August 8, 1907] 



NA TURE 



369 



merchandise they miyhl purchase in kind," and, as the 

 peace led among other things to a dearth of prizes, 

 Albuquerque " was constrained to send an urgent request 

 home for large quantities of merchandise to be sent out 

 to make up for this deticiencw" ' How long this stipula- 

 tion remained in force I cannot say, but things were 

 certainly ditferent a hundred years later. In the report 

 to the Grand Duke of Florence above cited we are told 

 that what the Portuguese carry to India for exchange | 

 is iibove all " silver in reals, and besides silver wine, 

 oil, and some other sort of merchandise, such as coral, 

 glass, and the like, of little importance"; and as to the 

 silver he adds that " the reals bring a gain of more than 

 50 per cent, as soon as they have reached India, for the 

 real of eight, which in Lisbon is worth 320 reis, in India 

 is sold and spent at the rate of 480 to 484 reis of that 

 monev, and with it one bu\s :dl sorts of spices and drugs 

 which are sold there, except pepper, which is the monopoly 

 of the King of Portugal and those to whom he gives a 

 lease of that trade." The importance of silver among the 

 outgoing commodities for India has continued from that 

 time down to the present day, latterly, however, in 

 diminishing proportion. I'"or ii long time after the date 

 at which we have now arrived it was as predominant as 

 a means of exchange with India as it was in the first 

 century of the Christian era, when the drain of silver 

 from the Roman Empire to the East was bewailed bv the 

 writers of that time. In the voyages of the English East 

 India Company of the four years 1620-3 inclusive the 

 value of the bullion (chiefly silver) sent out to India was 

 205,710/., as against only 58,801)/. worth of merchandise. - 



Now, what is the meaning of the change in the position 

 of silver in Indian trade which seems to have taken place 

 between 1513 and the end of the sixteenth century? No 

 doubt we may see there the result of another change in 

 geographical relations brought about by a discovery nearly 

 contemporaneous with that of the sea way to India — 

 namely, that of the New World. The first result of that 

 discovery of importance to commerce was the pouring 

 into Europe of large quantities of the precious metals, 

 and the quantity was enormously enhanced after the silver 

 mines of Potosi, in Upper Peru (as it was then called), 

 were discovered in 1545. It was probably this discovery 

 that brought it about that of all commodities of such 

 small bulk in proportion to their value as to stand the 

 costs of transport to the East this was the one which 

 could be sent out for the most part with the greatest 

 advantage. And this discovery no doubt also helps to 

 explain why that of the sea way to India had so little 

 effect for a very long time in lowering the prices of spices 

 in Europe, why prices even rose. At the time of the 

 return of Vasco da Gama from the first voyage to India 

 the price of pepper at Lisbon is estimated by Danvers ' 

 to have been about 15. 5J. per lb., and we all know 

 that the immediate occasion of the foundation of the 

 English East India Company about a hundred years later 

 was that the Dutch suddenly raised the price of pepper 

 against the English from 3*. to bs. and Ss. per lb. 



But the particular commodity which made up the prin- 

 cipal portion of the outward trade to India is, after all, 

 a matter of detail, though not unimportant detail. The 

 main point on which I want to insist is that, whatever 

 the commodities were, whether carried out or home, the 

 nature of the trade with the East was little if at all altered 

 by the discovery of the direct route to India by sea. The 

 trade still continued to be one concerned in a moderate 

 number of articles of small bulk but high value. It was 

 merely a change of route that the Portuguese effected, 

 and for more than a hundred years they remained in sole 

 command of this route. After that, however, they were 

 ousted from the greater part of this trade, and that the 

 more valuable part, chieflv by the Dutch, and from a 

 geographical point of view it is very interesting to note 

 how the Dutch did it. They did not trouble themselves 

 much about India proper. Thev left the Portuguese alone 

 at Goa, and from that port as a base allowed them to 



Danv 





sn'l 



.. pp. 281, 28 



fieiire^ from 

 Treatise on the Wealth, Povv 



London, 181 s- 

 ^ As abo\e, vol. i., p. 64. 



rolquhnu 

 lish Knipin 



NO. 



1 97 1, VOL. 76] 



pick up as much trade as they could at Calicut and 

 Cochin, which, said Albuquerque, " were capable of 

 supplying the Portuguese fleets until the Day of Judg- 

 ment." But Malacca, on the straits of that name, gave 

 command of the route to the further East, whence came 

 in the end even larger quantities of pepper than could be 

 got from India, whence came too ginger, cloves, and nut- 

 megs, as well as the products of China. The importance 

 of this place Albuquerque had accordingly recognised, and 

 in 1511, the year after he took Goa, he took it also by 

 the right that always belongs to the lion as against the 

 jackal. This place was taken by the Dutch (1641), who 

 had previously established themselves on Java and the 

 Spice Islands, where they maintained an absolute 

 monopoly. Ceylon, again, was (and is) almost the only 

 place from which the true cinnamon was to be obtained, 

 so the Dutch took that island also from the Portuguese 

 (1656). As long as the Portuguese were the sole Euro- 

 peans in the East, Calicut and Cochin not merely furnished 

 the Portuguese with Indian wares, but were important 

 entrepots for the spices, perfumes, drugs, and jewels of 

 the Further East as well as of Chinese silks and porce- 

 lains ; but the trade in these commodities could be wholly 

 or largely diverted to places in the possession of the Dutch. 

 F'ven before the capture of Malacca and Ceylon a 

 Portuguese viceroy had reported (1638) that the Dutch had 

 a monopoly of trade from the Bay of Cochin China to the 

 point of Sunda. 



But this change also was little more than a change of 

 route. The general character of the Eastern trade re- 

 mained the same. The English East India Company, the 

 operations of which, through the hostility of the Dutch, 

 came to be restricted to India proper, there founded a 

 trade that gave much more opportunity for expansion 

 under modern conditions than that of the Dutch, but for 

 a long time it retained the same character. All the com- 

 modities enumerated by Colquhoun as brought back by 

 the voyages of 1620-3 '" exchange for the bullion and 

 nierchandise sent out were pepper, cloves, mace, nutmegs, 

 Chinese and Persian raw silk, besides calicoes, the sole 

 manufactured article, and one of course that had relatively 

 a much higher value than now, when the direction of the 

 trade in that commodity is reversed. 



A similar character for a long time belonged to the 

 trans-Atlantic trade, even though the costs of transport 

 in thai case were less, and favoured the development of 

 a trade in somewhat bulkier commodities. Furs from the 

 Far North, tobacco from V'irginia, sugar and fifterwards 

 coffee and cotton from the West Indies, were by far the 

 most prominent imports. It was the tobacco trade of Vir- 

 ginia that first enabled Glasgow, which at the time of the 

 union of the English and Scottish Parliaments was an 

 insignificant town with less than 13,000 inhabitants, to 

 convert itself into a seaport, and thus lay the foundations 

 of its subsequent prosperity. Now tobacco makes up less 

 than I per cent, of the value of the goods imported at 

 Glasgow, and, though that may be partly due to a diminu- 

 tion in the actual quantity of tobacco imported at Glasgow, 

 this result has chiefly been brought about by changes in 

 relative values. A hundred years ago the value of ih" 

 imports into Great Britain and Ireland from the British 

 West Indies w^as about one-fourth of the total value of th' 

 imports from all parts; now it is less than i per cent. c,f 

 that value. 



What has brought about such changes, what makes the 

 essential difference between recent and all previous conv 

 m^erce, is the series of enormous improvements in the means 

 of communication which followed so closely on the inven- 

 tion of textile machinery and the improvement of the 

 steam-enfine in this country. These improvements have 

 had two important effects on commerce. First, they have 

 facilitated the maintenance of order and security both by 

 land and sea, and thus enormouslv reduced the risks i '" 

 commerce. Secondly, thev have directly lowered the cost 

 of transport for different goods in different degrees. Bulky 

 goods of little value could now for the first time be profit- 

 ably conveyed many hundreds of miles by land to a sea- 

 port, and there load ever larger ships for distant shores, 

 thus opening up markets with vast undeveloped resources 

 in the heart of great continents. ."Mong with these bulkier 

 goods the more valuable goods are carried at a cost far 



