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Free Trade and State Formation: The Political Economy of Fisheries Policy in Britain and the United Kingdom circa 1780–1850

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Extract

It is striking that historians of the early nineteenth century have been relatively reluctant to consider relationships between economic policy and the consolidation of the British state. In today's context, the economic and political challenges posed by both European integration and resurgent nationalism have generated hotly contested controversies on the political economy of state formation. From the perspective of the United Kingdom, the prospect of political and administrative devolution has forced us to address the implications of political decentralization for regional economic development (and vice versa) and to consider in turn the impact of these dynamics on the political integrity of a multinational state. For Britain, the period between circa 1780 and 1850 was characterized by unprecedented economic growth, imperial crisis and acquisition, and political consolidation. In a metropolitan sense the most dramatic feature of this process was, of course, the creation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in 1800. Insofar as historians of early nineteenth-century Britain have examined the relationship between “state formation” and economic policy, however, they have tended to focus on the ideas, politics, and pressures surrounding the retreat of the state from economic intervention. Thus in more general accounts it became axiomatic that the nineteenth-century state shrank progressively from social and economic intervention, liberating commerce, and resting the fiscal system on secure but modest direct taxation.

More recently, the relationship between the concept of “laissez-faire” and British state formation has been dramatically revised and refined by Philip Harling and Peter Mandler.

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Research Article
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Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2000

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References

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29 Ibid., p. xviii.

30 Ibid., p. i.

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32 “What is chiefly wanted on the north-west coast of Scotland is to collect the weak and scattered rays of industry, and to bring them, for the greater public utility, into one focus,” Ibid., p. 55.

33 Gray, J., Some Reflections Intended to Promote the Success of the Scotch Fishing Company Sent by John Gray to the Directors of the British Society, &c., &c. (London, 1789), p. 62Google Scholar (all the quoted material is in italic in the original).

34 The comments of the bishop of Llandaff (Richard Watson, [1737–1816]) were appropriated by Knox as arguments for a policy of regional economic development (A View of the British Empire, pp. xli–xlii).

35 On the perceived strategic importance of fisheries, see the preamble to 26 Geo. III, c. 106 (1786). Note also the perceived significance of the North and South Atlantic fisheries for preserving British imperial power (Ehrman, , The Younger Pitt, pp. 160–61, 341–51, 558–60Google Scholar).

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39 Ibid., p. xxxvi.

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42 This committee was secured by Henry Dundas and chaired by the M.P. for Great Yarmouth, Henry Beaufoy; Ehrman, , The Younger Pitt, pp. 266, 291–92, 351–52, and 388–89Google Scholar.

43 Third Report (1785), p. 93Google Scholar.

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45 Ibid., pp. 207, 220.

46 Third Report (1785), pp. 126–29Google Scholar. Knox explicitly distanced himself from the prescriptions of Anderson, in Ibid., p. 133; Anderson, , “Report of the Facts Relating to the Fisheries,” esp. p. 233Google Scholar.

47 Third Report (1785), p. 133Google Scholar.

48 26 Geo. III, c. 81; and 26 Geo. III, c. 106. For the parliamentary context, see Ehrman, , The Younger Pitt, p. 352Google Scholar.

49 26 Geo. III, c. 106, preamble.

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52 Dunlop, , The British Fisheries Society, p. 115Google Scholar.

53 39 Geo. III, c. 100 (1799).

54 Dempster, , A Discourse, p. 33Google Scholar.

55 Beaufoy, H., Substance of the Speech of Henry Beaufoy, Esq., to the British Society for Extending the Fisheries & c., at Their General Court, Held on Tuesday, March 25th 1788 (London, 1788), p. 71Google Scholar. The earl of Kinnoul restaked these boundaries before the committee of 1798, Report Respecting the British Fisheries, pp. 391–408. On Beaufoy's parliamentary role, see n. 42 above.

56 25 Geo. III, c. 58 (1785) promoted the Cornish pilchard fishery. 37 Geo. III, c. 48; and 47 Geo. III, c. 29 targeted the Tweed fisheries.

57 On the need to compete with Dutch and Swedish fisheries, see the evidence of Captain James Kyd (revenue cutter in the service of the customs of North Britain), in Third Report (1785), p. 83Google Scholar.

58 26 Geo. III, c. 81, i–v (1786); 27 Geo. III, c. 10, i (1787); 26 Geo. III, c. 26 (1786); and 26 Geo. III, c. 41 (1786).

59 48 Geo. III, c. 110 (1808); see also 51 Geo. III, c. 101 (1811); and 55 Geo. III, c. 94 (1815). These provisions were extended to Ireland under 59 Geo. III, c. 109 (1819).

60 Report Respecting the British Fisheries, pp. 510–11, 514–17. For a fuller account of British expenditure on the fisheries 1771–1851, see app. tables A2 and A3 (and accompanying notes) of this article.

61 Fourth Report of the Commissioners of the Irish Fisheries (1822), Parliamentary Papers, 1823, 10:376Google Scholar; Fifth Report of the Commissioners of the Irish Fisheries (1823), Parliamentary Papers, 1824, 12:427–29Google Scholar.

62 Third Report (1785), p. 202Google Scholar; Report Respecting the British Fisheries, pp. 334–35; Smith, A., An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, ed. Campbell, R. H. and Skinner, A. S., 2 vols. (Oxford, 1976), 1:518–22Google Scholar.

63 The 1786 barrel bounty of Is. was increased by 35 Geo. III, c. 56 (1795) to 2s., and by 55 Geo. III, c. 94 (1815) to 4s.

64 Third Report (1785), p. 107Google Scholar; Report Respecting the British Fisheries, pp. 337–38.

65 Even Irving, the Smithian official, admitted the necessity of branding as a strategy for quality control and marketing, Report Respecting the British Fisheries, p. 344. See also the dispute between the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce and Liverpool curers regarding the alleged deterioration of the “national character” of the cure, Ibid., pp. 423–49. The Commissioners of the British Fisheries remained committed to maintaining quality in order to penetrate European markets; see Extracts from Published Reports of the Commissioners of the British Fisheries,” in First Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of the Irish Fisheries, app. xiii, pp. 333–43, 335–37Google Scholar.

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67 26 Geo. III, c. 81, xlviii (1786); imports of foreign fresh fish had been prohibited under 1 Geo. I, c. 18 (1714) and confirmed in 6 Geo. IV, c. 107 and 6 Geo. IV, c. 108; Report from the Select Committee on Channel Fisheries (1833), Parliamentary Papers, 1833, 14:67234Google Scholar, esp. pp. 72–74.

68 Third Report from the Committee Appointed to Enquire into the State of the British Fisheries, and into the Most Effectual Means for Their Encouragement and Extension (1786), in Lambert, , ed., House of Commons Sessional Papers, 53:481–91, esp. pp. 487–88Google Scholar; 26 Geo. III, c. 81, xxxi, xxxii.

69 First Report from the Committee Appointed to Enquire into the State of the British Fisheries and into the Most Effectual Means for Their Improvement and Extension (1785), in Lambert, , ed., House of Commons Sessional Papers, 53:1933Google Scholar.

70 Ibid., p. xxvii; 41 Geo. III, c. 21 (1800).

71 For Pitt's recognition of this trade-off, see Ehrman, , The Younger Pitt, p. 352Google Scholar. On the importance of the excise in general to the finances of the eighteenth-century state, see O'Brien, , “The Political Economy of British Taxation, 1660–1815,” esp. pp. 2628Google Scholar; Brewer, , The Sinews of Power, pp. 101–13Google Scholar.

72 Interestingly, the fisheries policy of pre-Union Ireland was held up as an appropriate balance between deregulation and direct encouragement; see Third Report (1785), p. 126Google Scholar; Report Respecting the British Fisheries, p. 301.

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74 Ibid., p. 453.

75 Reports and Papers (1794), in Lambert, , ed., House of Commons Sessional Papers, 93:7179Google Scholar.

76 Ibid., pp. 75, 73. It should be noted that while Irving's comparative figures on tonnage bounties covered the period 1785–93, his account of barrel bounties referred only to those bounties paid to vessels that also qualified for the tonnage bounty and embraced only the years 1791–93. See also app. tables A1 and A2 of this article.

77 Report of the British Commissioners for the Herring Fishery, on the Act of 59 Geo. III for the Further Encouragement of the Irish Fisheries (1820), Parliamentary Papers, 1820, 7:265–72Google Scholar; “The Memorial and Representation of the Magistrates, Town Council, Principal Inhabitants, and Fish Curers of Fraserburgh,” 9 June 1820, in Ibid., pp. 271–72.

78 Ibid., pp. 267–68. As two Liverpool merchants testified in 1836, “Give but an extraordinary impulse to the Fisheries of Ireland, and you necessarily in the same degree injure those of Scotland” (First Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of the Irish Fisheries, p. 276).

79 Letter from the Irish Fishery Board, Containing Observations Relative to the Gradual Reduction of the Bounties on the Herring Fishery, to Thomas Lack, Esq., 6 March 1824, Parliamentary Papers, 1824, 9:365Google Scholar.

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81 Ibid., pp. 328–32, esp. p. 330.

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84 Ibid., p. 299.

85 46 Geo. III, c. 156 and 157 (1806).

86 First Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of the Irish Fisheries, app. 12, p. 332. See also app. table A3 of this article.

87 48 Geo. III, c. 110 (1808); and 5 Geo. IV, c. 64 (1824).

88 See app. table A3 of this article.

89 “An Account of the Sums Allowed by the Commissioners for the British Fisheries for Building or Repairing Piers and Quays in Scotland, from 5th April 1829 to the Present Date” (1848), Parliamentary Papers, 1847–48, 60:220–21Google Scholar.

90 5 Geo. IV, c. 64, reprinted in First Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of the Irish Fisheries, p. 332.

91 Ibid. The following sums were granted to poor fishermen in Scotland in 1828–46: £5,627, 1828–41; £1,500, 1842–44; £939, 1845–46 (see, respectively, Parliamentary Papers, 1842, 26:467Google Scholar; Parliamentary Papers, 1845, 28:317Google Scholar; Parliamentary Papers, 1847, 34:329Google Scholar).

92 Retrospectively, the British Society for Extending the Fisheries was condemned for a tendency to “overbuild” and for the absence of a profit motive; see First Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of the Irish Fisheries, pp. 23, 50.

93 59 Geo. III, c. 109 (1819). See app. table A4 of this article.

94 Together, the Commissioners for the Relief of the Distressed Poor, the London Committee for the Relief of the Irish Distress, and the Commissioners for the Irish Fisheries raised £8,000 for expenditure on thirty-two construction projects for the development of the Irish fisheries (Fourth Report of the Commissioners of the Irish Fisheries, pp. 371–73).

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96 First Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of the Irish Fisheries, app. 19, pp. 416–20.

97 Nevertheless, within the mixed economy of development the contribution of the state was not insignificant: £28,139 was paid out for the encouragement of the Irish fisheries, 1830–41; see “A Return of the Amount Paid for the Encouragement of the Irish Fisheries under the Directors-General of Inland Navigation and Commissioners for the Extension and Promotion of Public Works” (1842), Parliamentary Papers, 1842, 26:470Google Scholar. See app. table A4 of this article.

98 First Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of the Irish Fisheries, p. 20.

99 5 Geo. III, c. 64 (1824) permitted the Irish commissioners to advance sums in loans and grants to poor fishermen.

100 Eighth Report of the Commissioners of the Irish Fisheries, pp. 719–23.

101 Ibid., p. 487.

102 Tenth Report of the Commissioners of the Irish Fisheries, pp. 499–503.

103 First Report of the Commissioners of Inquiry into the State of the Irish Fisheries, p. 22.

104 Ibid., app. 25, pp. 430–31. See app. table A4 of this article.

105 9 & 10 Vict., c. 3; 10 & 11 Vict., c. 75.

106 See returns in Parliamentary Papers, 1852–53, 94:556Google Scholar.

107 “Return of the Amount of Said Grants Unappropriated, 17th Nov. 1852,” in Ibid., p. 557.

108 Sixteenth Report of the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland (1848), Parliamentary Papers, 1847–48, 37:473–83Google Scholar.

109 “Instructions for Agents at Curing Stations,” in Ibid., pp. 473–74.

110 Ibid., p. 243.

111 C. E. Trevelyan to the Commissioners of Public Works, Dublin, 26 May 1848, Ibid., p. 480.