Page:Craik History of British Commerce Vol 2.djvu/147

Rh In 1670 (by the 22 Car. II. c. 13) not only was the home price up to which exportation should be tree raised to 53s. 4d., but for the first time (for we may disregard altogether the obsolete act of 1463) importation was restrained, by being loaded with a prohibitory amount of duty so long as the price in the home-market was under 53s. 4d., and even with a very heavy duty, 8s. per quarter, when the home price reached that point and until it rose to 80s. This was the law in force at the time of the Revolution. Corn could not be brought from abroad at all till the price at home rose to 53s. 4d., and even not then without the payment of a tax which made it necessary that the cost of purchase and charge of conveyance should not together have amounted to so much as 45s. 4d.; and at the same time its exportation was perfectly free (except that it paid a moderate custom duty, like all other commodities) until it rose at home to a price which it might be safely presumed would make the sending it abroad no longer profitable. This, we might suppose, would have been deemed protection for agriculture enough. But not so; immediately after the Revolution an act was passed (the 1 Will. and Mary, c. 12) which introduced the new principle of actually paying the landlords for sending their produce out of the country, by allowing a bounty of 5s. upon every quarter of wheat exported so long as the home price did not exceed 48s. Nor was even this all that was done to promote exportation; in 1699 (by the 11 Will. III. c. 20), "for the greater encouragement of tillage," corn sent abroad was relieved even from all custom-house duties. It was time, indeed, to cease levying duties, with the one hand upon that which we were paying bounties to encourage on the other.

Under the system of bounties, which was maintained throughout the present period and long after its close (for it was not till the year 1773 that the law of 1689 was partially, and not till 1815 that it was wholly, repealed), England became a corn-exporting country to some, though never to any very considerable, extent. In 1697, for instance, 14,699 quarters of wheat and flour were sent abroad; in 1699 the quantity fell to 557; but in 1700 it