there an empire. Then it was that the Pilgrim Fathers, smarting under the thraldom of religious persecution, crossed the ocean, and planted the germ of the great republic of the West. Then it was that England began boldly to confront herself with both the Hanse and the Dutch. Vigorous, bold, energetic, as the people were, their principles of commercial policy were unsound. They did not know the true source of wealth, or the best method for promoting its increase and diffusion. Jealous of the Dutch, annoyed by the presence of their ships in British waters, proud of their colonies, prone to rival other nations, and especially anxious of becoming the carriers of the world, the English people sought to attain these objects by a Navigation Law, which prohibited the transport of any merchandise outward or homeward except in British ships; a restricted the trade with the English plantations solely to British subjects; placed the British fisheries in the sole hands of British seamen; and prescribed that British ships should be navigated by no other than British subjects. The Navigation Laws, the supposed palladium of British supremacy on the sea, afforded doubtless considerable stimulus to navigation; but it was at the expense of commerce, which they thwarted, and of the colonies, whose resources they crippled. Erroneous in an economic aspect, they were still more injurious in a political, since they provoked the animosities of other maritime states, and forced them to a retaliatory policy. As time rolled on, the mercantile nations of the Middle Ages one by one fell behind in their rank. Italy was no longer the mistress of the Indian trade; Holland lost her former greatness; the Hanse League became dismembered; Spain, degraded by her Inquisition, became lethargic in character, powerless in action; Portugal was no longer ambitious to make maritime discoveries; and France became the victim of weak and intolerant rulers. all the while English life was being stirred up to the very core by the events which led, first to the Reformation, next to the Commonwealth, and finally to the change of dynasty from the House of Stuart to the House of Hanover. Whilst other States fell into a state of torpor and inactivity, England rose to a new life and vigour. But The union with Scotland, the incorporation with Ireland, the extension of the Colonies, the success of the East India Company, the establishment of the Bank of England, the introduction of manufactures, the increase of wealth, all tended to embolden the British nation to commercial enterprise, and to secure their own absolute superiority. Their commercial legislation continued indeed restrictive, and offered impediments rather than encouragements to their industry. But strong in their assertion of right, yet ever tempered by counsel and patience in the method of achieving permanent progress, whether political or social, the British nation saw one by one the hindrances in their way removed, a sounder system adopted, and British commerce placed in a condition of safe and enduring progress. |