SECTION VI.. Why the Protective System Was Adopted.

WHY THE PROTECTIVE SYSTEM WAS ADOPTED.

This explains why so many nations in the periods of transition between their medieval age and their higher stages of civilization, adopted the industrial protective system.[A3-6-1] [A3-6-2] [A3-6-3] [A3-6-4] [A3-6-5] [A3-6-6]

The Athenians imposed a duty of two per cent. both on imports and exports. Similarly, in Rome, where the higher duties imposed on many articles of luxury served an ethico-political purpose. We have, besides, accounts of prohibitions of the exportation of money: Cicero, pro Flacco, 28 (L., 2, Cod. Just., IV, 63). Plato's advice to prohibit the importation of luxuries and the exportation of the means of subsistence (De Legg.) on ethico-political considerations; and the Byzantine prohibition of the exportation of certain articles of display from court vanity. (Porph. Decaerim, p. 271 ff. Reiske.)]

A very highly-developed protective system in Florence. The exportation of the means of subsistence forbidden (Della Decima, II, 13), and so likewise the importation of finished cloths. (Stat Flor., 1415, V, p. 3; Rubr., 32, 39, 41, 43, 45.) In the streets devoted to the woolen industries, it was not permitted to give the manufacturers notice to quit their dwellings, nor to increase their rent, unless the connoisseurs in the industry had admitted a higher rate of profit. (Decima, II, 88.) In order to promote the silk industry, the importation of silk-worms and of the mulberry leaf was freed from the payment of duties in 1423, the exportation of raw silk, cocoons and of the mulberry leaf forbidden in 1443; and in 1440, every countryman was commanded to plant mulberry trees. (Decima, II, 115.) When Pisa was subdued, the Florentines reserved to themselves all the wholesale trade, and prohibited there all silk and woolen industries. (Sismondi, Gesch. der italienischen Republic, XII, 171.) It was a principle followed by Milan in its best period, to exempt manufacturers from taxation. Yearly subsidies, accorded about 1442, to Florentine silk-manufacturers, who immigrated; in 1493, a species of expropriation, in case of houses which a neighbor needed for manufacturing purposes. (Verri, Mem. Storiche, p. 62.) Bolognese prohibition of the exportation of manuscripts, because they wanted to monopolize science. (Cibrario, E. polit. del. medio. Evo., III, 166.) Even in the seventeenth century, a city like Urbino forbade the exportation of cattle, wheat, wood, wool, skins, coal, as well as the importation of cloth, with the exception of the very costliest kinds. (Constitut. Due. Urbin., I, p. 388 ff., 422 ff.)]

The protective system received its most important development in Prussia. Prohibition by the margrave, about the end of the thirteenth century, of the exportation of woolen yarn. (Stengel, Pr. Gesch., I, 84.) In the privilege accorded to the weavers of woolen wares, in 1414, the importation of the less important cloths is forbidden for two years. (Droysen, Preuss. Gesch. I, 323.) The prohibition of the exportation of wool of 1582 assigns as a reason of the prohibition, that the numerous leading weavers should not be ruined for the sake of a few unmarried journeymen and sellers. (Mylius, C. C. M., V, 2, 207.) In the prohibitions of 1611 and 1629, the domains, the estates of prelates and knights were exempted; similarly, in Saxony, 1613-1626; which is one of the many symptoms of the then growing Junkerthum. The great elector, who attached, both in war and peace, great value to the possession of coasts, men-of-war and colonies, forbade, for instance, the importation of copper and brass wares (1654), of glass (1658), of steel and iron (1666), of tin (1687); farther, the exportation of wool (1644), leather (1669), skins and furs (1678), silver (1683), rags (1685). Home commodities were, for the most part, stamped with the elector's arms, and all which were not so stamped were prohibited. The prohibition was generally preceded by a notice that the elector had himself established or improved a manufactory, or that the guilds (Innungen) had entered complaints against foreign competition. Not till 1682 did the idea occur to impose a moderate excise on the home product to be favored, and a much higher duty on the foreign one; thus in the case of sugar. (Mylius, IV, 3, 2, 16.) Frederick I. continued this system especially for the forty-three branches of industry hitherto unknown, and the introduction of which was contemporaneous with the reception of the Huguenots. (Stengel, 3, 48, 208.) Frederick William I., in 1719 and 1723, threatened the exportation of wool, under certain circumstances, with death. (Mylius, V, 2, 4, 64, 80.) The severity with which he insisted that his officials and officers should wear only home cloth is characteristic; and the fact that in 1719 he threatened tailors who worked foreign cloth, with heavy money fines and the loss of their guild-rights. At the same time all workers in wool were freed from military duty, and capitalists who had loaned money to wool manufacturers were given a preference (1729). Frederick the Great, who continued nearly all this, prohibited the exportation of Silesian yarn, with the exception of the very coarsest and finest, as well as of that which had been bleached. Its exportation was allowed to Bohemia only, because from here the linen went back again to Silesia to be bleached and sold there. (Mirabeau, De la Monarchie Pruss., II, 54.)]