Lecture 5
LECTURE 5 - WAR AND EMPIRE
1. Mercantilist Policies
-protectionist trade policies
-acquisition of colonies
-acquisition of gold bullion
gold reserves and trade balances
2. The Dutch
entrepot trades
3. Navigation Acts from 1660
4. The Navy
5. Century of War
1688-1802 - Britain declared war against foreign powers eight times
enemies - France and Spain
alliances with the Dutch, the Austrians, Russians and Prussians
6. The British way of warfare
7. Manpower
1789 - British army - 40,000 Navy - 16,000
1814 - army was 250,000 - Navy - 140,000
-impact of demobilization
8. Taxation
Customs duties - tea, sugar, spirits and tobacco
Excise duties - beer, malt, hops, soap, salt, candles and leather
Indirect taxation - socially regressive - middling sort and labour classes
bore disproportionate part of tax burden
9. Types of taxes
Taxes on luxuries
1695 - tax on bachelors, and on births, marriages and deaths
Stamp duties - legal documents, newspapers and financial instruments
Customs duties smuggling
Tariffs
Excise duties rose from 26.1% of total taxes 1696-1700 to 50.6% in 1751-5
10. National debt
borrowing to meet costs of war
Long term loans and capacity to levy taxes related - the funding system - repayment of loans linked to specific taxes
Government stock and the Stock Exchange
Corruption and the national debt
Rise of the income tax
11. Colonies and Colonial policy
British trade policy in the East
Bengal 1757 -East India Company - revenues rose from nothing before 1757 to ,7.5 mil. in 1766-9
12. War and patriotism