Mercantilism and East India Trade by P.J. Thomas

Author:P.J. Thomas [Thomas, P.J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780367199326
Google: bD7mygEACAAJ
Publisher: Routledge, Chapman & Hall, Incorporated
Published: 2020-09-23T01:35:48+00:00

V

The Example of Holland

The protagonists on either side of the calico controversy drew much inspiration from other European countries. The mercantilists looked to France, where economic policy was then dominated by a rigid Colbertism, and the free-traders naturally looked to Holland, which in those days pursued a liberal economic policy. France still was the centre of civilisation; ideas and fashions still came mainly from that country. But it was asserted by Davenant that England should not follow the Colbertian ideal of France as the economic conditions varied widely in the two countries. In France, trade was not natural, but “forced” and, therefore, much regulation was perhaps necessary; but “in countries inclined to it (trade) by genius, such laws are needless, unnatural and can have no effect conducive to public good.”* Such were England and Holland, and therefore the example of Holland was repeatedly quoted by the Company’s supporters as also by the linen-drapers; but the mercantilists as readily repudiated it as unsuited to England.

The Dutch were at that time the greatest trading nation of the world. Their ships were everywhere, and they carried goods for all nations. This made them wealthy and prosperous. Child was one of the few Englishmen who studied the conditions of Dutch trade. He begins his Discourse of Trade (1690) with the assertion that “the Prodigious increase of the Netherlanders in their Domestic and Foreign Trade, riches, multitudes of shipping is the envy of the present and may be the wonder of future generations.” He attributes this prosperity to manifold causes, e.g., the presence of merchants in the greatest Councils of State and of War, their system of inheritance, according to which the father’s property was divided equally between the sons, encouragement of inventions and shipping, and the spread of education irrespective of sex and class. A warm admirer of the Dutch, Child was also an ardent advocate for the emulation of their example by England.

Trade was free in Holland, and this also was pointed out as a cause of its prosperity. When calico first came into the country, the Dutch were afraid that it would harm their linen industry, and prohibited it. Thereby the calico trade was lost to Holland, and England took her place. The Dutch were shrewd enough to see their mistake, and soon removed the prohibition, after which their trade increased by leaps and bounds. It was thus that the Dutch, “of a Poor and Distressed people, became the High and Mighty of the World in less than a hundred years, and that under the great disadvantage of a very chargeable country.”* The Company and the linen drapers urged that the free trade policy of Holland must be followed in England also.

Cary strongly opposed this view. Holland may have prospered under free trade, but the same policy may ruin England, because the conditions of the two countries were different according to him. “The interest of Holland in trade is but one single interest; they live by buying and selling, and thus trade

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