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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COMMERCIAL RELATIONS WITH FRANCE AND PORTUGAL 457 to these writers that to allow the carrying on of commerce A.D. 1689 with many lands, while the less desirable branches of trade were subjected to high duties, was an easy method of increasing the revenue of the Crown? The more generous economic policy thus commended itself to the Court party, who took the line of favouring a large customs revenue, even when it was to the disadvantage of the landed interest. Their opponents urged that any but the branches of commerce, which seemed to compete with the bi oh industry of the country, should be prohibited, and that those Z5ae ;.; which affected the manufacturing interests favourably should Sovounably be developed as far and as rapidly as possible. The opposition eR statesmen had thus reached a point of view from which they ““* " were inclined to discard the policy of well-ordered trade altogether, and to adopt modern tactics in the branches of commerce they approved. They did not limit the supply of English goods with the view of keeping up the price obtainable in foreign markets; they tried to increase the volume of business, even though the prices at which particular transactions took place might sometimes be very low. The struggle in regard to commercial policy between the Court and the Country parties was fought out over the French trade, and the Country party won. The Whigs were undoubtedly right in attaching a very high and relied importance to the influence of trade on industrial progress; 90 Suions and the Tories were not in a position to establish their point, Ci and make it clear that a real benefit accrued to the country, Te indirectly and ultimately, through the existence of branches of commerce which seemed to be injurious to certain indus- tries. The public had come to see that the prohibition of the export of bullion should not be applied mechanically. Mun had convinced his readers that, by means of a small export of silver, a series of commercial movements might be set on foot, which would result in the return of a greatly increased mass of bullion to the country. The protectionists employed the balance of trade as an index of what was good or bad in commercial affairs, as if it might be relied on absolutely, and they held the field. Not one of the controversialists of 1 See below, p. 600.

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