22. COMMERCE — 18TH CENTURY. — English commerce of the 18th century is re markable for the revolution in the methods by which it was carried on, for its growth under the great Whig system of protection and for its culmination in a tremendous expansion with the coming of machinery. English foreign trade had been largely opened out by mer chant companies. The foundation idea was that English goods should be sold at a high price and that there should be no glut of goods, no undercutting, but a °well ordered trade.' Hence rules as to quantities to be exported were a great feature of these companies. There was no idea of pushing trade or selling at a low price and getting quick returns. Moreover, the numbers admitted to the companies were lim ited by the high fees charged for entrance, while no one who did not belong to them could lawfully engage in the trade. The only open trades were those to France, Spain and Portugal. Hence a regular attack on the monopoly of the companies was carried on and this constituted the early free trade movement. It was successful; after the Revolution the entrance fees of the companies were reduced by Acts of Parliament; only the East India Company and the Hudson's Bay Company con tinued strict monopolies. With the throwing open of trade it was possible for an enterpris ing man to carry on commerce on any scale, to push his wares and generally increase his sales wherever he could without limitation of any kind. This amounted to a veritable revolution in commerce. Alongside of this opportunity for expansion came the emigration of the Huguenots into England. Besides introducting many new industries such as silk, cotton print ing, paper and linen, there was no branch of English trade which they did not improve with their taste and skill. Hence England had a more varied assortment of goods with which to push her trade. Moreover, the Huguenots preserved their old business connections, and England inherited in this way a great deal of the French trade.
At the Revolution of 1689 the control of economic affairs definitely passed to the House of Commons, and the Whig party became the arbiters of national policy. The Tories were inclined toward °free trade." They believed
in favoring the consumer and in removing re strictions on intercourse, especially with France, the chief industrial rival of England. The Whigs on the other hand held very decidedly to a policy of encouraging industry and in so manipulating commerce that it should react on the prosperity of industry. Hence they devised a system of bounties for encouraging the expor tation of silk, linen and corn. Bounties were also given to the fishing trades. They tried to stop the growth of competing industries in both Ireland and the colonies, and when Scotland showed signs of becoming a rival the Union was brought about.
In their fiscalpolicy and in their trade treaties the same Whig ideas were carried out. We first see them applied in the commercial re lations between England and France. England's great industrial competitor at the end of the 17th century was France. Colbert had been doing everything in his power to encourage French industry and had gone so far, in 1667, as to put prohibitory rates on English cloth. Englishwomen with (to the masculine mind) an extraordinary perverseness would insist on wearing French goods when they could get them. Hence, according to the opinion of the day, to shut out French goods was to assist English industry in the best possible way. To this the Tories were opposed, but the Whigs were successful, in 1678, in carrying an Act prohibiting trade and commerce with France. A system of high duties was substituted for prohibition underJames II, but the Whigs returned to the early policy. In 1713 a clause was added to the Treaty of Utrecht to the effect that England should admit French goods as in 1664. This gave rise to a tremendous con troversy. Again the Whigs were successful; the commercial clauses of the treaty were not carried out, and the policy of protecting English industry by cutting off trade with France was not reversed till the treaty concluded by Pitt in 1786. By that time England no longer feared French competition and English manufactures were so much sought after in France that there was a tremendous outcry on the part of French manufacturers.