11. Conditions at the time when the Acts were repealed. [Lindsay, vol. 3, chap. 6.]

12. Development of the merchant marine. [Traill, Soc. England, 6: 392-404; Ward, Reign, 2: 111-118.]

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The best single source on the topics of this chapter is Bernard Holland, **The fall of protection, 1840-1850, London, 1913. Of more comprehensive and more elementary books may be mentioned Mongredien, *History of the free-trade movement, and Armitage-Smith, **Free-trade movement, which is well suited to topical assignment. Similar in scope is W. Cunningham, **Free-trade movement, with concluding chapters on recently projected changes.

The best account of the corn laws is to be found in Morley’s **Life of Cobden, and George Macaulay Trevelyan’s **Life of John Bright, London, 1913. Graphic pictures of conditions of life under the corn laws are provided by The hungry forties: life under the bread tax, London, 1904; and J. K. Snowden’s Corn law memories, in Contemp. Review, 1905, 88: 64-71. J. S. Nicholson, *History of the English corn laws, London, 1904, is a thoughtful study in brief compass, but is not suited to topical reading.

The navigation acts are treated by Holland, and at considerable length in the third volume of Lindsay. The best recent contributions on the subject are in periodical literature: John Rae, **English shipping under protection, in Contemporary Review, 1905, 87: 666-675; J. H. Clapham, ** The last years of the navigation acts, English Hist. Rev., 1910, 25: 480-501, 687-707.

CHAPTER XXXVII
ENGLAND: COMMERCIAL DEVELOPMENT, 1850-1914

440. Development of English commerce since 1850.—An accompanying table sets forth the course of English trade down to the outbreak of the World War. The figures refer, as in the previous table, to imports for consumption in the country, and to exports of British and Irish produce. To indicate, however, the share of commerce which the English enjoyed merely as middlemen I add a column of re-exports, foreign and colonial wares imported but shipped away again. If the amount of these wares be doubled (since they figure both as imports and exports), and added to the other items, the sum gives the gross foreign trade (excluding that in precious metals). The system of valuation of imports changed in 1854; under the old system of “official” values the imports of that year would have been entered at twenty-eight million pounds less than under the new system of giving the “real” values. This table, therefore, is not directly comparable with the table of the preceding chapter; and to remind the student of this I have left a few years vacant, making a gap between the two tables.

441. Importance of England and of British Empire in trade of the world.—A mere glance at this table will be sufficient to show the progress that has been made since 1850. Some idea of the importance of this trade, not only to England but to the world at large, can be gathered from the fact that it amounted, about the middle of the period, to nearly one-fourth (23 per cent) of the estimated total foreign trade of the world, and at the close of the period, (1912), in spite of the commercial progress of other countries, it was still one-sixth. If we extend our view to embrace not only the little islands in the North Sea, but all the countries depending on them and forming the British Empire, we find the trade of this group over one-fourth of the trade of the world.

Annual Average Trade of the United Kingdom, in Millions, Sterling,with Rough Equivalents in Millions of Dollars
ImportsExportsRe-exports
1855-59£146$730£116$580£23
1860-64 193 965 138 690 42
1865-69 2371185 181 905 49
1870-74 2911455 2351175 55
1875-79 3201600 2021010 55
1880-84 3441720 2341170 64
1885-89 3181590 2261130 61
1890-94 3571785 2341170 62
1895-99 3931965 2381190 60
1900-04 4662330 2891445 67
1905-09 5222610 3771885 85
1910-13 6113055 4742370 107