The purpose of this paper is to highlight the significance of English colonial markets in the North American and West India during the calico controversy in the 1690s. It is well known that the participants in the controversy, Josiah Child and Charles Davenant, advocates of the East India trade on one side, and John Pollexfen and John Cary, opponents of the trade on the other, were in sharp rivalry over the gain and loss of the East India trade. But it was noticeable that they commonly stressed the significance of colonial markets from the viewpoint of the so-called balance of employment' theory, which regarded the most profitable trade to a nation as one employing most hands by importing, exporting and manufacturing. This theory was, in itself, utilised to buttress their arguments in the controversy on the East India trade: one as the ground of the case for the trade, and other against the trade respectively. But when referring to colonial trade, the participants in the calico debate were almost unanimously emphasised the importance of colonial markets in terms of the balance of employment as shown typically in Pollexfen's contention: No Trades can be more secure, to be for the Interest of this Nation, then[sic]what are carried on by the Exportation of our Products and Manufactories, or by such Goods as come here from our Plantations, because of the Advantages we have by the exportation, in the Consumption of our Product, and Imployment of the Poor'(A Discourse of Trade, Coyn and Paper Credit, 1697, p.5). Therefore we must not lose tract of this line of argument of colonial markets in the calico controversy. Some scholars seem to regard the controversy merely as a dispute of protectionism vs. free trade. But in the consideration of the 1690s during which the controversy was under way, you are certainly required to depict the aspect of the formation of mercantile colonial empire as an integral part of the controversy. As Davenant, a formidable adversary of Pollexfen in the controversy, expressed that as all the Blood with a swift Motion passes frequently through the Heart, so whatever Wealth our Countries acquire, circulates about, coming into the chief Seat of Empire, from whence 'tis disper'd into all its Parts'(An Essay Upon the Probable Methods of Making a People Gainers in the Balance of Trade, 1699[1995, p.264]), the participants in the controversy including Pollexfen placed England in the centre of trade, and colonies in the periphery, and the latter were assumed to be subservient to the former in the trade circulation, which purposed to realise the beneficial balance of employment to mother country. Therefore, some colonies, principally New England and Ireland to less extent, were denounced as an obstructer to disturb the trade circulation favourable to mother country on the ground of their attempt to build up their own trade circulation in defiance of mother country's interest.

2

KJ00004649162

論文

Article