[A3-6-2] In Italy's best period, the protective system bears a specifically municipal complexion; in democracies, a guild-complexion; the former especially because of the many differential duties in favor of the capital.
A very highly-developed protective system in Florence. The exportation of the means of subsistence forbidden (Della Decima, II, 13), and so likewise the importation of finished cloths. (Stat Flor., 1415, V, p. 3; Rubr., 32, 39, 41, 43, 45.) In the streets devoted to the woolen industries, it was not permitted to give the manufacturers notice to quit their dwellings, nor to increase their rent, unless the connoisseurs in the industry had admitted a higher rate of profit. (Decima, II, 88.) In order to promote the silk industry, the importation of silk-worms and of the mulberry leaf was freed from the payment of duties in 1423, the exportation of raw silk, cocoons and of the mulberry leaf forbidden in 1443; and in 1440, every countryman was commanded to plant mulberry trees. (Decima, II, 115.) When Pisa was subdued, the Florentines reserved to themselves all the wholesale trade, and prohibited there all silk and woolen industries. (Sismondi, Gesch. der italienischen Republic, XII, 171.) It was a principle followed by Milan in its best period, to exempt manufacturers from taxation. Yearly subsidies, accorded about 1442, to Florentine silk-manufacturers, who immigrated; in 1493, a species of expropriation, in case of houses which a neighbor needed for manufacturing purposes. (Verri, Mem. Storiche, p. 62.) Bolognese prohibition of the exportation of manuscripts, because they wanted to monopolize science. (Cibrario, E. polit. del. medio. Evo., III, 166.) Even in the seventeenth century, a city like Urbino forbade the exportation of cattle, wheat, wood, wool, skins, coal, as well as the importation of cloth, with the exception of the very costliest kinds. (Constitut. Due. Urbin., I, p. 388 ff., 422 ff.)
[A3-6-3] In England, since the fourteenth century, all genuinely national and popular kings always bore it in mind both to secure emancipation from the Hanseates, to invite foreigners skilled in industry to the country (the Flemings since 1331, although the English people disliked to see them come; Rymer, Foedd., IV, 496) and to adopt protective measures, especially when they had reason to rely on the bourgeoisie. (Pauli, Gesch. von England, V, 372.) The precursors of the navigation act, 1381, 1390, 1440. (Anderson, Origin of Commerce.) The prohibition of exporting raw wool (1337, II Edw. III., c. 1 ff.) lasted only one year. Wool remained a long time still so much of a chief staple commodity that in 1354, for instance, £277,000 worth were exported; of all other commodities taken together, only £16,400. (Anderson.) On the other hand, the prohibition to import foreign stuffs (1337), for instance, was repeated in 1399, and the prohibition to export woolen yarn and unfulled cloths in 1376, 1467, 1488. The statutes of employment operated very generally. The statutes provided that foreign merchants should employ the English money they received only to purchase English commodities, and their hosts, with whom they were obliged to live, had to become security therefor. Thus, in 1390, 4 Henry IV., c. 15, and 15 Henry IV., c. 9; 18 Henry VI., c. 4, 1477. Prohibitions of the exportation of money, 1335, 1344, 1381. Even in the case of payment by the bishops to the pope, the exportation of money was forbidden in 1391, 1406, 1414. Henry VIII. (3 Henry VIII., c. 1) threatened the exportation of money with the penalty of double payment. Even in 1455, the importation of all finished silk wares was prohibited for five years. See a long list of similar prohibitions in Anderson. The prohibitions relating to the exporting of raw materials, and especially wool, were exceedingly strict in Elizabeth's time, and stricter yet in the seventeenth century. The penalty of death was attached to their violation, and producers subjected to the most burthensome control. Moderated especially by 8 Geo. I., c. 15. In the eighteenth century we again find a series of import-premiums for raw material from the English colonies. Compare Adam Smith, IV, ch. 8.
[A3-6-4] Sismondi, Histoire des Français, XIX, 126, considers as the beginning of the French industrial protective system, the edict of 1572, by which, with a view of promoting the woolen, hemp and linen manufactures, the exportation of the raw material and the importation of the finished commodities are prohibited. (Isambert, Recueil, XIV, p. 241.) Yet even Philip IV., in 1302, had prohibited the exportation of the precious metals, of corn, wine and other means of subsistence. (Ordonn., I, 351, 372.) About 1332, the decision of the question whether the exportation of wool also should be forbidden was made to depend on who offered the most, the raw-producers or those engaged in industry. (Sismondi, X, 67 seq.) The third estate not unfrequently asked for protective measures from the parliaments: thus, in 1484, a prohibition against the importation of cloth and silk stuffs, and against the exportation of money (Sismondi, XIV, 673), claims which went much further in 1614, when freedom of trade, reform of the guilds, etc., were desired. Opposition of Sully to the industrial-political measures of Henry IV., whose prohibition of foreign and gold stuffs lasted scarcely one year. (Forbonnais, Finances de Fr., c. 44.) The edict of 1664, which, for the first time, created a boundary tariff-system for the greater part of France, with the removal of numerous export and import duties of the several provinces, and the abolition even of the duty-liberties of the King's court, marks an epoch. The introduction in which Colbert lets the King speak of his services to the taxation-system, the marine, colonies, etc., in which he describes the chaos of those earlier duties, and demonstrates their desirability of doing away with them, is very interesting. Colbert, inconsistently enough, allowed a number of export duties for industrial products to remain, that he might not alienate any domanial rights. (Forbonnais, I, 352.) The tariff, then very moderate, was, in 1677, doubled in part, and even trebled, which provoked retaliation, and led to the war of 1672. Hence, in 1678, the tariff of 1664 was, for the most part, restored. Colbert entirely prohibited these commodities, which were still imported, spite of the tariff: thus, Venetian mirrors and laces in 1669 and 1671. Among his characteristic measures are the export-premiums for salt-meats which went to the colonies in order to draw this business away from Holland to France. (Forbonnais, I, 465.) He caused the transit between Portugal and Flanders to be made through France by providing that it should be carried on by means of royal ships at any price. (Forbonnais, I, 438.) Compare Clement, Histoire de la vie et de l'Administration de C. (1846). Jonbleau, Études sur C. ou Exposition du Système d'Économie Politique suivi de 1661 à 1683 (II, 1856). Lettres, Instructions et Mémoires de C. publiés par Clément (1861 ff.).
[A3-6-5] In Germany, the tariff projects of the empire of 1522, contemplated no protection, inasmuch as imports and exports were equally taxed, but the importation of the most necessary means of subsistence was left free. Prohibition of the exportation of the precious metals in 1524; of the exportation of raw wool mit grossen Haufen (R. P. O., of 1548, art. 21; 1566, and in the R. P. O. of 1577, limited to the pleasure of the several districts). Hence, in Brandenburg, 1572 and 1578, the Saxons, Pommeranians and Mecklenburghers were prohibited to export wool and to import cloth, in retaliation. Individual states had much earlier adopted protective measures: Göttingen, in 1430, prohibited the exportation of yarn, and in 1438, the wearing of foreign woolen stuffs. (Havemann, Gesch. von Braunschweig und Luneburg, I, 780 seq.) Hanseatic politics recall in many respects the Venetian. After 1426, the sale of Prussian ships to non-Hanseates was made as difficult as possible; and in 1433, the importation of Spanish wool was prohibited in order to compel the payment of debts by Spain. (Hirsch, Gesch. des Danziger, H. 87, 268.) Prohibition of the exportation of the precious metals to Russia at the end of the thirteenth century. Sartorius, II, 444, 453, III, 191. The elector, Augustus of Saxony, forbade the exportation of corn, wool, hemp and flax (Cod. Aug. I., 1414). The Bavarian L. O., of 1553, prohibits generally the sale of corn, cattle, malt, tallow, leather or other Plennwerthe to foreigners; which prohibition was, in 1557, limited to cattle, malt, tallow, wool and yarn.
The protective system received its most important development in Prussia. Prohibition by the margrave, about the end of the thirteenth century, of the exportation of woolen yarn. (Stengel, Pr. Gesch., I, 84.) In the privilege accorded to the weavers of woolen wares, in 1414, the importation of the less important cloths is forbidden for two years. (Droysen, Preuss. Gesch. I, 323.) The prohibition of the exportation of wool of 1582 assigns as a reason of the prohibition, that the numerous leading weavers should not be ruined for the sake of a few unmarried journeymen and sellers. (Mylius, C. C. M., V, 2, 207.) In the prohibitions of 1611 and 1629, the domains, the estates of prelates and knights were exempted; similarly, in Saxony, 1613-1626; which is one of the many symptoms of the then growing Junkerthum. The great elector, who attached, both in war and peace, great value to the possession of coasts, men-of-war and colonies, forbade, for instance, the importation of copper and brass wares (1654), of glass (1658), of steel and iron (1666), of tin (1687); farther, the exportation of wool (1644), leather (1669), skins and furs (1678), silver (1683), rags (1685). Home commodities were, for the most part, stamped with the elector's arms, and all which were not so stamped were prohibited. The prohibition was generally preceded by a notice that the elector had himself established or improved a manufactory, or that the guilds (Innungen) had entered complaints against foreign competition. Not till 1682 did the idea occur to impose a moderate excise on the home product to be favored, and a much higher duty on the foreign one; thus in the case of sugar. (Mylius, IV, 3, 2, 16.) Frederick I. continued this system especially for the forty-three branches of industry hitherto unknown, and the introduction of which was contemporaneous with the reception of the Huguenots. (Stengel, 3, 48, 208.) Frederick William I., in 1719 and 1723, threatened the exportation of wool, under certain circumstances, with death. (Mylius, V, 2, 4, 64, 80.) The severity with which he insisted that his officials and officers should wear only home cloth is characteristic; and the fact that in 1719 he threatened tailors who worked foreign cloth, with heavy money fines and the loss of their guild-rights. At the same time all workers in wool were freed from military duty, and capitalists who had loaned money to wool manufacturers were given a preference (1729). Frederick the Great, who continued nearly all this, prohibited the exportation of Silesian yarn, with the exception of the very coarsest and finest, as well as of that which had been bleached. Its exportation was allowed to Bohemia only, because from here the linen went back again to Silesia to be bleached and sold there. (Mirabeau, De la Monarchie Pruss., II, 54.)
[A3-6-6] Important beginnings of a protective system in Sweden, under Gustavus Wasa, and again under Charles IX., the violent opponent of the supremacy of the nobility (Geijer, Schwed. Gesch. II, 118 ff., 346); while Christian II., of Denmark, failed in all such endeavors. The founder of the Russian industrial protection was Peter the Great, who was in complete accordance with the native theorist, I. Possoschkow: Compare Brückner, in the Baltische Monatschrift, Bd. VI (1862), and VI (1863). Spain first adopted a real protective system under the Bourbons. The export prohibitions issued mostly at the request of the cortes between 1550 and 1560 (Ranke, Fürsten und Völker, I, 400 ff.) must be considered as a remnant of the medieval scarcity-policy, induced principally by a misunderstood depreciation of the precious metals.
SECTION VII.
HOW LONG IS PROTECTION JUSTIFIABLE?
All rational education keeps in view as its object, the subsequent independence of the pupil. If it desired to continue its guardianship, the payment of fees, etc., until an advanced age, it would thereby demonstrate either the pupil's want of capacity or the absurdity of its methods. The industrial protective system also can be justified as an educational measure only on the assumption that it may be gradually dispensed with; that is, that, by its means, there may be a prospect of attaining to freedom of trade.[A3-7-1] In the case of all highly civilized nations, the presumption is in favor of freedom of trade, both at home and abroad, and in such nations, the desire for a protective system must be looked upon as a symptom of disease.[A3-7-2] [A3-7-3] It is true, that recently the inferiority of young countries, even when inhabited by a very active and highly educated people, is greatly enhanced by the improvement of the means of communication. But this is richly compensated for by the simultaneous instinct towards emigration, both of capital and workmen from over-full, highly industrial countries; whereas, the prohibitions by the state, that extreme of exportation embargoes, formerly so frequently resorted to, it is no longer possible to carry out.[A3-7-4] [A3-7-5] Now the young country has the advantage of being able immediately to use the newest processes of labor, etc., without being hindered by the existence there of earlier imperfect apparatus. It is certain that international freedom of trade must be of advantage to a people's nationality the moment they have attained to the maturity of manhood, for the reason that they are thereby forced to make the most of that which is peculiar to them. Care must be taken not to confound many-sidedness with all-sidedness.[A3-7-6] The best "protection of national labor" might consist in this, that all products should be really individually characteristic (artistic), all individuals really national, and national also in their tastes as consumers. This ideal has been pretty closely approximated to by the French in respect to fashionable commodities, so that they will hardly purchase such from abroad, even without a protective tariff; and the cultured of most nations in respect to works of art. Here, too, it is worth considering, that even the most national of poets, when they are great enough to rise to the height of the universally human, possess the greatest universality.[A3-7-7]