The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

Usage license:: Get license information via the feedback formular.

A.D. 1776 1850. hut ded not break down her monopoly ; Vapoleon carted to levelop industries, 384 LAISSEZ FAIRE wandering over those wide seas where she claims the monopoly, and they seek in vain from the Straits of the Sound to the Hellespont; for one port which will open to receive them. * hd «The war itself is nothing more or less than a war for the freedom of commerce. Its violation was the original cause of the outbreak of hostilities. Europe is well aware of its danger, and the Emperor has constantly tried to make freedom for commerce the preliminary of all negotiations. Each of his conquests, by closing an outlet for English trade, has been a victory for French commerce. Thus this war, which has for the moment suspended all the commercial relations of France, has been a war made in her interest, as well as in the interest »f the whole of Europe, which up to now has been ground Jown by the monopoly of England.” Napoleon looked forward with satisfaction to a speedy rupture between England and the United States. But it was much easier to attempt to interrupt existing com- merce, than to call the machinery of production into being. Napoleon's positive scheme of establishing a Continental System, which should foster national prosperity and military resources in France, was an entire failure. He tried to develop the cultivation of cotton in Corsica, and the manufacture of beet-root sugar, so as to provide substitutes for colonial produce; this industry was widely diffused, but it had no real vitality, and collapsed on the fall of the Empire. He allowed the export of food-stuffs to England in 1811, when they were sorely needed, as he believed this would stimulate French and Italian agriculture, and drain Britain of gold® t The report of the Minister of Commerce made 24 Aug. 1807. Correspondance fe Napoleon Ier, vol. xv. p. 528. * This point has been excellently worked out by Mr Rose in the Monthly Review, March, 1902: “Thus, at the time when Napoleon was about to order British and colonial goods (for he now assumed that all colonial goods were British) to be confiscated or burnt all over his vast Empire, he seeks to stimulate axports to our shores. And why? Because such exports would benefit his States and enable public works to be carried out. We may go even further and say that Napoleon believed the effect of sending those exports to our shores would be to weaken us. His economic ideas were those of the crudest section of the old Mercantilist School. He believed that a nation’s commercial wealth consisted sssentially in its exports, while imports were to be jealously restricted because they drew bullion away. Destroy Britain's exports, and allow her to import what. aver hiz own lands could well spare and she would bleed to death. Such. briefly

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