100 SCIENTIFIC SURVEY OF ABERDEEN AND DISTRICT 
has dwindled to a negligible quantity, although a fair export trade is 
still done with Canada. 
This branch of the industry has in recent years had to face considerable 
vicissitudes. Besides the loss of export trade as above mentioned the 
industry has since the war been faced with foreign competition in the 
home market. Since 1921 Germany and other foreign countries have 
exported granite monuments to the United Kingdom in large quantities. 
Before 1921 there were no foreign imports of the manufactured article. 
A slight amelioration was granted to the home manufacturer by the 
imposition of a duty of 15 per cent. in April 1932, and an additional 
5 per cent. in June 1934. 
Many representatives of the granite industry have taken a prominent 
part in the public life of the city in the capacity of magistrates, town 
councillors, and members of other public boards and otherwise. ‘Two 
of their number have in recent years held the office of Lord Provost of 
the City, namely, the late Sir James Taggart, K.B.E., LL.D., from 
1914 to 1919, and Mr. James Rust, LL.D., from 1929 to 1932. 
XVII. 
THE TRADE OF ABERDEEN 
BY 
JOHN S. YULE, 
SECRETARY, ABERDEEN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE, 
ABERDEEN has been a royal burgh since the time of David I. (A.D. 1080- 
1153). This early Aberdeen was a purely trading town, and it is significant 
that the very first royal charter, granted to the burgh by William the Lion 
(1171-85), is a charter of trade granting to his burgesses of Aberdeen 
their free hanse (or freedom of mercantile co-operation). 
The population of Aberdeen in the reign of William the Lion, although 
small, as we would now think, was really remarkably large, taking the 
whole population of Scotland into account. In the thirteenth century 
the population would be under 2,000, but by the end of the fourteenth 
century it was, in the matter of population, first among the towns of 
Scotland. In a notable letter, still extant, sent by Sir William Wallace, 
the Hero of Scotland, and Sir Andrew Moray, his colleague in the regency, 
in 1297 to the two chief Hanseatic trading towns Lubeck and Hamburg, 
it is seen that Scottish traders carried on business all over eastern and 
western Prussia, and in the old towns of Flanders the itinerant Scottish 
traders were well known. ‘These traders were also known in Russia 
and Poland, while in Sweden the activities of the Scottish traders aroused 
