Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/480

 injury of the consumer, it could not have benefited those in whose interests it had been passed; while, on the other hand, any increase in the rates of freight would assuredly have tended to diminish the number of ships employed. The law of Edward I., in so far as it granted special privileges to foreign traders and their shipping, though it may have been necessary at the period, was certainly unjust towards the merchants and ship-owners of England; and it is not, therefore, surprising that they embraced the first opportunity to resort to extreme retaliatory measures against their wealthy and powerful foreign competitors.

Nevertheless, there was less wisdom in Richard's law, "to freight none but English ships," than there was in Edward's answer to a petition to expel foreign shipping from his ports, "I am convinced that merchant strangers are useful and beneficial to the greatness of the kingdom, and therefore I shall not expel them:" but, while Edward's policy encouraged the establishment of foreign trading associations in England, a clear advantage to the people generally, his ship-owners unquestionably suffered, as they had to struggle against laws the especial object of which had been the encouragement of foreign maritime enterprise. Edward would have displayed greater wisdom and sounder policy had he simply placed "merchant strangers" on an equal footing with his own people, and his country would have been spared the conflicts of navigation laws, which have raged with greater or less bitterness almost to the present day.

As was natural, a protective system once in