Hopewell
Furnace 1771-1883
Mercantilism was the reigning economic
theory in England
(and other major countries of Europe) between the 16th
and 18th Centuries. It rested
on the propositions that the measure of a nation’s wealth was the amount of
gold and silver in the coffers of government and commerce, and that having more
wealth was better than having less wealth.
It held that imports were bad because they sent money out of the country
and reduced the nation’s wealth. Exports
were good because they brought money into the country and increased the wealth.
An adjunct to
Mercantilism was that the purposes of colonies were to provide raw materials
for the mother country and to buy finished products manufactured from the raw
materials. This placed colonial
Americans into two conflicting situations.
In the 1680s, King William III declared that the colonials were full
Englishmen with all the rights of citizens who were born in and still lived in England. Presumably this included entering into
commerce and manufacturing. As
colonials, though, it was never intended that Americans would compete with
commerce and manufacturing in the mother country. The inability to resolve this conflict as
much led to revolution and separation between the mother country and her
American colonies as any other cause.
The English relegated Americans to second class status, no matter how
much wealth an individual might have. The Americans got pushy about being
Englishmen with full rights, while not paying the full amount of taxes that
people in England
paid.
‘Whereas the
importation of bar iron from his Majesty's colonies in America, into the port
of London, and the importation of pig-iron from the said colonies into any port
of Great Britain, and the manufacture of such bar and pig-iron in Great
Britain, will be a great advantage not only to the said colonies, but also to
this kingdom...and by means thereof large sums of money, now annually paid for
iron to foreigners, will be saved this kingdom, and a greater quantity of the
woolen, and other manufactures of Great Britain, will be exported to America in
exchange for such iron so imported; be it therefore enacted...the several and
respective subsidies, customs, impositions, rates, and duties, now payable on
pig-iron, made in and imported from his Majesty's colonies in America, into any
port of Great Britain, shall cease...be it further enacted...no mill or other
engine of slitting or rolling of iron, or any plating-forge to work with a tilt
hammer, or any furnace for making steel, shall be erected, or after such
erection, continued, in any of his Majesty's colonies in America; and if any
person or persons shall erect...shall for every such mill, engine, forge, or
furnace, forfeit the sum of two hundred pounds...”
George II, 12 April 1750
Summary—no
duties on pig iron exported from the colonies to Great
Britain; no duties on bar iron, if sent to London;
forges in the colonies might continue to operate because they were necessary to
making iron, but no new ones could be built; engines and mills for
manufacturing products made from iron could not be built or operated.
The purpose of
the law was to protect English steel manufacturers in Leeds,
Manchester, and Sheffield. In 1749, they paid £40,000 for iron imported
from Sweden (at
about £12/ton). That meant money left
the country. If the colonials could
produce as much iron as Sweden
(nearly so) and it was of good quality (it was), then it would be a double win
for English mercantilism. Money would
not leave the country to pay for imported iron and the colonials would buy products manufactured in England, not some other country.
Virginia
and Maryland began sending pig
iron to England
and Scotland in
the 1720s. Other colonies soon followed
suit. (Production of bar iron seems to
have been limited.) The new law helped the exporters, but made colonial
expansion nearly impossible. When a
group of colonials packed up and moved to the frontier, they were forbidden to
build forges with which to make metal tools for development of their
settlement. They were supposed to take
their tools with them. Hammers, knives, saws, and all metal things have weight.
Horses can only pull so much
weight, so what was going to be left behind?
Clothes? Food? Kitchen utensils? Muskets and ammunition? How and from where were they supposed to get nails?
Americans
complained to Parliament that the law was unfair. It prevented them from making full use of raw
materials on land they owned, which Englishmen in the mother country were not
prevented from doing. The law would make
impossible development of western lands the colonials had legally bought. It treated Americans as if they were not
Englishmen with full rights and privileges.
However, the complaints were ineffective. Parliament did not repeal the law.
Americans were
already smuggling, an English tradition, and trying to cheat on taxes, another
English tradition. Now, in order to
expand to the west and make room for the many people who continued to migrate
to the colonies, they became lawbreakers.
In April 1775, when the Revolutionary War began, there were more forges
in the American colonies than in all of Great
Britain.
There hadn’t been as many in 1750.
LINKS
http://www.davidwebbfowler.com/2012/05/act-for-more-easy-recovery-of-debts-in.html
http://www.davidwebbfowler.com/2012/05/restraining-act-of-1699-woolen-act.html
http://www.davidwebbfowler.com/2012/04/naval-stores-act-of-1705.html
http://www.davidwebbfowler.com/2011/06/normal-0-microsoftinternetexplorer4.html (Stamp Act)
http://www.davidwebbfowler.com/2011/07/hat-act-of-1732.html
http://www.davidwebbfowler.com/2011/08/molasses-act-of-1733.html
No comments:
Post a Comment