superior to any orders issued by the Privy Council and much less likely to be modified in the immediate future. A Committee of the House of Commons heard evidence on the extent of the trade with the French Plantations, comparative prices and fiscal burdens. It was well calculated to arouse prejudices. One witness, for instance, asserted that it was the sale which the French had for molasses in the northern colonies that enabled them to produce sugar on such a large scale and sell it cheaply in Europe.1 As a result of the enquiry a bill was drafted which incorporated all that the West Indian interest demanded. The importation of foreign sugar, molasses or rum into Great Britain, Ireland or any British dominion was to be forbidden, and foreign sugar Plantations were not to be supplied with horses or timber. The representatives of the continental colonies sent in strong protests against the bill, and all the old arguments for and against it were restated in the controversy between the opposing interests. On the one side, depression in the British sugar islands and the development of the foreign Plantations were patent facts; on the other, the value of the foreign West Indian market to the northern colonies could not be denied. It was a question whether the British planters were to be given protection at the expense of the northern colonists. The House of Commons decided in favour of doing so; but the opposition succeeded in getting the House of Lords to delay a decision. In the following session the bill was reintroduced in the Commons and passed by a substantial majority of seventy-three, but again the House of Lords adjourned without taking definite action. In 1733, however, the bill passed the two Houses and became law. The Act2 commonly known as the Molasses Act-is entitled "An Act for the better securing and encouraging the Trade of his Majesty's Sugar Colonies in America". Duties were imposed on sugar, molasses and rum imported into the continental colonies from foreign Plantations -five shillings a hundred-weight on sugar, sixpence a gallon on molasses and ninepence a gallon on rum. These heavy duties would have ruined the trade had they been rigorously imposed, but, despite the penalties laid down in the Act, enforcement was impossible. In its final form the Act did not forbid the sending of cargoes to the foreign islands, the duties charged on return cargoes of sugar and molasses evidently being considered a sufficient discouragement to such trade. Consequently if the payment of duties could be evaded -as it largely could be-profitable intercourse between the northern colonies and the foreign West Indies could still be maintained. The British planters were forced to be content with other concessions which were designed to assist them to recover the European markets. One section of the Act granted them a drawback of the whole duty on sugar re-exported from Great Britain within a year 1 A résumé of the evidence is given in C.J. xxi, 685-9. 26 Geo. II, cap. 13. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE MOLASSES ACT 585 of its importation. The bounty on refined sugar exported from Great Britain was also raised. They continued to agitate, however, for permission to export sugar directly to the continent, and in 1739 they at last secured this privilege.1 An attempt was made to safeguard British shipping interests by requiring that all ships laden with sugar and bound for northern Europe should touch at a British port, while ships going to ports south of Cape Finisterre had to call at a British port before returning across the Atlantic. It would seem that comparatively little direct trade was actually established, for British West Indian sugar was not able to compete with rival supplies in the European market. Still the planters now had the power to divert cargoes to the continent if they were not satisfied with the prices offered in Great Britain. The strength of the West Indian interest had become a dominant factor in the control of colonial policy. This is to be explained partly by the survival of the older conceptions of the purposes to be served by colonies, and partly by the emergence of an organised group in the House of Commons. The presumption was still in favour of tropical colonies. Their exploitation naturally called into being interests which were prepared to support their claims by incessant argument, and did not disdain the judicious expenditure of money in quarters where it might be effective. The extent of British investment in the sugar colonies is difficult to ascertain, but there is good reason to believe that in the eighteenth century more capital was attracted from Great Britain to this enterprise than to any other. The advances usually took the form of affording long credits on goods exported to the West Indies. It was, therefore, a matter of considerable importance that the planters should be able to meet their obligations punctually. Depression of trade, from whatever cause, would make it impossible for them to do so; and investors would naturally demand such measures as they supposed necessary to restore the prosperity of the islands. There are many indications that those who were interested in the West Indies enjoyed positions of social prestige and political influence at home. They were able to promote a vigorous pamphleteering campaign when they wished, and they could count on strong support in the House of Commons. The West Indian interest tended to stereotype the colonial system. It lent the full weight of its prejudices to perpetuating the mercantilist view of the value of colonies, when the developments in the continental colonies urgently demanded the modification of policy. To attempt to arrest development by protecting the interests of the sugar planters was merely to court disaster. Colonisation was too accidental in its inception and too uncertain in its consequences to fit into a hard and fast system. Colonial policy required to be adaptable. To be rigid in changing circumstances is often to be rendered ridiculous by the 1 12 Geo. II, cap. 30. event. The Molasses Act might be justified by the maxims of mercantilism and might accord with the interests of the West Indian planters; but the fact remained that it made an important part of the trade of the northern colonies virtually impossible if the provisions of the Act were obeyed, or illicit if they were disregarded. The New England colonies had shown themselves unceasingly active in political opposition to the Imperial Government ever since their foundation, and the addition of flagrant economic grievances to their many political complaints was bound to make their opposition much more dangerous. The difficulty was possibly unavoidable, but the situation was rapidly proving itself beyond the competence of the mercantile theorists, and manifestly contained the germs of serious trouble to the Empire. The problems raised by the production of sugar are the best illustration of the conflict of economic interests in the colonies themselves. For an example of the difficulty of reconciling the interests of the colonies with those of the mother country reference must be made to the iron industry. In the first part of the eighteenth century the output of iron in England was restricted by the shortage of fuel. Large quantities of bar iron had to be imported, mostly from Sweden. This naturally raised the twofold question of the possible danger of dependence on a source of supply which might be cut off at any time, and the adverse effect on the balance of trade even if the supply was assured. It was known that there were extensive deposits of iron ore in the colonies and the forests were an abundant source of timber for the making of charcoal. Experiments had been made in Virginia and Maryland, and the New England colonies had attempted to supply the requirements of their shipyards. The English ironmasters, however, viewed these developments with suspicion. They were anxious to keep the colonial markets, particularly for wrought iron and hardware, for themselves. At the beginning of the century they had petitioned against the giving of a drawback on foreign wrought iron goods re-exported from England to the colonies, and Parliament acceded to their petition. They quite realised, however, that the attempt to monopolise the colonial markets might tend to promote iron manufactures there. The problem was how to subordinate iron production in the colonies to the interests of the industry in the mother country. Could pig and bar iron be regarded as the raw materials of British industries? This question was raised as a practical issue in 1717 when strained relations with Sweden led to the prohibition by proclamation of all trade with that country. The prices of iron soared to the dismay of merchants and hardware manufacturers. It was therefore proposed to find a new source of supply by including bar and pig iron in the list of goods the production of which was to be encouraged in the colonies under the head of naval stores. A bill to give effect to these suggestions was strongly opposed by the iron COLONIAL IRON MANUFACTURE 587 masters; and it did not become law, for the crisis caused by the strained relations with Sweden ended with the death of Charles XII. In the following twenty years the production of iron made steady progress in the American colonies, and the export from Virginia and Maryland slowly increased. Great Britain itself still depended on Sweden and to a growing extent on Russia for considerable supplies of bar iron. It was computed that England imported annually about 20,000 tons of foreign iron, of which 15,000 tons came from Sweden and 5000 tons from Russia. Between 1729 and 1735 the annual import of iron from the American Colonies was 2111 tons. "It is strange", Gee says ruefully, "that this great charge to the nation should not be thought of, and encouragement given to the subjects of this kingdom to set up iron works in the Plantations, and there employ the national stock, rather than let foreigners run away with so great a sum."2 A number of merchants did raise the question of encouraging the importation of pig and bar iron from the colonies in 1737; but they found the opposition as powerful as ever. The Committee of the House of Commons, to which the matter was referred, reported that any encouragement would be prejudicial to iron smelting at home, and the House itself so far from sympathising with the petitioners was prepared to impose restrictions on the colonial industry. Again the question was allowed to drop. In the presence of the divergent interests legislation was impossible until 1750 when the French orientation of Swedish policy induced the House of Commons to attempt to find a solution. A compromise was embodied in the Act then passed. Colonial bar iron was to be imported to London-and London only-duty free, for since the London craftsmen normally used Swedish iron, the English ironmasters had no strong objection to this concession. It was, however, laid down that colonial bar iron should not be sent coastwise or more than ten miles by land from London. These limitations, which were removed in 1757, were based on apprehensions which had little foundation, for the importation of bar iron from America remained small during the whole colonial period. Before the passing of the Act large quantities of pig iron were being imported on the payment of a duty of 3s. 91d. a ton, and the removal of this charge together with the growth of the industry in the colonies was followed by an increase in importation. But colonial iron-pig and bar-was never more than about a tenth of the total import of Great Britain, and dependence on Sweden and Russia was ultimately removed by technical changes in the industry itself. The removal of duties on the import of colonial iron, since the duty on pig iron was small and bar iron could only enter through the port of London, was a slight concession to the colonies; yet it was counterbalanced in the Act by clauses which forbade the colonists to 1 Scrivenor, H., History of the Iron Trade, pp. 72 and 81. 23 Geo. II, cap. 29. establish mills for rolling and slitting iron, or to set up plating forges and steel furnaces. These restrictions, so far as they were enforced, affected the northern colonies rather than the southern, for in the latter it was pig iron that was usually produced. The extent of the hardship they involved is impossible to assess. In some cases they were seriously regarded, in others they were not; but the colonial iron industry as a whole was as yet in too primitive a condition to feel the full effect of such prohibitions. It is significant, however, that with iron as with sugar, colonial policy threatened to bear heavily on the northern colonies. By the middle of the century circumstances were calling for a revision of opinion on the relative importance of the colonies. The fact could not be disguised that the potentialities of the West Indies had been over-estimated. Jamaica, which had been declared "the most valuable Plantation belonging to the Crown", the loss of which would "probably be followed with the ruin of our interest in America”,1 had proved a disappointment. Despite the variety of its soil and the diversity of its crops-sugar, coffee, cotton, ginger and pimentoits white population was only about 12,000. There and elsewhere in the West Indies the growth of the white population seemed to be arrested. This was due to a number of causes. White settlers were ignorant of the nature of tropical diseases; their diet, with an excessive consumption of meat and rum, made them easy victims to the frequent epidemics. The mortality among children was high. Consequently any increase in population depended on immigration, and this was discouraged by the prevailing economic system. Planters found it profitable to cultivate large areas by means of slave labour, and there was little opening for poor whites. Attempts were made indeed by means of "deficiency laws" to insist that a certain proportion should be maintained between the number of blacks and whites employed; but these were unsuccessful because planters preferred paying the fine for breaking the law to incurring the expense of observing it. In fact, the fines became a recognised source of local revenue. In Barbados, which was the most flourishing island in the first part of the eighteenth century, the white population never reached 20,000, while the number of slaves is said to have amounted to 70,000 in 1762. Such figures as can be obtained reveal a similar position in the Leeward Islands—a stationary or even declining white and an increasing slave population. While the white population of the British West Indies was possibly 40,000 and showed no tendency to a natural increase, the population of the continental colonies exhibited that capacity for doubling itself in a generation which afterwards attracted the attention of Malthus. By the middle of the century there were well over a million white inhabitants in these colonies and something like 300,000 negroes, mostly in the tobacco 1 Wood, A Survey of Trade, pp. 173-4. |