426. Great importance of the trade with the United States.—The United States was, far and away, England’s best customer, taking, near the beginning of the century, when the ports of the continent were closed by Napoleon, as much as one third of the total English exports, and at the middle (1849) nearly one fifth. “It affords strong evidence of the unsatisfactory footing upon which our trading relations with Europe are established,” wrote an English author in 1838, “that our exports to the United States of America, which with their population of only twelve millions are removed to a distance from us of 3,000 miles across the Atlantic, have amounted to more than one half of the value of our shipments to the whole of Europe, with a population fifteen times as great as that of the United States of America, and with an abundance of productions suited to our wants, which they are naturally desirous of exchanging for the products of our mines and looms.” The United States paid for the wares by an export mainly of raw materials, and especially of cotton.
Longmans, Green & Co., New York
During most of this period England drew three fourths of her supply of raw cotton from the southern States.
427. Trade with other distant countries.—Other American countries were good customers of the British manufacturer; Brazil, for instance, bought more from England in 1849 than did England’s nearest neighbor, France. Among other independent states China deserves mention. Trade with that country had been included in the monopoly of the East India Company until 1834, when it was thrown open to British merchants in general; the trade grew rapidly thereafter, but suffered from the restrictions imposed by the Chinese until, as a result of the so-called Opium War of 1842, the English secured the cession of Hong-Kong and the opening of a number of ports.
428. Trade with British dependencies: India.—In 1850 between one fourth and one third of the exports of the mother country were sent to British dependencies. Among these British India, almost a continent itself if we consider its area, its population almost equal to that of Europe, and the complexity of its peoples, took the leading place. British India alone took about one tenth of the English exports. So long as the trade with this country was controlled by the East India Company it remained small; and the company declared that because of the backwardness and peculiar customs of the natives it could not be increased. The privilege of trading with India was granted to individual merchants in 1793, but under such burdensome restrictions that it led to slight results; and the nineteenth century opened with the Indian trade still but a small item in England’s total. In 1813, however, the trade was at last thrown open, and the effect was immediately manifest; in the first year of the new policy private merchants exported more than did the company, and soon they had developed the trade to an extent undreamed of by the monopolists. India proved to be just the country which English merchants were seeking as a market for the expanding cotton manufacture. In the eighteenth century protection was demanded in England against the competition of Indian textiles, but soon the tables were turned, and manufacturers in India complained that they were being ruined by the importation of English cotton goods; about 1850 British India took more cotton manufactures than any other country, and nearly one sixth of the total exports of this most important commodity of England.
429. Colonies in North America and Australasia.—Next in importance to British India came the two groups of the North American and the Australian colonies. The colonies on the continent of North America were, in spite of their political allegiance, a far less important market than the republic on their southern border which had declared its independence in 1776. They supplied, however, a fairly steady and a growing demand for English products which put them in sharp contrast with the West Indian colonies. These island colonies had been, in the early part of the century, the field of rich returns in trade, but their productiveness depended on a system of slave plantations, and when slavery was abolished in them in 1833 their commerce declined rapidly.
Thanks to the wide extent of her colonial dominions, England could hope to gain in one part of the world if she lost in another, and the development of the Australian colonies in this period promised to atone for any decline in the West. The British flag was first raised in Australia in 1788. The young colonies were out of the track of the trade of the time, and seemed of such small importance that one was made a penal settlement, but the natural resources, especially the fitness for sheep-raising, induced a steady growth of population, and a considerable trade, even before the gold discoveries in the middle of the century.
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS
1. What do we mean when we speak of the “importance” of a country’s commerce? The reader who reflects upon this question will find that at least three different standards are taken to measure importance. (1) Mere bulk or value. The commerce of the British Empire would be called the most important in the world, because it is larger than that of any other state. (2) The needs of the people of the country. A considerable number of Englishmen would starve without commerce. In this sense commerce is even more important to the miners of Alaska, for they would practically all starve without it. (3) The needs of other countries for the exports of a given country. In this sense the United States has perhaps the most important commerce in the world, because it supplies so much of the world’s need for cotton, copper, foodstuffs, etc.