In view of such historical considerations, how has it happenedthat Adam Smith has never attempted to follow the history of theindustrial and commercial rivalry between the Hanseatic League andEngland from its origin until its close? Yet some passages in hiswork show clearly that he was not unacquainted with the causes ofthe fall of the League and its results.'A merchant,' he says, 'isnot necessarily the citizen of any particular country.It is in agreat measure indifferent to him from what place he carries on histrade; and a very trifling disgust will make him remove hiscapital, and together with it all the industry which it supports,from one country to another.No part of it can be said to belong toany particular country till it has been spread, as it were, overthe face of that country, either in buildings or in the lastingimprovement of lands.No vestige now remains of the great wealthsaid to have been possessed by the greater part of the Hanse Townsexcept in the obscure histories of the thirteenth and fourteenthcenturies.it is even uncertain where some of them were situated,or to what towns in Europe the Latin names given to some of thembelong.'(17*)How strange that Adam Smith, having such a clear insight intothe secondary causes of the downfall of the Hanseatic League, didnot feel himself compelled to examine into its primary causes! Forthis purpose it would not have been at all necessary to haveascertained the sites where the fallen cities had stood, or towhich cities belonged the Latin names in the obscure chronicles.Heneed not even have consulted those chronicles at all.His owncountrymen, Anderson, Macpherson, King, and Hume could haveafforded him the necessary explanation.
How, therefore, and for what reason could such a profoundinquirer permit himself to abstain from an investigation at once sointeresting and so fruitful in results? We can see no other reasonthan this -- that it would have led to conclusions which would havetended but little to support his principle of absolute free trade.
He would infallibly have been confronted with the fact that afterfree commercial intercourse with the Hansards had raised Englishagriculture from a state of barbarism, the protective commercialpolicy adopted by the English nation at the expense of theHansards, the Belgians, and the Dutch helped England to attain tomanufacturing supremacy, and that from the latter, aided by herNavigation Acts, arose her commercial supremacy.
These facts, it would appear, Adam Smith was not willing toknow or to acknowledge; for indeed they belong to the category ofthose inconvenient facts of which J.B.Say observes that they wouldhave proved very adverse to his system.
NOTES:
1.Anderson, Origins of Commerce, pt.I, p.46.
2.Wealth of Nations, Book IV, ch.ii.
3.Hume, History of England, Part IV, ch.xxi.
4.The revenues of the kings of England were derived at that timemore from export duties than from import duties.Freedom of exportand duties on imports (viz.of manufactures) betoken at once anadvanced state of industry and an enlightened State administration.
The governments and countries of the North stood at about the samestage of culture and statemanship as the Sublime Porte does in ourday.The Sultan has, notably, only recently concluded commercialtreaties, by which he engages not to tax exports of raw materialsand manufactures higher than fourteen per cent but imports nothigher than five per cent.And there accordingly that system offinance which professes to regard revenue as its chief objectcontinues in full operation.Those statesmen and public writers whofollow or advocate that system ought to betake themselves toTurkey; there they might really stand at the head of the times.
5.The Hansards were formerly termed 'Easterlings' or Easternmerchants, in England, in contradistinction to those of the West,or the Belgians and Dutch.From this term is derived 'sterling' or'pound sterling', an abbreviation of the word 'Easterlings' becauseformerly all the coin in circulation in England was that of theHanseatic League.
6.Hume, History of England, ch.xxxv.
7.M.I.Sartorius, Geschichte der Hansa.
8.II Edward III, cap.5.
9.Rymer's Foedera, p.496.De Witte, Interest of Holland, p.45.
10.Hume, History of England, chap.xxv.
11.Edward IV, cap.iv.The preamble to this Act is socharacteristic that we cannot refrain from quoting it verbatim.
'Whereas to the said Parliament, by the artificers men andwomen inhabitant and resident in the city of London and in othercities, towns, boroughs and villages within this realm and Wales,it has been piteously shewed and complained, how that all they ingeneral and every of them he greatly impoverished and much injuredand prejudiced of their worldly increase and living, by the greatmultitude of divers chaffers and wares pertaining to theirmysteries and occupations, being fully wrought and ready made tosale, as well by the hand of strangers being the king's enemies asothers, brought into this realm and Wales from beyond the sea, aswell by merchant strangers as denizens or other persons, whereofthe greatest part is deceitful and nothing worth in regard of anyman's occupation or profits, by occasion whereof the saidartificers cannot live by their mysteries and occupations, as theyused to do in times past, but divers of them -- as wellhouseholders as hirelings and other servants and apprentices -- ingreat number be at this day unoccupied, and do hardly live, ingreat idleness, poverty and ruin, whereby many inconveniences havegrown before this time, and hereafter more are like to come (whichGod defend), if due remedy be not in their behalf provided.'
12.Hume, chap.xxvi.
13.Hume, chap.xxxv; also Sir J.Hayward, Life and Reign of EdwardVI.
14.Hume, chap.xxxvii; Heylyn.
15.Campbell's Lives of the Admirals, vol.i, p.386.
16.Our author would appear to have forgotten, or else unfairlyignored, the exploits of the British fleet under Lord Exmouth.
17.Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book III, ch.iv.