Page:Prerogatives of the Crown.djvu/183

 Cii.X. Sec.L] Foreign Commerce, 163 the object of which was to extend, consolidate, and strengthen the maritime power of the country by confining our foreign trade, as far as was consistent with the extent of it, to the shipping and mariners of. this country ; and, in order to ac- complish that object, to hold out peculiar privileges and im- munities to the mariners and shipping of Great Britain ; and to prohibit, under severe penalties, the communication of these immunities to the shipping and mariners of foreign states (a). As these statutes contain comprehensive and positive enact- ments which bind the Crown {b it may be laid down as a general rule, that the King does not possess any general com- mon law prerogative with respect to foreign commerce. The King is called by Sir Wm. Blackstone (c), *' the arbiter of commerce :" a term which would be somewhat loose, as stated by Mr. Wooddeson (^), if it were applied to general com- merce ; but which appears to be extremely applicable to the King's authority with respect to domestic trade : in which sense only it is used by Sir Wm. Blackstone. A general discreti- onary power of restraining, regulating and superintending foreign commerce is not assigned by the common law to the King. His prerogatives on this subject are by no means so extensive : for the affairs of general commerce relating to sub- jects of independent states are regulated by statute law, and by the lex mercatoria which the European nations agree to observe. The freedom of trade and the general inability of the King to restrain it, or to exercise any discretionary power on the liberty of the subject in this respect, by virtue of his common law prerogatives, and independently of any legislative autho- rity, appears to be clear both on sound constitutional princi- ples and from authorities of the first weight and charac- ter {e). In the first place the provision in Magna Charta^ ch. 30., extending the freedom of trade to foreign merchants, strongly proves that the English had this liberty before : otherwise they (a) 2 Smith, W. N. 212. Beaw. Lex {e) 2 Inst. 57. Hale de Portibu* Merc. 16, 17. Chitty, L. of Nat. 200. Maris, Pref. to Hargr. Hale, Tracts, {b) 12 East, 296. vol. 1. p. xxx. Cora. Dig. Trade, D. 1. ic) 1 Com. 273. 4 Bac. Ab. Mercliaut, 595. (</) 1 V. L. 80. M 2 would