Ashley: Surz'eys, Historic and Economic 795 greatly exaggerated. The Navigation Laws proper protected colonial shipping and ship-building quite as much, and restricted them no more, than they did English. The laws requiring that "enumerated com- modities ' ' be exported to England only, and those forbidding certain manfactures in the colonies, worked no real hardship, because they jumped with the economic conditions then prevailing. Our products were chiefly agricultural, and for these we found a ready sale in England. We had neither the capital, the labor, nor the technical knowledge necessary to establish manufactures. In these respects the commercial relations of England and America would not have been much different if there had been no Acts of Trade at all. Even the Act of 1663, requir- ing that commodities the growth or manufacture of Europe be shipped to the colonies only from England and in English bottoms, did not hamper the Americans, since England was their natural entrepot. To this last pleading a demurrer was promptly filed by a critic who conceded the other points.' In his view Mr. Ashley's is an a priori argument, and must fall before the abundant evidence of illicit trade in the colonies. Against his attack Mr. Ashley now defends his position in a paper on "American Smuggling, 1660-1760." He admits the weakness of the original (j/wr/ argument, and seeks to strengthen it by pointing out that "American imports from England, far from diminish- ing when the War of Independence was over — as we should expect if the obligation to buy in England had been a serious grievance — actually increased" (p. 344). They did so. According to the official figures they amounted, on a six years' average ending in 1792, to _;^2,8o7,3o6 against only ^^2, 216, 824 on a six years' average ending in 1774. But the absolute amount is less significant than the rate of increase. These figures show a growth of less than 28 per cent, in eighteen years. If now we compare the value of goods imported on a ten years' average ending in 1730, with those imported on a ten years' average ending in 1 7 10, we find an increase of 76 per cent, in twenty years. Similarly for 1740 of 81 per cent., for 1750 of 72 per cent., for 1760 of 139 per cent., for 1770 of 113 per cent. Thus it appears that imports from England still increased after the Revolution, but at a diminished rate. If the figures warrant any inference at all (which may be doubted), it is that Americans bought less and not more goods in England after the war than they might have done had they remained subject to the Acts of Trade. The figures, then, seem rather to weaken than to strengthen the a priori argument. Mr. Ashley next takes up the illicit trade itself Here he draws needed distinctions between that which was, and that which was not, in violation of the Acts of Trade. We must eliminate: (i) trade with' pirates and in violation of the East Indian Company's monopoly, (2) supplies sold to the King's enemies in time of war, and (3) smuggling to evade colonial tariffs (all three being forms of trade as illegal for Englishmen as for colonists) in order to find the residue which alone can ' A. H. Johnson, in Econotnic Journal, 96.
