NOTES
1. Population of Roman Britain
2. Markets on Boundaries
3. Danish Influence on Commerce
4. Manorial Courts
5. Decay of Manorial System
6. The Jews
7. Commercial relations with Flanders
Henry VII. also made a commercial treaty with Denmark (1490); and one with the Republic of Florence, securing to that city a stipulated supply of English wool every year. (Cf. Commerce in Europe, p. 98.)
8. Other Sources of Income
9. Assize of Bread and Ale
10. Stourbridge Fair
11. Survivals of Villeinage
11a. Monopolies
12. Elizabeth’s Poor Law
The Act of Apprenticeship, incidentally fixing wages by assessment, was mainly concerned with the relations of masters to their journeymen and apprentices; and enacted also that no person should exercise a craft or trade unless he had been apprenticed to it for seven years.
13. Banking and the Stop of the Exchequer
The unsatisfactory method of obtaining loans from goldsmiths and other private persons was partly the cause of William Paterson’s project, now known as the Bank of England (1694). Paterson offered to provide the Government of William III. with £1,200,000, to be repaid by taxation on beer or other liquors and {248} by rates on shipping, while those who subscribed this money were incorporated into a regular company which was to receive 8 per cent. interest and also £4000 a year for management. Thus the matter of loans was first placed upon a proper basis and the Bank thus formed, and supported by Government credit, took at once a leading position in English commerce. (Cf. Rogers’ First Nine Years of Bank of England.)
14. National Debt
The Restoration of the Currency was due to Montague, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Up to the time of Charles II. silver money was made by simply cutting the metal with shears, and shaping and stamping it with a hammer. It was thus quite easy to clip or shear the coins again without being detected, and then pass them off to an unsuspecting person for their full nominal value. So the coins became smaller and smaller, and people often found on presenting them at a bank or elsewhere that they were only worth half their nominal value. At first, under Charles II., it was thought sufficient to issue new coins with a ribbed or “milled” edge, but the only result of this was that the good coin was melted or exported and (as is always the case) the inferior money remained at home. It was then seen, by Montague and Sir Isaac Newton (the Master of the Mint), that the only way was to call in the old coinage and issue an entirely new and true milled currency. The expenses of this re-coinage, which cost some two and a half millions, were defrayed by a tax on window-panes. (Cf. Rogers’ Economic Interpretation of History, p. 200.)
The East India Company’s New Charter was granted on October 7th, 1693, by William III., and restored all the former powers and privileges of the Company. This Company’s monopoly of trade with India had been frequently infringed by private traders, and it was generally regarded with such great hostility that the House of Commons in 1692 requested the King to dissolve the Company upon the ground of mismanagement and conduct injurious to national interests. However, the enemies of the Company failed, and all its privileges were confirmed by the Charter of 1693. Its monopoly was nevertheless still often disregarded, and {249} the validity of it denied by Parliament in spite of the King’s favour. A New Company was even formed in 1698, but after a few years the two rival Companies were amalgamated (1708).
15. Export of Bullion
The necessities of their Eastern trade compelled the East India Company to acquire large stores of bullion and export it to India, in spite of any prohibition to the contrary; and their trade, with its enormous profits, was thus a very clear example of the mistaken character of the theory which taught that gold and silver must not be exported for fear of impoverishing the country. This fact, in the case of the East Indian trade, was seen by some economists early in the eighteenth century, and was then clearly stated by a writer in the paper called the British Merchant (i. 26), who estimated the export of bullion to India and China at £400,000 or £500,000 a year (in 1764 it was £369,831, and £532,705 in 1790). The British Merchant was first published in 1713.
16. Important Commercial Events
The date of the Methuen Treaty is 1703, and it was arranged by John Methuen between England and Portugal. It was agreed that British woollen goods should be admitted into Portugal and her colonies, provided that at all times Portuguese wines were admitted into England at two-thirds of the duty (whatever it might be) levied on French wines. The result was a considerable increase of trade with Portugal, but an even greater decrease of trade with France, while the wine-drinking of our upper classes took a very different direction, for port, which had hitherto been almost unknown in England, became the typical drink of the English gentleman, and more port was sent to the United Kingdom than to all the rest of Europe together. It was not till the time of the commercial treaty of 1860 with France, that the heavy duties on light French wines were reduced, and with them the duties on French manufactures. Till then, as Gladstone said in his speech on the subject in 1862, “it was almost thought a matter of duty to regard Frenchmen as traditional enemies,” not only in politics but in commerce. This treaty was only one among the many great services of Cobden to the commerce of his country.