The Freeman 1972 - The Ludwig von Mises Institute

1972 THE MERCANTILE IMPASSE 47tile policies of England. Initially,the kings of England had attemptedto plant and benefit fromcolonies by granting them as monopoliesto private companies andproprietors. These companies andindividuals were empowered toregulate the activities of those whocame over so that the undertakingswould benefit the owners and,perchance, enhance the wealth andpower of England. Things did notwork out that way very consistently.Colonists frequently caredlittle enough about whether theybenefited the original charter holdersor not; instead, they concentratedtheir efforts on doing whatwas to their own benefit. Moreover,as colonists gained some measureof control over their governments,they often enacted their own mercantilepolicies with the intent ofmaking a colony self-sufficient. 5Such action ran counter to Britishaims, of course.Acts of InterventionBy the mid-seventeenth century,then, Britain was ready to beginto impose a general system of mercantilerestrictions on the colonists.The most general of the mercantileacts are those known as the5 See E. A. J. Johnson, American EconomicThought in the Seventeenth Century(New York: Russell and Russell,1961), pp. 8-29.Navigation Acts. A series of theseacts was passed over the yearsfrom 1651 through 1663. The numberof acts passed was increasedbecause legislation passed in the1650's was considered invalid afterthe restoration of monarchy in1660. This being the case, the latera.cts are the only ones that needconcern us here. The NavigationAct of 1660 - re-enacted in 1661- required that all trade with thecolonies be carried in Englishbuiltships which were mannedpredominantly by Englishmen."English" was defined for thispurpose to include the inhabitantsof the colonies. All foreign merchantswere excluded from thecommerce of the English colonies,and certain enumerated articles,e. g., tobacco, could only be exportedfrom the colonies to Britainor British possessions. The StapleAct of 1663 provided that goodsto be exported from Europeancountries to English colonies mustfirst be shipped to England."These acts intended to giveEngland a monopoly of the tradeof· her colonies," one historiannotes:- not a monopoly to particular persons,but a national monopoly .inwhich all English merchants shouldshare. The Staple Act meant not onlythat English merchants would get thebusiness of selling to the colonies butalso that English manufacturers