417. Importance of the commerce of England.—In returning to the study of the development of commerce in different countries we shall take up first the country which at the beginning of the nineteenth century, and at its end as well, held the leading position, England. An English author has made the statement that “in the eighteenth century foreign trade was of so little importance to the majority of the inhabitants of England, that with one important exception (wheat) the whole of it might have been destroyed without making any appreciable change in the habits or wealth of the people.” This statement is an exaggeration which can hardly be supported, but yet it suggests a truth of great importance; English commerce in 1800 was merely an aid to the development and welfare of the country, while it had become in 1900 absolutely necessary to the mere existence of the people.

418. Statistics of the growth of commerce, 1800-1850.—The period of most rapid growth was the second half of the nineteenth century, and this period will be reserved for special consideration a little later. The development in the first half of the century is set forth in the accompanying table, which gives the figures for imports retained in the country, and for the exports of home produce, according to the system of valuation in use in this period, with the sum of these items.

As the population doubled in this period it is apparent that foreign commerce, which more than doubled in value, was taking a more important place in the national economy than before. In the first quarter of the century, when England was passing through the struggle of the Napoleonic wars and was recovering from their effects, trade was nearly stagnant, but it made up in the twenty-five years that followed for the time that had been lost before. If we measure commerce not by the value of the wares, but by their physical quantity, the increase was far more striking; prices of many articles, especially of the manufactures exported, fell during this period, and consequently the same bulk of trade would be represented by much smaller figures in pounds sterling. If we returned to the old method of measuring trade, which retained “official” values that did not change with the movement of market prices, and which therefore affords a means of measuring an increase in the bulk of trade, we should find, comparing the two years, 1800 and 1849, that exports grew from 24 million to 190 million pounds sterling, giving the enormous increase of 682 per cent.

419. Change in the relative importance of different exports.—We can expect, by studying the details of exports in this period, to find the branches of production in which the English were strong enough to enable them to supply other people and to extend their commerce. Taking the figures for 1850, we find the evidence of some important changes. The old staple of the English export trade, woolen manufactures and yarn, had increased since 1800 in value, and still more in quantity. It had ceased, however, to be the standby of the English exporter; this item formed now less than one seventh of the exports instead of over one fourth. It had been thrust into the second place by the rival textile cotton, which had become, as it was destined to remain throughout the century, the leading item among English exports. Cotton yarn and manufactures made up 28 out of a total of 71 million pounds sterling. Among other changes in the list we note the growth of the iron and steel, the hardware and the coal exports. Some items are interesting because they are still so small; among those which remained below the million-pound mark were steam-engines and machinery, pottery, and tin plate.

420. Development of English manufactures.—It is apparent that this period was marked by a rapid development of English manufactures. Taking two manufactures, typical of an advanced industrial state, iron and cotton, we find that the increase in production is estimated at over tenfold or more than 1000 per cent; as the quantity of population had merely doubled it is apparent that its quality, or the character of its occupations, underwent a revolutionary change. It is, in fact, in this first half of the nineteenth century that the enormous possibilities latent in the inventions of the eighteenth century became apparent and were realized. The great inventions were not enough, in themselves, to transform industry. They needed to be developed by practical business men, who could secure the necessary capital to utilize them to the best advantage, who had the talent for organization enabling them to build up an efficient force of laborers, who could stimulate further technical improvements necessary to supplement the great inventions, and who could develop a mercantile system enabling them to buy and sell large quantities to good advantage. Some English manufactures remained “domestic” industries carried on in the home of the workman, but the most important advanced to the factory system, and were thus enabled to get the full advantage from technical improvements.

421. Introduction of machinery.—It is in this period that the knowledge and experience necessary to the proper handling of machinery spread from narrow circles to broad groups of men. The market for machinery was thus established, and the manufacture of tools and machines underwent a corresponding development; in 1836 it was “difficult to point out any leading mechanical process, the details of which have not been, by this means, simplified, and the article produced brought nearer to perfection.” Inventors from other countries sought British shops to perfect their devices, and British factories in which to introduce them. Some of the best textile machinery of this period was invented in the United States and other countries, but was first put to practical use in England.

422. Steam power and railroad transportation.—It is in this period, also, that the steam-engine became a practical force in English manufactures. The steam-engine had been introduced in Birmingham in 1780, but the number of engines in that rising center of manufactures was in 1815 only 42 and in 1830 still only 120, while in the nine years following the number rose to 240, or doubled. In 1835 the textile factories of England employed only a little over 50,000 mechanical horse-power, and of this total nearly a quarter was still obtained from water-wheels. The beginnings of transportation by steam railroads can be dated, as said before, from about 1830.

423. Gradual development of the cotton manufacture.—The statement in a previous paragraph, that time was needed to develop the inventions before they could be made to serve the interests of manufacturers and merchants, is borne out by the history of the most important manufacture, that of cotton. Most of the basic inventions in cotton machinery were made in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. As early as 1812 a man, using the improved appliances, could produce 200 times as much as could be got from the old spinning-wheel. Yet it was not until 1820 or 1830 that cotton-spinning machinery had been practically developed and introduced on such a scale that the yarn exports began to show the full strength of this new force; while power weaving came even later, and the exports of cloth increased most rapidly in the second quarter of the century. Other processes connected with the textile manufacture present the same history. Cotton printing, for instance, had been practised in the eighteenth century, but in 1800 only 32 million yards a year were printed, while in 1830 the figure had risen to 347. The growth of the cotton manufacture was reflected in the development of towns like Manchester, Bolton, and Liverpool, which increased immensely in population.

424. Character of the import trade.—It will be instructive to glance now at the other side of England’s commercial balance sheet, and observe the wares imported about the middle of the century. In 1854 the values were as follows, in round millions of pounds sterling: total 152.3, of which the chief items were grain 21.7, raw cotton 20.1, timber 10, sugar 9.6, raw wool 6.4, tea 5.5, raw silk 5.3. While it is not safe to make a direct comparison between these values and those given previously to show conditions about 1800, a striking change is apparent in the relative rank of the items. A great growth in the importance of the imports of breadstuffs is noticeable. We shall see a little later that the English in this period gave up the attempt to produce their food at home, and resigned themselves to depending on foreign countries for supplies which they could purchase with their manufactures. Wares like sugar, tea, coffee, and tobacco had declined in relative importance. The actual amount of these commodities imported for consumption at home had increased much more than would appear from a comparison of the figures, and their use was constantly extending among the common people; but they were now overshadowed in trade by other items. The chief group of imports was formed of raw materials for the English textile manufacture. The cotton imports, had, of course, grown immensely; the home supply of wool, which had been almost sufficient for manufactures in 1800, needed now to be supplemented by large imports from abroad; silk had taken the third place on the list of textiles away from flax and hemp.

425. Increase in importance of trade with distant continents.—If we attempt to trace the changes in the direction of English trade in the first half of the nineteenth century, we find, in the maze of figures presented for study, some facts standing out as evident and important. The trade with other countries in Europe grew steadily, but grew slowly as a rule, and did not keep pace with the progress which English trade was making in other parts of the world. Most of the continental states looked with jealousy on England’s industrial development, and checked the free exchange of commodities by severe restrictions. We must look outside of Europe for the field of expansion of English trade. Africa still remained unimportant from the commercial standpoint, but America, Asia, and Australia dealt in increasing measure with the British merchant.

426. Great importance of the trade with the United States.—The United States was, far and away, England’s best customer, taking, near the beginning of the century, when the ports of the continent were closed by Napoleon, as much as one third of the total English exports, and at the middle (1849) nearly one fifth. “It affords strong evidence of the unsatisfactory footing upon which our trading relations with Europe are established,” wrote an English author in 1838, “that our exports to the United States of America, which with their population of only twelve millions are removed to a distance from us of 3,000 miles across the Atlantic, have amounted to more than one half of the value of our shipments to the whole of Europe, with a population fifteen times as great as that of the United States of America, and with an abundance of productions suited to our wants, which they are naturally desirous of exchanging for the products of our mines and looms.” The United States paid for the wares by an export mainly of raw materials, and especially of cotton.

427. Trade with other distant countries.—Other American countries were good customers of the British manufacturer; Brazil, for instance, bought more from England in 1849 than did England’s nearest neighbor, France. Among other independent states China deserves mention. Trade with that country had been included in the monopoly of the East India Company until 1834, when it was thrown open to British merchants in general; the trade grew rapidly thereafter, but suffered from the restrictions imposed by the Chinese until, as a result of the so-called Opium War of 1842, the English secured the cession of Hong-Kong and the opening of a number of ports.

428. Trade with British dependencies: India.—In 1850 between one fourth and one third of the exports of the mother country were sent to British dependencies. Among these British India, almost a continent itself if we consider its area, its population almost equal to that of Europe, and the complexity of its peoples, took the leading place. British India alone took about one tenth of the English exports. So long as the trade with this country was controlled by the East India Company it remained small; and the company declared that because of the backwardness and peculiar customs of the natives it could not be increased. The privilege of trading with India was granted to individual merchants in 1793, but under such burdensome restrictions that it led to slight results; and the nineteenth century opened with the Indian trade still but a small item in England’s total. In 1813, however, the trade was at last thrown open, and the effect was immediately manifest; in the first year of the new policy private merchants exported more than did the company, and soon they had developed the trade to an extent undreamed of by the monopolists. India proved to be just the country which English merchants were seeking as a market for the expanding cotton manufacture. In the eighteenth century protection was demanded in England against the competition of Indian textiles, but soon the tables were turned, and manufacturers in India complained that they were being ruined by the importation of English cotton goods; about 1850 British India took more cotton manufactures than any other country, and nearly one sixth of the total exports of this most important commodity of England.

429. Colonies in North America and Australasia.—Next in importance to British India came the two groups of the North American and the Australian colonies. The colonies on the continent of North America were, in spite of their political allegiance, a far less important market than the republic on their southern border which had declared its independence in 1776. They supplied, however, a fairly steady and a growing demand for English products which put them in sharp contrast with the West Indian colonies. These island colonies had been, in the early part of the century, the field of rich returns in trade, but their productiveness depended on a system of slave plantations, and when slavery was abolished in them in 1833 their commerce declined rapidly.

Thanks to the wide extent of her colonial dominions, England could hope to gain in one part of the world if she lost in another, and the development of the Australian colonies in this period promised to atone for any decline in the West. The British flag was first raised in Australia in 1788. The young colonies were out of the track of the trade of the time, and seemed of such small importance that one was made a penal settlement, but the natural resources, especially the fitness for sheep-raising, induced a steady growth of population, and a considerable trade, even before the gold discoveries in the middle of the century.

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