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quantities and found a ready market in Spain and Portugal. It was added to the list of enumerated articles in 1706,1 with the result that the freight charges involved in first shipping it to England so increased the price that it could not compete with Egyptian and Italian rice. But this grievance of Carolina was removed in 1730 when the colony was allowed to export rice direct to any country in Europe south of Cape Finisterre.2

3

The mercantilists were much exercised by the question whether the mother country derived any real advantage from the northern continental colonies. They had most serious doubts about New England. None of its products had been enumerated because its climate was such that what could be grown there would enter into direct competition with English agriculture if imported to this country. "New England", Josiah Child asserted, "is the most prejudicial Plantation to this kingdom." The trouble was that New England was a replica of Old England and not its complement. It sold corn and cattle to the West Indies and the southern colonies, thus depriving the mother country of possible markets for these goods. Part of the sugar, tobacco and other commodities it secured in payment it shipped to England in order to purchase manufactured articles. But the difficulty of finding sufficient means to make exchanges with the mother country was so great that the colonists had a strong inducement to endeavour to supply their own requirements. The mercantilists were suspicious of incipient industries, the development of which would in their opinion be of serious consequence to the mother country. So they were anxious to discover some commodities that New England could produce which would enable her to be of service. The most hopeful suggestion seemed to be that she should concentrate on the production of naval stores, for these were required in England. Dependence on the supplies from the Baltic countries was a matter of much concern, and to eliminate the consequent adverse balances was highly desirable. But, although New England did produce the articles included under the head of naval stores and they were used by the local shipbuilders, they could not gain a footing in the English market in competition with the Baltic supplies owing to higher cost of production and heavy freight charges. At the end of the seventeenth century the exports of New England included few products of the region except train-oil and furs, and the problem of making the settlements beneficial to the mother country remained unsolved. But Child's description of New England as "the most prejudicial Plantation" was not accepted without qualification by subsequent writers. William Wood stressed the fact that in peace time the northern colonies could sell provisions in the other Plantations at a lower rate than the mother country could, and that in time of war the interdependence of the colonies was of first importance. 1 3 and 4 Anne, cap. 5. 2 3 Geo. II, cap. 28. 3 Child, p. 204.

OPPOSITION TO COLONIAL MANUFACTURES

573

He counted the general result advantageous to the mother country; for, if the northern colonies found markets for their provisions, they would not be tempted to set up manufactures but would expend the profits of their trade in buying from England. His general conclusion was that the northern colonies were a benefit so long as the country possessed the sugar islands. If by any chance the islands in the West Indies were lost they would become "prejudicial colonies to their mother country". He carried the discussion a step further than Child did; but he still gave to the northern colonies a secondary place in the colonial system.

The attempt to prescribe what the colonies should produce, based as it was on what was considered desirable rather than on an enquiry as to what was possible, was bound to meet with disappointments. Natural development of the resources which the colonists found to hand did not fit in with what the mercantilists conceived to be the interests of the mother country. Nor was it possible to restrict them to the extractive industries. Their needs as pioneers opening up a new country, their knowledge of industrial processes as emigrants from an old country, the potentialities of their new environment, were all factors likely to create opposing interests, which could not be reconciled within the narrow limits of any preconceived system. To clothe themselves the colonists were forced to make homespuns; but the transition from supplying the wants of the household to those of a local market was easy when production, even in the mother country, still depended on the use of the spinningwheel and the hand-loom. It is true that England could hold her own in quality. For rough use, however, colonial woollens had the advantage of immediate access to the purchasers with the economies that involved.

In view of the importance attached to the woollen industry as the staple industry of England it is not remarkable that the Board of Trade should have made an enquiry into its position one of its first tasks. That it apprehended a danger from Irish competition and recommended the restrictions which were imposed in 1699 is well known. The Board of Trade had represented to the House of Commons at the same time that "Notwithstanding it was the intent in settling our Plantations in America that the people there should be only employed in such things as are not the product of this kingdom... yet New England and other Northern Colonies have applied themselves too much, besides other things, to the improvement of woollen manufactures amongst themselves, which in its proportion is as prejudicial to this kingdom as the working of those manufactures in Ireland; wherefore it is submitted the like prohibition be made with relation to them". Powers were accordingly taken to prevent the

1 Wood, pp. 145-9 (cf. Davenant, II, 24).

Cal. St. Pap. Col., Addenda, 1621-98, pp. 17-18.

export of wool and woollens from the colonies to the British Isles or foreign countries or even from one colony to another.1 Probably the prohibition was no particular hardship at the time, even if it was enforced, for the individual colonies wished to retain the wool they grew for their own use, and the local manufacture of woollens had not made much progress. In the next year the more sensible step was taken of trying to discourage the development of the industry in the colonies by removing the heavy export duties which had been levied in England on woollens shipped to America. The manufacturers, however, still remained uneasy about possibilities in the colonies. The Board of Trade reported in 1703 that skilled English workers were being induced to emigrate, and there is evidence that during the War of the Spanish Succession the northern colonies had to supply their own requirements and that their manufacture of woollens made some progress. Joseph Dudley, Governor of Massachusetts, reported to the Board of Trade in March 1709 that "the woollen trade from England is in a great measure abated, the people here clothing themselves with their own wool".2 The reasons he ascribed for this were the high price of English woollens and the difficulty of securing return cargoes to pay for imports.

The members of the Board of Trade realised, indeed, that the growth of manufactures in the northern colonies could only be prevented if the colonists had a market for their provisions, and if they could discover some commodities which might be produced for export to the mother country. For while their provisions might advantageously be sold in the other Plantations, they could not be allowed to enter England. Ships sometimes waited in the northern ports for months before they could secure a return cargo. In these circumstances the Board of Trade took up again the old suggestion of giving encouragement to the production of naval stores. They had the advantage of the active support of Richard Coote, Earl of Bellomont, who as Governor of New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire was convinced that the resources of the colonies could be exploited. He saw that, if the colonial commodities were to compete with the Baltic supplies, it was a question of working out very carefully the costs of production-particularly the labour costs-and of facilitating transport. Bellomont died in office before he could do much, but his efforts would probably have been fruitless had not the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession raised a new issue. Sweden had formed a company-the Stockholm Tar Company-which was to enjoy a monopoly of the trade in tar and pitch. The Company regulated the quantities to be sold and thereby controlled prices, and it was also provided that the export of the tar and pitch should be confined to Swedish shipping. This action greatly strengthened the hands of the advocates of the scheme to encourage the 1 10 and 11 Will. III, cap. 10. 2 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1708–9, p. 236.

PRODUCTION OF NAVAL STORES ENCOURAGED 575

production of naval stores in the British colonies. The Board of Trade recommended that subsidies should be offered for an initial period at least.1 In 1705, therefore, an Act was passed which was to remain in force for nine years in the first instance. Naval stores were included among the enumerated articles. Bounties were to be given on the importation into England of naval stores, £4 a ton on tar and pitch, £3 on resin and turpentine, £6 a ton on hemp and £I a ton on masts, yards and bowsprits.2 The premium was to be paid on the receipt of the proper certificate by the Commissioners of the Navy. The attitude of Sweden and the payment of bounties gave the colonists the opportunity of establishing the industry, for they could now meet the high costs of production.

Lord Bellomont had entertained the idea of getting cheap labour by employing soldiers to prepare naval stores, giving them a small addition to their regular pay. În 1710a project of this kind was actually taken up by the Government in interesting circumstances. Three thousand Germans, who had sought refuge in England from the wardevastated Palatinate, were shipped to New York at the expense of the Government. They were to be indentured servants until they had repaid the capital advanced for their passage and settlement. During this period they were to produce tar, pitch, turpentine and resin from the trees on the banks of the Hudson River. The scheme proved a failure. The white pines of New York were not suited for the purpose; the Germans had no knowledge of the work they were expected to do and became discontented; and in the end the Government ceased to give any further financial support.3

Suspicion of the economic tendencies in the northern colonies was somewhat allayed by the course of events during the War of the Spanish Succession. It had to be acknowledged that as a source of supplies for the West Indian colonies they had played an important part. The Board of Trade itself reported in 1709 that the West Indies would not be able to carry on their trade, or even to subsist (especi ally in time of war) without the necessary supplies from the northern Plantations of bread, drink, fish and flesh of cattle, and horses for cultivating their plantations, of lumber and staves for casks for their sugar, rum and molasses, and of timber for building their houses and sugar works". In addition, the advocates of the production of naval stores had, through favouring circumstances, been able to get the payment of bounties on them. In these two directions it might be possible to solve the problem of giving the growing population of the northern colonies the means of exchanging their natural products either indirectly or directly for the manufactures of the mother country.

1 Cal. St. Pap. Col. 1704-5, p. 177. 3 and 4 Anne, cap. 10.

3 Cobb, S. H., The Story of the Palatines, ch. iv, v. Quoted by Andrews, C. M., The Colonial Background of the American Revolution, p. 90.

But the prospects were not altogether reassuring. If the northern colonies devoted much attention to the supplying of the West Indies with provisions, they would probably arrive at a point when the British islands there would not afford a sufficiently extensive market. The temptation then would be to trade with the foreign islands, particularly with those belonging to France. With respect to naval stores it was already fairly clear that the bounties would be more successful in evoking supplies of tar and pitch than in encouraging the production of hemp and timber. Tar and pitch, however, came mainly from Carolina where the existence of suitable pine forests contributed the support of natural resources to the assistance of the bounty policy. Nor could the mercantilists overlook the fact that the Government had been induced to pay bounties not so much by their arguments as by the special circumstances of the moment. There might be a reaction against the policy when it proved expensive in peace time.

The terms of the Treaty of Utrecht influenced colonial history for the next generation. Not that Great Britain's acquisitions in America were particularly important in themselves. The abandonment by France of her territorial claims in Newfoundland must be set against the acknowledgment of her right to dry fish on a defined part of the coast about which disputes inevitably arose. The cession of Acadia and the recognition of British claims in the Hudson Bay territory also carried with them the seeds of future trouble because in neither case were definite boundaries established. Contemporary opinion, indeed, did not set much store on territorial expansion as such, the mercantilist view being that new land might be a source of weakness unless it were peopled, and the drain on the home population was already considerable enough. "Number of men", writes Wood, "are to be preferred to the largeness of dominion."1 The only acquisition which was obviously a gain was that of the French half of the island of St Christopher because it made it possible to reduce the British garrison in the island, and it added some 20,000 acres of land for sugar plantation.

From the commercial point of view the most important result of the peace negotiations with France was a negative one, namely, that they did not lead to the placing of trade relations between the two countries on a more liberal basis. The Tories, to whom the task of making the peace fell, proposed that Great Britain should adopt a low tariff on French commodities, and that each country should accord the other most favoured nation treatment. The Whigs, strongly supported by the merchants and manufacturers who profited from the existing system of high tariffs, and appealing to the bugbear of the balance, succeeded in defeating these proposals. While the Tories professed a belief in the ability of British manufactures to hold their own against French goods and insisted on the 1 Wood, p. 162.

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