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

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THE WAR AND FLUCTUATIONS IN MARITIME INTERCOURSE 685 The condition of the less favoured members of the system AD was even worse; their interests were entirely subordinated to those of France, while their commerce was diverted, or interrupted, in a way that caused serous trouble in all parts of the continent, and did comparatively little harm to England. Her colonial and distant commerce increased and gave ample employment to shipping that would otherwise have been engaged in European waters; English manufactures were so and a large far indispensable’, that a large contraband trade sprang up at on once, and quantities of goods were also imported by officials #™" *- who had licences permitting them to engage in the prohibited sraffic’. Napoleon, in the hope of doing something for native manufactures, at last determined to confiscate and destroy all English goods; and large bonfires were lighted in Antwerp, Nantes, Ratisbon, Leipsic, Civita Vecchia and many other places. This was the beginning of the end ; the loss mcurred, following as it did on a long period of uncertain and speculative trade, brought about a collapse of business everywhere; even the favoured French manufacturers were in despair, and the other members of the Continental System, who had been obliged to join in the exclusion of English products, became utterly disaffected by the tyranny imposed on them in the name of commercial liberty. Russia suffered especially, and the military expedition to Moscow? was rendered necessary by Napoleon's determination to maintain the Continental System; the weapon which he had forged in the hope of dealing a fatal blow at English prosperity* was turned against himself, stated, was his creed. At that time, wheat fetched more than £5 the quarter; and sur great enemy, imagining the drain of our gold to be a greater loss to us than the incoming of new life was gain, pursued the very policy which enabled us to survive that year of scarcity without a serious strain. In 1811-1812 those precious exports of corn from the Napoleonic States ceased, but only because there was not enough for their own people. “In the latter year, especially, the bread-stuffs of Prussia and Poland were drawn into the devouring vortex of Napoleon's Russian expedition; and this purely military reason explains why the best Danzig sold at Mark Lane at £9 the quarter, and why England was on the brink of starvation. There is not a shred of evidence to prove that the autocrat himself ever framed that notion of cutting off our food supplies, which our Continental friends now frankly tell us would be :heir chief aim in case of a great war.” p. 74. ! Rose, Eng. Hist. Rev., 1893, p. 722. 2 Rose, Life of Napoleon, mw. 222. } Ib, mw. 235. 4 7b. rr. 103 and 211—216.

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