CHAPTER VI
TRADE
The chapter on trade under the Stuarts may be introduced by certain extracts from a paper written by Sir Walter Raleigh early in the seventeenth century. It was called “Observations on Trade and Commerce,” in which he compares the Dutch trade and Dutch merchants with our own, very much to our disadvantage. The following, he says, are the seven points in which the Dutch surpass us:—
“1. The Merchant Staplers which maketh all Things in abundance, by reason of their Store-houses continually replenished with all kinds of Commodities.
2. The Liberty of free Traffick for Strangers to buy and sell in Holland, and other Countries and States, as if they were free-born, maketh great intercourse.
3. The small Duties levied upon Merchants, draws all Nations to trade with them.
4. Their fashioned ships continually freighted before ours, by reason of their few Mariners and great Bulk, serving the Merchant cheap.
5. Their forwardness to further all manner of Trading.
6. Their wonderful employment of their Busses for Fishing, and the great Returns they make.
7. Their giving free Custom inwards and outwards, for any new-erected Trade, by Means whereof they have gotten already almost the sole Trade into their hands.”
“Thus,” he goes on, “as regards the storing of merchandize, Amsterdam is never without a supply of 700,000 quarters of corn, which they keep always ready besides what they sell; and the like with other commodities, so that if a Dearth of Fish, wine, grain, or anything else begins in the country, forthwith the Dutch are ready with fifty or a hundred ships dispersing themselves at every ‘Port-Town’ in England, trading away their cargoes and carrying off English gold. Moreover, the Dutch have in their hands the greater part of the carrying trade of France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Turkey, the East Indies, and the West Indies. Yet London is a much more convenient port for a store-house and for the carrying trade if our merchants would but bend their course for it.”
As for small duties in foreign countries compared with the excessive customs in ours. James, it will be remembered, relied on his Customs duties, which were heavy, thereby keeping off foreign trade. In Holland the Customs duties were so much lighter that a ship which would pay £900 in the port of London could be cleared at Amsterdam for £50. Raleigh points out that what is lost by lowering the duties is more than made up by the increase of trade when the duties are low. He advocates Free Trade, observe, long before that innovation was thought of.
By the “fashion” of the ships he means the Dutch merchant vessels called “Boyers, Hoy-barks, and Hoys,” constructed to contain a great bulk of merchandise and to sail with a small crew. Thus an English ship of 200 tons required a crew of thirty hands, while a ship of the same tonnage built in Holland wanted no more than nine or ten mariners.
Then, again, as to their “forwardness” in trading. In one year and a half the merchants of Holland, Hamburg, and Emden carried off from Southampton, Exeter, and Bristol alone near £200,000 in gold. And perhaps £2,000,000, taking the whole of the kingdom into account. The Dutch alone sent 500 or 600 ships every year to England, while we sent but thirty to Holland.
A warning and an example is presented by the fallen and decayed condition of Genoa. Formerly this city was the most prosperous of all trading cities. All nations traded there; but in an evil moment Genoa declared a Customs duty of 10 per cent, which caused the whole of her trade to vanish. Why, again, Raleigh asks, do we not secure for ourselves the magnificent fisheries which lie off our shores? In four towns within the Sound are sold every year between 30,000 and 40,000 casts of herrings, representing £620,000. In Denmark, Norway, Sweden, etc., are sold our herrings, caught on our shores, to the amount of £170,000. This fishery represents over a million sterling in addition to all this. They are herrings caught off our shores, and yet we have no share in this great trade.