Book IV, Chapter VIII, 2

The penalties, however, imposed by this milder statute, or imposed by earlier statutes and left intact by this one, remain severe enough. Besides forfeiting the goods, the exporter incurs a penalty of 3s. for every pound weight of wool exported or attempted to be exported—about four or five times its value. Any merchant or other person convicted of this offense loses the right to collect any debt or account owed to him by any factor or other person. Whatever his fortune, whether he can pay those heavy penalties or not, the law intends to ruin him utterly. But the morals of the great body of the people are not yet so corrupt as those of the authors of this statute, and I have not heard of anyone ever taking advantage of this clause. If the convicted person cannot pay the penalties within three months after judgment, he is to be transported for seven years; if he returns before that term expires, he is liable to the penalties for felony, without benefit of clergy. The owner of the ship, if aware of the offense, forfeits his entire interest in the ship and its equipment. The master and sailors, if aware of the offense, forfeit all their goods and possessions and suffer three months' imprisonment. Under a later statute the master suffers six months' imprisonment.

To prevent exportation, the whole inland trade in wool is subjected to burdensome and oppressive restrictions. Wool may not be packed in a box, barrel, cask, case, chest, or any other container, but only in packs of leather or packing cloth, with the words WOOL or YARN marked on the outside in large letters not less than three inches long; otherwise the wool and its package are forfeited, and the owner or packer must pay 8s. for every pound weight. It may not be loaded onto a horse or cart or carried overland within five miles of the coast except between sunrise and sunset, on pain of forfeiting both wool and horses and carriages. The hundred adjoining the coast from or through which the wool is carried or exported forfeits £20 if the wool is worth less than £10; if it is worth more, it forfeits three times that value, together with three times the costs, in an action brought within the year. The judgment may be enforced against any two inhabitants, whom the local court must reimburse through an assessment on the others, as in cases of robbery. If anyone settles with the hundred for less than this penalty, he is to be imprisoned for five years; any other person may prosecute. These rules apply throughout the kingdom.

But in Kent and Sussex in particular, the restrictions are even more troublesome. Every owner of wool within ten miles of the coast must, within three days after shearing, give the nearest customs officer a written account of the number of his fleeces and where they are stored. Before moving any of them, he must likewise report the number and weight of the fleeces, the name and residence of the person to whom they are sold, and their intended destination. No one within fifteen miles of the sea in those counties may buy wool before giving the king a bond that he will sell none of the wool he buys to anyone else within fifteen miles of the sea. If wool is found being carried toward the sea in those counties without the required entry and security, it is forfeited, and the offender forfeits 3s. for every pound weight. If anyone stores wool that has not been entered as required within fifteen miles of the sea, it must be seized and forfeited; and if anyone claims it after seizure, he must give the exchequer security that, if he loses at trial, he will pay three times the costs, besides all other penalties.

With restrictions like these imposed on inland trade, we may well suppose that coastal trade is not left very free. Every owner who carries wool, or has it carried, to a coastal port or place for transport by sea to another coastal port or place must first register it at the port of departure, recording the weight, marks, and number of packages, before bringing it within five miles of that port; otherwise the wool, horses, carts, and other carriages are forfeited, and he also incurs the penalties laid down by other laws against the exportation of wool. Yet this law (1st of William III. chap. 32) is so exceedingly indulgent as to declare that it does not prevent anyone from carrying wool home from the place of shearing, even within five miles of the sea, provided that within ten days after shearing and before moving it he gives the nearest customs officer a signed statement of the true number of fleeces and where they are housed, and does not move them without giving that officer three days' prior signed notice of his intention. A bond must be given to ensure that wool carried along the coast is landed at the particular port declared on its outward entry; if any part is landed without an officer present, not only is the wool forfeited, as with other goods, but the usual additional penalty of 3s. for every pound weight is incurred as well.

To justify their demand for such extraordinary restrictions and rules, our wool manufacturers confidently asserted that English wool had a peculiar quality superior to that of every other country; that the wool of other countries could not be worked into any tolerable fabric without some admixture of it; that fine cloth could not be made without it; and that England, if its exportation could be completely prevented, could thus monopolize almost the whole wool trade of the world, sell at whatever price she pleased for lack of rivals, and rapidly acquire an incredible degree of wealth through the most favorable balance of trade. Like most doctrines confidently asserted by a considerable number of people, this was, and still is, implicitly believed by a far greater number: almost everyone unacquainted with the wool trade or who has not made particular inquiries into it. Yet so far from being necessary in any respect to make fine cloth, English wool is wholly unsuited to it. Fine cloth is made entirely of Spanish wool. English wool cannot even be mixed with Spanish wool without to some degree spoiling and lowering the quality of the fabric.

It has been shown earlier in this work that these regulations have depressed the price of English wool, not only below its natural level today but far below the price it actually fetched in the time of Edward III. When Scotch wool became subject to the same regulations following the Union, its price is said to have fallen by about half. The very accurate and perceptive author of the Memoirs of Wool, the Reverend Mr John Smith, observes that the best English wool in England generally sells for less than wool of much poorer quality ordinarily fetches in the Amsterdam market. The avowed purpose of these regulations was to depress this commodity's price below what might be called its natural and proper level; there seems no doubt that they achieved their intended effect.

It might be thought that this lowering of price, by discouraging the raising of wool, must have greatly reduced its annual output—not below its former level, perhaps, but below what it would probably be today if an open and free market had allowed the price to rise to its natural and proper level. I am inclined to believe, however, that these regulations can have affected annual output only a little, if at all. Wool is not the principal object for which the sheep farmer employs his industry and stock. He expects his profit less from the fleece than from the carcass; and the latter's average or ordinary price must in many cases make good any deficiency in the former's average or ordinary price. It has been observed earlier in this work that "whatever regulations tend to lower the price of wool or raw hides below its natural level must, in an improved and cultivated country, tend in some measure to raise the price of meat. The price of both large and small livestock raised on improved and cultivated land must suffice to pay the rent the landlord and the profit the farmer can reasonably expect from such land. Otherwise they will soon stop raising the animals. Whatever part of that price is not paid for by wool and hide must therefore be paid for by the carcass. The less is paid for one, the more must be paid for the other. How the price is divided among the different parts of the animal is immaterial to landlords and farmers, provided they receive it all. In an improved and cultivated country, therefore, such regulations can have little effect on their interests as landlords and farmers, though the resulting rise in food prices may affect their interests as consumers." On this reasoning, then, the decline in the price of wool is unlikely, in an improved and cultivated country, to reduce its annual output, except insofar as a rise in the price of mutton might somewhat diminish demand for, and consequently production of, that particular kind of meat. Even in this way, however, its effect is probably not very considerable.

But though its effect on the quantity of annual output may not have been very considerable, it might be thought that its effect on quality must necessarily have been great. The decline in the quality of English wool—not necessarily below its former quality, but below what it would naturally have attained in the present state of improvement and cultivation—might be supposed to be almost proportional to the decline in its price. Quality depends on breed, pasture, and the care and cleanliness of the sheep throughout the fleece's growth; and one might naturally imagine that attention to these things could never be greater than the reward the fleece's price is likely to offer for the labor and expense required. It happens, however, that the quality of the fleece depends largely on the health, growth, and size of the animal: the same attention needed to improve the carcass also goes some way toward improving the fleece. Despite the decline in price, English wool is said to have improved considerably even during the present century. Improvement might perhaps have been greater had the price been better; but while the low price may have hindered it, it certainly has not prevented it altogether.

The severity of these regulations, therefore, seems to have affected neither the quantity nor the quality of the annual output of wool as much as might have been expected (though I think it likely that it has affected quality a good deal more than quantity); and while the interests of wool growers must have suffered to some extent, on the whole they seem to have suffered much less than one could readily have imagined.

These considerations will not, however, justify an absolute ban on wool exports; they will fully justify a substantial tax on those exports.

To injure the interests of one order of citizens, even slightly, solely to advance those of another is plainly contrary to the justice and equal treatment the sovereign owes every order of his subjects. Yet the prohibition certainly injures the wool growers to some extent for no purpose except to benefit the manufacturers.

Every order of citizens is obliged to contribute to the support of the sovereign or commonwealth. A tax of five or even ten shillings on the export of every tod of wool would yield the sovereign a substantial revenue. It would injure the growers somewhat less than the prohibition, since it would probably not lower wool's price quite so much. It would still give the manufacturer a sufficient advantage: although he might not buy his wool quite as cheaply as under the prohibition, he would buy it at least five or ten shillings cheaper than any foreign manufacturer could, while also saving the freight and insurance the latter must pay. It is scarcely possible to devise a tax that would raise any considerable revenue for the sovereign while causing so little inconvenience to anyone.

Despite all the penalties that enforce it, the prohibition does not prevent the export of wool. Wool is, as everyone knows, exported in great quantities. The great difference between prices at home and abroad offers such an inducement to smuggling that all the rigor of the law cannot stop it. This illicit export benefits no one but the smuggler. Legal exports subject to a tax, by providing revenue to the sovereign and thus saving the imposition of other, perhaps more burdensome and inconvenient taxes, could benefit every order of the state's subjects.

The export of fuller's earth, or fuller's clay, thought necessary for preparing and cleaning woolen fabrics, has been subjected to nearly the same penalties as that of wool. Even tobacco-pipe clay, though acknowledged to be different from fuller's clay, has been subjected to the same prohibitions and penalties because of their resemblance and the possibility that fuller's clay might sometimes be exported under its name.

Under the 13th and 14th of Charles II. chap, 7, the export of not only raw hides but also tanned leather, except in the form of boots, shoes, or slippers, was prohibited; the law gave our bootmakers and shoemakers a monopoly at the expense not only of our graziers but of our tanners. Later statutes allowed our tanners to exempt themselves from this monopoly on payment of a small tax of only one shilling per hundredweight of tanned leather, weighing one hundred and twelve pounds. They also obtained a drawback of two-thirds of the excise duties imposed on their product, even when exported without further manufacture. Leather manufactures of every kind may be exported duty free, and the exporter is also entitled to a drawback of the entire excise duty. Our graziers remain subject to the old monopoly. Scattered apart from one another throughout every corner of the country, graziers cannot readily combine either to impose monopolies on their fellow citizens or to free themselves from those others have imposed on them. Manufacturers of every kind, gathered in large groups in all the great cities, can do so easily. Even the export of cattle horns is prohibited; in this respect the two insignificant trades of the horn worker and the comb maker enjoy a monopoly at the graziers' expense.

The penalties under this milder law are still severe. Some come from this law; others come from earlier laws that it did not repeal. Besides losing the goods, anyone who exports wool, or tries to, must pay 3s. for every pound weight of wool. That is about four or five times its value. A merchant or anyone else convicted of this offense loses the right to collect any debt or account owed to him by a factor or anyone else. Whatever his fortune, and whether or not he can pay the heavy penalties, the law aims to ruin him completely. But most people's morals are not yet as corrupt as those of the people who devised this law. I have never heard of anyone using this clause. If the convicted person cannot pay the penalties within three months after judgment, he is transported for seven years. If he returns before then, he faces the penalties for a felony, without benefit of clergy. A shipowner who knows about the offense loses his entire interest in the ship and its equipment. The captain and sailors, if they know about it, lose all their goods and possessions and spend three months in prison. A later law makes the captain's prison term six months.

To prevent exports, the law places very burdensome and oppressive restrictions on all inland trade in wool. Wool cannot be packed in a box, barrel, cask, case, chest, or any other container. It can only be packed in leather or pack-cloth bundles. The outside must show the words WOOL or YARN in large letters, at least three inches long. Otherwise the owner or packer loses both wool and package and pays 8s. for every pound weight. Within five miles of the coast, wool cannot be loaded onto a horse or cart or carried by land except between sunrise and sunset. Otherwise the wool, horses, and vehicles are forfeited. The hundred, or local district, nearest the sea coast from or through which wool is carried or exported must pay £20 if the wool is worth less than £10. If it is worth more, the district pays three times its value, together with three times the legal costs. The case must be brought within the year. Collection can be enforced against any two residents, whom the local court must repay through a charge on the other residents, as in robbery cases. Anyone who settles with the hundred for less than the penalty goes to prison for five years; anyone else may prosecute. These rules apply throughout the kingdom.

But in Kent and Sussex the restrictions are even more troublesome. Every owner of wool within ten miles of the sea coast must, within three days after shearing, report in writing to the nearest customs officer the number of fleeces and where they are stored. Before moving any of them, the owner must likewise report the number and weight of the fleeces, the name and address of the buyer, and the intended destination. No one within fifteen miles of the sea in those counties may buy wool without first giving the king a bond promising not to sell any of it to anyone else within fifteen miles of the sea. If wool is found being carried toward the sea in those counties without the required entry and security, it is forfeited. The offender also pays 3s. for every pound weight. If anyone stores wool within fifteen miles of the sea without making the required entry, it must be seized and forfeited. Anyone who then claims the seized wool must give the treasury security to pay three times the legal costs, besides all other penalties, if the court finds against him.

With these restrictions on inland trade, we can hardly expect coastal trade to be free. An owner who carries wool, or has it carried, to a coastal port or place for shipment by sea to another coastal port or place must first register it at the port of departure. The entry must give the weight, marks, and number of packages and must be made before the wool comes within five miles of that port. Otherwise the wool, horses, carts, and other vehicles are forfeited, and the owner faces the penalties under the other laws against wool exports. Yet this law (1st of William III. chap. 32) is generous enough to say that a person may carry wool home from the place where it was shorn, even if that place is within five miles of the sea. Within ten days after shearing, and before moving the wool, that person must sign and give the nearest customs officer a statement of the true number of fleeces and where they are kept. The wool cannot be moved again unless that officer receives a signed notice of the intended move three days beforehand. A bond must guarantee that wool shipped along the coast will be landed at the specific port listed in the outward entry. If any part of it is landed without an officer present, the wool is forfeited, as other goods would be, and the usual additional penalty of 3s. for every pound weight also applies.

Our woolen manufacturers confidently claimed that these extraordinary restrictions were justified because English wool had a special quality superior to wool from any other country. They said foreign wool could not produce acceptable cloth without some English wool mixed in, and that fine cloth could not be made without it. Therefore, they said, if England could stop all wool exports, it could monopolize almost the entire woolen trade of the world. With no rivals, it could charge whatever it wanted and soon gain incredible wealth through a highly favorable balance of trade. Like most claims confidently made by a substantial group, this one was—and remains—believed without question by many more people: almost everyone unfamiliar with the woolen trade or who has not investigated it closely. Yet the claim that English wool is needed to make fine cloth is so false that English wool is actually entirely unfit for that purpose. Fine cloth is made entirely of Spanish wool. Even mixing English wool with Spanish wool would somewhat spoil and lower the quality of the cloth.

An earlier part of this work showed that these rules have pushed the price of English wool not just below its natural price today, but far below its actual price in the time of Edward III. The price of Scotch wool reportedly fell by about half when the Union brought it under the same rules. The Reverend Mr John Smith, the careful and knowledgeable author of the Memoirs of Wool, observes that the best English wool generally sells in England for less than much poorer wool usually sells for in Amsterdam. Lowering this commodity's price below its natural and proper level was the stated aim of these rules. There seems little doubt that they had their intended effect.

One might think this lower price discouraged wool production and must have greatly reduced its annual output. Perhaps not below its former level, but below what it would probably be today if a free and open market had let the price reach its natural and proper level. I am inclined to think, though, that these rules can have had little effect on annual output, even if they had some effect. Producing wool is not the sheep farmer's main reason for putting his work and stock to use. He expects to profit more from the carcass than from the fleece. In many cases, the usual price of the carcass must make up for any shortfall in the usual price of the fleece. An earlier part of this work noted: "Any rules that push the price of wool or raw hides below its natural level must tend to raise the price of butcher's meat in a developed and cultivated country. The price of both large and small livestock raised on developed and cultivated land must cover the rent that the landlord and the profit that the farmer can reasonably expect from that land. Otherwise they will soon stop raising the animals. So whatever portion of this price is not paid by the wool and hide must be paid by the carcass. The less the farmer gets for one, the more he must get for the other. Landlords and farmers do not care how the price is divided among an animal's parts, provided they receive the full amount. So in a developed and cultivated country, such rules cannot greatly affect their interests as landlords and farmers, though higher food prices may affect them as consumers." By that reasoning, this fall in wool prices is unlikely to reduce annual wool output in a developed and cultivated country. It could do so only insofar as a higher price of mutton reduces demand, and thus production, for that particular kind of butcher's meat. Even this effect is probably not very large.

But even if the effect on annual quantity has been small, one might think the effect on quality must be great. The quality of English wool may not have fallen below its former level, but it might be assumed to have fallen below the level it would naturally have reached with today's improvements in cultivation. That decline might seem almost proportional to the decline in price. Quality depends on breeding, pasture, and the care and cleanliness of the sheep throughout the fleece's growth. One might naturally expect farmers to pay attention to these things only in proportion to the reward they expect for the work and expense from the fleece's price. But the fleece's quality largely depends on the animal's health, growth, and size. In some respects, the same care that improves the carcass also improves the fleece. Despite the lower price, English wool is said to have improved considerably even during the present century. It might have improved more with a better price. The low price may have held back improvement, but it certainly has not stopped it entirely.

These harsh rules, then, seem to have affected neither the annual quantity nor the quality of wool as much as one might expect. I think it likely they have affected quality considerably more than quantity. And although wool growers must have been hurt to some degree, they seem, on the whole, to have been hurt much less than one might imagine.

These points do not justify a complete ban on wool exports. They do, however, fully justify a substantial tax on them.

To harm one group of citizens solely to help another plainly violates the fair and equal treatment that a ruler owes all groups of subjects. Yet the ban does harm wool growers to some degree solely to help manufacturers.

Every group of citizens has a duty to support the ruler or the commonwealth. A tax of five or even ten shillings on every tod of wool exported would bring in considerable revenue for the ruler. It would hurt growers somewhat less than a ban, because it probably would not lower the price of wool as much. Manufacturers would still gain enough. Though they might pay somewhat more for wool than under the ban, they would still pay at least five or ten shillings less than foreign manufacturers, who would also have to pay shipping and insurance costs. It is hard to imagine another tax that could bring in substantial revenue while inconveniencing anyone so little.

Despite all the penalties supporting it, the ban does not stop wool exports. Everyone knows that large quantities are exported. The large price difference between the home and foreign markets makes smuggling so tempting that even the law's full severity cannot stop it. These illegal exports benefit only the smugglers. Legal exports subject to a tax would bring the ruler revenue. By avoiding the need for other, perhaps more burdensome and inconvenient taxes, they might benefit every group of subjects in the state.

Fuller's earth, or fuller's clay, was thought necessary to prepare and clean woolen goods. Its export has faced nearly the same penalties as wool exports. Even tobacco-pipe clay has been subject to the same prohibitions and penalties. Though known to be different from fuller's clay, it resembles it, and fuller's clay could sometimes be exported under its name.

The 13th and 14th of Charles II. chap, 7 prohibited the export not only of raw hides but also of tanned leather, except as boots, shoes, or slippers. This gave our bootmakers and shoemakers a monopoly at the expense of both graziers and tanners. Later laws let tanners escape this monopoly by paying a small tax of only one shilling per hundred weight of tanned leather, weighing one hundred and twelve pounds. They also secured a refund of two-thirds of the excise taxes on their product, even when they exported it without any further processing. All leather goods may be exported duty-free, and the exporter also gets a refund of all excise taxes. Our graziers remain subject to the old monopoly. Graziers live apart, scattered across the country, and find it very hard to join together either to impose monopolies on their fellow citizens or to free themselves from monopolies others impose on them. Manufacturers of every kind gather in large groups in all major cities and can easily do both. Even cattle horns cannot be exported. In this respect the two minor trades of horn-working and comb-making have a monopoly at the graziers' expense.