Note A2-6-7 — Chapter III

The Methuen treaty (1703) was considered an English master-piece, because Portugal had actually exported a great deal of Brazilian gold to England. Pombal said, in 1759: "Through unexampled stupidity, we permit ourselves to be clothed, etc. England robs us every year, by its industry, of the products of our mines.... A severe prohibition of the exportation of gold from Portugal might overthrow England." (Schäfer, Portug. Gesch., V, 494 ff.) And yet the treaty only says that Portugal withdraws its prohibition of English woolen wares, and restores the former duties (15 per cent.), while England continues to permit Portuguese wine to pay a duty 1/3 less than French wines! Singular doctrine of Adam Smith (W. of N., IV, ch. 6), and still more of McCulloch (Comm. Dict., v. Commercial Treaties), that this commercial treaty was unfavorable to England and very favorable to Portugal, although, in fact, later a duty of only about 3 per cent. was imposed here on English commodities. (Büsch, Werke, II, 62.) The English-French commercial treaty of 1786 introduces in the place of the former prohibition, duties of 10, 12 and 15 per cent. for a number of industrial products. The French soon came to believe that they had been taken advantage of here. A. Young found the desire very general in the north of France, to get rid of the Eden treaty even through a war. (Travels in France, I, 73.) Many of the cahiers of the third estate demand that no treaty of commerce should be entered into without previous consultation with the industries interested. (Acad. des Sc. morales et polit., 1865, III, 214.) But in England, also, bitter complaints of the opposition, to which Pitt replied, that commercial treaties between agricultural and industrial countries result to the advantage of the latter, independent of the fact that England obtained a new market of 24,000,000, and France of only 8,000,000 persons. Compare the extracts in Lauderdale, Inquiry, App., 14. Forcade: Revue des deux Mondes, 1843.