ECONOMIC COERCION AS A SUBSTITUTE 
 
 FOR WAR 
 
 By 
 
 HAROLD WALTER GUEST 
 
 A. B., Albion College, 1921 
 
 THESIS 
 
 SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS 
 FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF ARTS IN ECONOMICS 
 IN THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF ILLINOIS, 1922 
 
 URBANA, ILLINOIS 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
/3 7 4 13 tAf 
 
 19 22 
 G.9 38 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 
 THE GRADUATE SCHOOL 
 
 1 HEREBY RECOMMEND THAT THE THESIS PREPARED UNDER MY 
 
 SUPERVISION BY 
 
 ENTITLED. 
 
 
 ci^ a_ * 
 
 
 
 BE ACCEPTED AS FULFILLING THIS PART OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR 
 THE DEGREE OF _aal 
 
 Recommendation concurred in* 
 
 Committee 
 
 on 
 
 Final Examination* 
 
 'Required for doctor’s degree but not for master’s 
 
 509.398 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . ' 
 
 • ' • . . . ■ . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Hi 
 
CONTENTS . 
 
 Chapter I . 
 
 Introduction . 
 
 Chapter II. 
 
 The First Non-Import? tion Agreement of the American 
 Colonies against Or eat Britain. 
 
 Chapter III. 
 
 The Second Non-Import? tion Agreement of the 
 
 American Colonies against Great Britain. 
 
 Chapter IV. 
 
 The Third Non- Importation Agreement of the American 
 Colonies against Great Britain. 
 
 Chapter V. 
 
 The Embargo and Non-Intercourse Acts. 
 
 Chapter VI. 
 
 The Chinese Boycott of American Goods . 
 
 Chapter VII. 
 
 The Turkish Boycott of Austro-Hungarian Goods. 
 
 Chapter VIII. 
 
 Some Other Cases. 
 
 Chapter IX. 
 
 Conclusions . 
 
 
 Bibliography . 
 
r 
 
CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. 
 
 "The sentiment against war has too often been dissipated 
 in rhapsodic visions of Utopia, " says Robert Goldsmith in the in- 
 troduction to his book "A League to Enforce Peace." 1 2 He might 
 have added that prior to 1914 few writers of the twentieth century 
 on this subject indulged in much of anything else. The great 
 
 bulk of the deluge of peace literature which flooded the -world at 
 that time was of a maudlin, myopic type based on hopes rather than 
 upon actual conditions in the world. The outbreak of the World 
 War in 1914 put an end to all these happy dreams, but as the 
 struggle went on, a new philosophy of peace began to evolve; men 
 began to believe that out of the struggle would emerge a new order 
 in which co-operation among nations would take the place of the 
 jealousies of the past, and international anarchy would give way to 
 some kind of international government. "The world will never be 
 again what it has been," said President Wilson^ in the early days 
 of American participation in the war, and millions of men and wo- 
 men all over the world believed him with a hope and faith born of 
 suffering; believed that at the close of the struggle steps would 
 be taken tov/ards creating machinery that would make possible inter- 
 national co-operation for the preservation of world peace. 
 
 To meet this expectation of the people of the world, the 
 League of Nations was planned and its constitution written at the 
 Council of Versailles. Among other important features provided 
 for in the organization of the League is the Permanent Court of 
 
 1 Goldsmith, Robert: A League to Enforce Peace , p.xix. 
 
 2 Ibid . , p. 86 . 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2016 
 
 https://archive.org/details/economiccoercionOOgues 
 
» 
 
 2 
 
 Justice. 1 In case a question arises which the disputants do not 
 ■ wish to refer to this court or to a board of arbitration, it may be 
 submitted to the Council, but some type of arbitration must be tried 
 jj "The members of the League agree that they will carry out in full 
 good faith any award that may be rendered, and that they will not 
 resort to war against a Member of the League which complies there- 
 with."^ In case any member of the League does resort to war con- 
 trary to its covenants, "it shall ioso facto be deemed to have 
 committed an act of war against all other Members of the League, 
 
 I which hereby undertake immediately to subject it to the severance 
 of all trade or financial relations, the prohibition of all inter- 
 course between their nationals and the nationals of the covenant- 
 breaking State, and the prevention of all financial, commercial, or 
 personal intercourse between the nationals of the covenant-breaking 
 State emd the nationals of any other State, whether a Member of the 
 League or not."^ In case these measures fail to bring the reca-1- 
 citrant state to terms, more forceful means may be employed to ac- 
 complish that end. 
 
 The question that suggests itself at this point is, To 
 what extent caul economic pressure be depended upon as a means of 
 coercing an offending state? The purpose of this study is to 
 supply an answer to that question. During the tariff debates of 
 1319, John Tyler, then a young representative from Virginia, stood 
 at his desk in the House of Repres entatives and declared the idea 
 that we must become independent of other nations "a theory which 
 
 1 Cov enant of th e Leayue of Nations . Article XIV. 
 
 2 Ibid., Article XIII. 
 
 3 Ibid., Article XVI. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
aims to subvert the ordinances of heaven itself." He then went on 
 
 to show that in the natural state of affairs man is dependent upon 
 man and nation upon nation. Then why should Congress consider 
 enacting legislation which would attempt to annul the very laws of 
 nature and of Providence?^ Whatever the value of this idea as an 
 argument against the principle of protective tariffs, its value as 
 a statement of the interdependence of nations will go unquestioned, 
 and it is upon this economic dogma that the idea of economic co- 
 ercion of nations must rest. Long before man was wise enough to 
 make records of his doings, he was engaged in the exchange of goods 
 and services with his fellows, and out of this trade between indiv- 
 iduals grew trade between regions, and, as nations developed, be- 
 
 p 
 
 tween nations. 
 
 As this interregional or international commerce developed, 
 economic interdependence of nations also developed at equal pace. 
 Improvements in transportation facilities and in business organiz- 
 ation have accelerated this movement, and today we speak of world 
 highways, world markets, and world corporations. Today nations 
 are dependent upon international trade for even the necessities of 
 life. John Bakeless writes: "The great industrial state -- and 
 every great power in Europe is an industrial state in this sense -- 
 must look beyond its bounderies not only for the food that feeds 
 its citizens, but also for the food that feeds its mills. There 
 
 1 Annals of Congress , vol.36, p. 1952 . 
 
 2 See Bishop Huet's Histoi re du Commerc e . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
4 
 
 is not a state in Europe that does not look beyond its own borders 
 for food, raw materials, and markets. 1 
 
 "Though political internationalism has not gone very far," 
 writes J. A. Hobson, "economic internationalism has. The whole 
 material and moral basis of modern life is laid in a most elaborate 
 network of commercial, physical and personal communications , by 
 which the members of all advanced states have been brought into 
 close and continual co-operation for many of the essential services 
 and activities. To withdraw from these communications , or in any 
 way *to weaken them, would be a signal damage to the life even of 
 the French people, who are more self-sufficient for the essentials 
 of life, economic and moral, than any other great European nation. 
 
 The entire body of our economic system, on its productive 
 
 and consumptive sides, has been nourished upon the freest available 
 access to all markets, all national supplies, all economic oppor- 
 tunities throughout the world." 2 In short, the time is rapidly 
 drawing nea.r when our planet can be said to be an economic unit. 
 
 There are several instances in the annals of modern 
 history when the exertion of economic pressure has been used by 
 one nation against another. The plan of this study is to examine 
 some of these cases, as far as possible discover the effects in 
 the countries against which the pressure was directed, and then 
 attempt to draw some conclusions as to this means of coercion 
 
 1 Ba k e 1 e s s , John: The E co nomi c Caus es of M ode rn Wars , p . 2 0 . 
 
 2 Hobson, J. A. : Democracy after the Y, r a.r . p.197. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
5 
 
 among nations. The standard by which the success of these methods 
 will be measured in each case will not be how near to the point of 
 starvation the people of the offending nation were brought, but the 
 amount of satisfaction the offended nation was able to obtain in 
 the form of redress of grievances. This is usually the standard 
 by which we judge whether a war is successful or unsuccessful, and 
 it is the only fair standard that can be applied here. 
 
 The pacific blockade, which resembles the subject under 
 discussion in that it cuts off an offending nation from intercourse 
 with other countries, will not be considered in this study since 
 the majority of writers on International Law define it as pacific 
 in name only . 1 Some show of force must be exhibited against per- 
 
 1 The following quotations in support of this conclusion are 
 taken from A. E. Hogan's Pacific Blockade : 
 
 Bonf ils -- Manuel de droit international public (4th ed., edit- 
 ed by Fanchelle, I 905 ) par. 993: "Au fond, c ' est bel et bien un 
 acte de guerre, un fait d ' hostilite . " 
 
 Calvo -- par. 1859: "Tout d'abord, le blocus pacifique nous 
 semble un acte incontes tablemen t agressif, hostile et portant 
 gravement attient aus droits imprescriptibles de tout 6tat inde- 
 pendent; en un mot, un acte de guerre." 
 
 Fanchille -- p.3S: "Le blocus ne peut exister qu'en temps de 
 guerre, il ne peut pas y avoir de blocus en temps de paix; le 
 pretendus blocus pacifiques n' existent pas." 
 
 MM. Funck-Brentano et Sorel -- Precis du droit des gens (1337) 
 
 tone iii, p.40S: "Le blocus pacifique .... constitue, sous 
 quelque forme qu'il soit pr£sente, un veritable acte de guerre." 
 C-essne r -- Le droit des neutres sur mer (1st ed. , Berlin, 1365), 
 p.215: "En effet 1 ' £tablissement d'un blocus £tant l'emploi de 
 
 la force est un acte d'hostilit^ qui constitue (l'£tat) 
 
 en 6tat de guerre . 11 
 
 Eys -- La guerre maritime (Bruselles et Leipzig, 1381) p. 69 : 
 
 "Le blocus est un acte de guerre. Le terme blocus pacifique 
 implique ainsi contradiction." 
 
 MM. Pi stoye et Duverdy -- Traite des prises maritime (1855), 
 p.37o: "On n's. pas declare la guerre, mais on la fait reel- 
 ement . " 
 
 A. J. Balfour speaking in the House of Commons on the question 
 of the Venezuelan blockade said: "I think it is very likely 
 that the United States will think there can be no such thing as 
 a pacific blockade, and I personally take the same view. Evi- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
6 
 
 persons and other objects outside the jurisdiction of the nation 
 attempting the blockade, otherwise there can be no such thing as 
 enforcing it; and as soon as the suggestion of force enters, the 
 term 'pacific' no longer applies. 
 
 Necessarily much that is of a historical nature must be 
 given in presenting the several cases chosen. However the recital 
 of well-known and generally accepted facts of history will be re- 
 duced to a minimum, and attention will be concentrated on evidence 
 showing the conditions brought about by the exercise of economic 
 pressure. ^ As pointed out earlier in the chapter, conditions 
 themselves will not be taken as a criterion of the success of econ- 
 omic pressure except as they serve to bring a nation to the point 
 where it is willing to make concessions to the aggrieved nation. 
 
 If a nation must be brought to the point of starvation before sat- 
 isfaction can be secured from it, economic coercion is little, if 
 any, better than war. Thus there are two questions to which 
 answers are sought in this study: Does economic coercion function 
 as a means of bringing an offending nation to terms instead of re- 
 sorting to war? and, Does economic coercion make a satisfactory 
 substitute for war? 
 
 dently a blockade does involve a state of war . " 
 
 Hogan himself says: "As matters stand it depends wholly on the 
 action of the blockaded state whether a blockade shall be con- 
 sidered as warlike or pacific." 
 
 1 The bibliography gives a list of works consulted for the 
 
 general historical facts of the incidents from American history. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
7 
 
 CHAPTER II. THE FIRST NON- IMPORTATION AGREEMENT . 
 
 The direct cause of the first of the non- importation 
 associations in the English colonies in America v/as the Stamp Act 
 of 1765, which provided that every legal or commercial paper must 
 bear a stamp procurable from a duly authorized agent of the British 
 Empire. This was the first time that the mother country had 
 attempted to levy internal taxes upon them, and in an outburst of 
 indignation committees of correspondence and non- importation 
 associations were formed in the four leading commercial colonies: 
 New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. The 
 policy of non- importation did not really get underway until about 
 the middle of October ( 1765) , although the objectionable act had 
 been passed in the spring, but the news of the boycott had no 
 sooner reached England and Scotland than its effects began bo be 
 felt among the merchant and trading classes. Edmund Burke, writ- 
 ing of this period, said, 'The trading interests of England lay 
 under the most dreadful anxiety which it ever felt," ^ and the 
 Annual Register for that year declared, "Much an these restrictive 
 laws tended to hurt the British North American colonies, they 
 tended still more to hurt Great Britain herself. " - 
 
 The Annual Register for the following year began the 
 discussion of the American situation with the following far from 
 cheerful picture: "At the conclusion of our last volume, we saw 
 the nation involved in the most distressful circumstances that 
 could well be imagined; our manufacturers at a stand, commerce al- 
 
 1 Writings an d Speeches of Ed mun d Burke , vol.1, p.391* 
 
 2 Annua 1 Registe r. 1765, p.24. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
3 
 
 □ost totally annihilated, provisions extravagantly dear, and a 
 numerous populace unemployed, without the means of procuring a 
 livelihood. Such and so gloomy was the prospect that opened at 
 home upon us along with the year." 1 Writing about the same time, 
 a writer using the pseudonym of Anti-Se janus said: "There never was 
 a period in English history, when the affairs of this kingdom were 
 in a more desperate state than at present. 
 
 Mint rbotham in his "View of the American United States" 
 describes the situation as follows: "These restrictions, which the 
 colonists had voluntarily imposed on themselves, were so well ob- 
 served, that multitudes of artificers in England were reduced to 
 great distress, and some of their most flourishing manufactories 
 
 were, in a great measure, at a stand. "3y suspending 
 
 their future purchases till the repeal of the Stamp Act, the col- 
 onists made it the interest of merchants and manufacturers to sol- 
 icit for that repeal. They had usually taken off so great a pro- 
 portion of British manufactures, that the sudden stoppage of all 
 their orders, amounting annually to several million sterling, threw 
 some thousands in the Mother Country out of employment, and induced 
 them, from a regard to their own interest, to advocate the measures 
 wished for by America."^ 
 
 Petition after petition poured in to Parliament praying 
 
 1 Annual Rep;ister . 1756, p.31. 
 
 2 In t er e s 1 1 nm Let t e r s . voi . 2 , p . 60 . 
 
 3 Winterbotham, W. : vol . 1 , p.440. 
 
 4 Ibid., p.439. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
9 
 
 its intervention and the repeal of the legislation that was at the 
 bottom of all the trouble. Archibald. Henderson in a. letter to 
 Burke describes the "particular hardships" of the merchants of 
 Glasgow saying their "very being as merchants is at stake." 1 2 3 In 
 a letter to the Marquis of Rockingham, Sir George Saville spoke of 
 the flood of petitions as follows: "You can find out what hurts 
 
 them. They speak as ignorant men. Our tra de is h urt . Wha t the 
 
 devil have you been a do in-G? For our pa rt , we dont pretend to 
 understand your Politi cs and Ameri c an matt e rs , bu t our trade is 
 hurt: pra y re ,ie dy it , and a plague of you (si c ) if you wont. " 
 
 Horace Walpole wrote: "The situation of our manufacturers 
 was most calamitous. Nottingham had dismissed a thousand hands; 
 Leicester, Leeds, and other towns in proportion. Three in ten of 
 the labourers of Ranches ter were discharged. The trade of England 
 was not only stopped, but in danger of being lost. If trade 
 suffered, land would suffer in Its turn. Petitions would have 
 been sent from every trading town in England, but that they appre- 
 hended that the very hearing of their petitions would delay the 
 repeal . " " 
 
 Merchants, tradesmen, and manufacturers of London, Leeds, 
 Lancaster, Manchester, Leicester, Bradford in Wiltshire, Frome, 
 Birmingham, Coventry, Maclesfield, Wolverhampton, Stourbridge, 
 Dudley, Minehead, Taunton, Witney, Newcastle upon Tyne, Glasgow, 
 
 1 Fit zwilliam and Bourke, ed.: Correspondence of Edmund Bu rke, 
 
 vol. 1 , p.253 . 
 
 2 Albemarle, Earl of: 'Memoirs of the Marquis of Ro ckingha m. 
 
 vol. 2, p.253. 
 
 3 Walpole, Horace: Memoirs of George III , vol. 2, p.2lC. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
1C 
 
 Chippenham, and Nottingham are all listed in the proceedings of 
 Parliament as petitioners for the repeal of the Stamp Act, "all 
 complainihg of a great decay in the trade to the North American 
 colonies, owing to the late obstructions and embarrassments laid 
 thereon, and praying relief."^ The Annual Register does not 
 attempt to compile a list of the towns and boroughs from which 
 petitions emanated, but declares that petitions were received "from 
 most of the trading and manuf acturing towns of the kingdom."^ 
 
 These petitions are represented as saying regarding their trade 
 "that nothing less than its utter ruin was apprehended without the 
 immediate interposition of parliament," and that "the petitioners 
 were, by these unhappy events, reduced to the necessity of applying 
 to the house, in order to secure themselves and their families from 
 impending ruin; to prevent a multitude of manufacturers from becom- 
 ing a burden to the community, or else seeking their bread in other 
 countries, to the irretrievable loss of the kingdom. 
 
 Finally, the importunity of the trading, manufacturing, 
 and commercial classes won out, and the Stamp Act was repealed. 
 
 The joy of the people at the news of the repeal shows something of 
 the unpopularity of the act because of the effect it had had upon 
 industry. The Annual Register declares that the passage of the 
 bill repealing the Stamp Act "caused more universal joy, throughout 
 the British Dominions, than perhaps any other that can be remember- 
 
 ,,4 
 
 ed. V.alpole tells how the crow r ds gathered around General Conway, 
 
 1 Pa rliamentary Histo ry of England , vol . 1 6 , p . 1 35 • 
 
 2 Annual Register , 1766, p.35* 
 
 3 Ibid . , p . 36 . 
 
 4 Ibid . , p. 46 . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
1 1 
 
 who had been one of the leaders in Parliament that had worked for 
 the repeal of the act, and how they took off their hats to Pitt 
 "and followed his chair home with shouts and benedictions . " As 
 for G-renville, who had led in opposing the repeal, "the crowd press- 
 ed on him with scorn and hisses."^ 
 
 There was ringing of bells, drinking the health of the 
 King and Queen, banqueting, and illuminating of buildings, all be- 
 cause "the merchant as well as the mechanic may hope once more to 
 be able to pay their just debts, and the manufacturers be enabled to 
 set the poor to work, who have been too considerable a time quite 
 destitute of work , as well as the common necessaries of life."^ 
 
 "A body of upwards of two hundred members of the house of Commons 
 carried up the bill to the house of Peers for repealing the Amer- 
 ican stamp-duty act; an instance of such a number going up with a 
 single bill, had not been known in the memory of the oldest man . 
 Edmund Burke received a letter signed by the merchants of Lancaster 
 thanking him for his services in "removing obstructions that lay in 
 the via.y of commerce. "4 
 
 The wording of the preamble of the act which repealed the 
 Stamp Act is a frank confession that "the continuance of the said 
 act would be attended with many inconveniences and may be productive 
 of consequences greatly detrimental to the commercial interests of 
 these kingdoms . " D Walpole says that "though Lord Rockingham with 
 
 1 Walpole, Horace: "Temolrs of G-eorge I II, vol.2, p.212. 
 
 2 Annual Register , 1766, p.o8. 
 
 3 Ibid., p.72. 
 
 4 C orresp o ndence of Edmund Burke , vol . 1 , p . 1 04 . 
 
 5 Robertson: Select Statutes Cases and Docu ments , p . 2 4 4 . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
12 
 
 childish arrogance and indiscretion vaunted in the palace itself 
 that he had carried the repeal against the King, Queen, Princess- 
 dowager, Duke of York, Lord Bute, the Tories, the Scotch, and the 
 Opposition (and it was true he h--d), yet in reality it wf.s the 
 clamour of trade, of the merchants, and of the manuf acturing towns, 
 that had borne down all opposition." 1 As Burke put it, the Stamp 
 Act "was not repealed in order to double our trade in that year, as 
 everybody knows (whatever some merchants might have said) , but lest 
 in that year we should have no trade at all." 2 
 
 Thus in less than six months from the time when the colon 
 ists began their policy of non-importation, they had obtained their 
 objective -- the repeal of the Stamp Act. There is little doubt 
 but what the repealing act would have been passed still sooner had 
 the commercial and industrial elements of the population been fully 
 represented in Parliament as they are today. But, as is well 
 known to students of English history, the aristocracy and landed 
 gentry had a virtual monopoly on the seats of Parliament, and re- 
 presentation of the commercial and industrial classes was usually 
 incidental and indirect. This, coupled with the fact that of the 
 thirteen colonies only four participated in the non-importation 
 movement, should make the victory of the colonists strike one as 
 being all the more remarkable and unqualified. Judging by the 
 standard laid down in the Introduction, there can be little doubt, 
 if any, of the success of this case of economic coercion of one 
 nation by another. 
 
 1 Walpole, Horace: Yemoirs of G-eorge III , vol.2, p.2lt. 
 
 2 Writings and Speeches of Edmund Burke , vol.1, p.4Cl. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 " 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
13 
 
 CHAPTER III. THE SECOND NON- IMPORTATION AG-REEIIENT . 
 
 With the repeal of the Stamp Act, public opinion on both 
 sides of the Atlantic was that there would be no more attempts to 
 tax the American colonies, but events shaped themselves otherwise. 
 The cabinet had Pitt as its nominal head, but his inexplicable ill- 
 ness made it impossible for him to take the active leadership. 
 
 With the Duke of Grafton acting for Pitt, no definite policy was 
 followed but things were left to drift as they would. The one 
 thing upon which the cabinet seemed to have signs of agreement was 
 that to attempt to tax the colonies a. second time would be the 
 height of folly, and all suggestions of that nature were studiously 
 avoided. However, in an ill-starred moment Townshend, who was at 
 the head of the exchequer, indiscreetly boasted in Parliament that 
 he knew how to get a. revenue from the colonies "without offence." 
 
 To the dismay of the rest of the Ministry, Grenville immediately 
 challenged him to commit himself, and this Townshend did. The 
 only now that the situation could be relieved would be for the head 
 of the cabinet to demand Townshend' s resignation, but C-rafton did 
 not think that he possessed that much authority and Pitt's where- 
 abouts were unknown at that time, so Townshend was permitted to 
 bring in a bill providing for import duties on all shipments into 
 the colonies of tea, glass, paper, and paints.'' This bill was 
 passed by both houses of Parliament and received the King's assent 
 in May, 1767 . 1 2 
 
 When the news of the passing of this new act reached the 
 
 1 See the Autobiography of the Duke o f Grafton , pps . 126-1 2C. 
 
 2 Townshend's death occurred four months later. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
14 
 
 colonies, there was an Immediate outburst of indignation and pro- 
 test, and gradually the non- importation associations were revived 
 until by the beginning of 1769 the merchants and people of nine of 
 the colonies were co-operating in the movement. The effects were 
 soon felt in England and Scotland as before, and those who had 
 opposed the repeal of the Stamp Act, on the grounds that a surrend- 
 er to the colonies at that time would w r eaken their authority in 
 dealing with them in the future, lost no opportunities to remind 
 the opposition of their prophesies of two or three years before. 
 
 Thomas Whately wrote in a letter to G-eorge Grenville: "Mr . 
 Maitland tells me, that many who were forv/ard for repealing the 
 Stamp Act, confess now that you were in the right from the begin- 
 ning, and when they exclaimed against the Americans, he bid them 
 thank themselves, v/hose weakness had encouraged the insolence of 
 the colonies, the truth of which reproach they admitted." 1 2 The 
 King wrote in the sue strain in a letter to Lord North: "All men 
 seem now to think that the fatal compliance in 1766 has encouraged 
 the Americans annually to encrease in their pretensions to that 
 thorough independency which one state has of another, but which is 
 quite subversive of the obedience which a colony owes to its mother 
 country . "- 
 
 Barlow Trecothick, who had achieved considerable popular- 
 ity because of his activity as a leader in securing petitions from 
 the commercial and manuf acturing towns praying for the repeal of 
 the Stamp Act, was elected to the House of Commons from the City of 
 
 1 Smith, W. J., ed.: Grenville Papers , vol.4, p.337. 
 
 2 Donne , W. B. , ed . : Correspondence of George I II with Lord 
 
 North, vol . 1 , p.164 . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
15 
 
 London in the elections of 1768, and became one of the leaders 
 there in demanding the repeal of the Townshend Acts and working in 
 other w ays for their end. "Alderman Trecothick still persists in 
 endeavoring to get an application from the merchants for the repes.l 
 of the duties," wrote Whately to G-renville as early in the movement 
 as January, 1769 .^ 
 
 However, there was not the flood of petitions pouring in 
 such as had forced the Ministry and Parliament to action in 1766. 
 Lord North had prophesied in October, 1768, that there would be a 
 paucity of petitions on this occasion, and gave as a reason for his 
 belief that the Americans were not living up to their non- import- 
 ation doctrines, but were securing English goods through secret 
 0 
 
 commissioners. However there seems to have been little sound 
 basis for this line of reasoning, for commerce and industry we re 
 depressed, stocks were declining, and everybody seemed "dishearten- 
 
 ■z 
 
 ed and uneasy. In Eisset's history the situation was described 
 as follows: "The British merchants who traded to America had sus- 
 tained immense losses by the rejection of their goods; and appre- 
 hended ruin if the associations should continue, presented petit- 
 ions to Parliament, stating their sufferings, and praying its 
 ,,4 
 
 intervention. The Annual Register declared the policy of the 
 
 colonies to be "highly prejudicial to': the commercial interests" of 
 the mother country, and gave figures to prove that point. In 
 
 1 G-renville Papers , vol.4, p.409. 
 
 2 Memoirs of G-eorme III, vol.4, p.64. 
 
 3 G- renvi lle Papers , vol.4, p . 368 . 
 
 4 El s s et T s , ^ vol . 2 . 'p . 6 . 
 
 5 Annual Remister . 1768, p. 67 . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
16 
 
 1768 the exports from England to the colonies had amounted to 
 
 2.378.000 pounds sterling, while in 1769 the value was only 
 
 1.634.000 -- a falling off of 744,000 pounds sterling, or of about 
 thirty-one per cent., in the first year of the movement. 
 
 Arguments and petitions were unnecessary with such fig- 
 ures staring the members of the cabinet in the facfe, and they began 
 to cast about for some plan which would conciliate the colonies 
 without conceding any principle or sacrificing any mark of author- 
 ity. Lord Hillsborough, Secretary of State for the Colonies at 
 that time, issued a circular letter suggesting the possible repeal 
 of the duties on paper and glass, 1 2 3 4 but the colonists held out for 
 the removal of the duties on tea, sugar, wine, and molasses also. 
 William Knox wrote to G-eorge Grenville four months before any 
 change was actuall;/ made: "The duties upon paper and glass, but not 
 teas, are to be repealed from principles of justice, that as the 
 
 colonies are obliged to take our manyf actures , and cannot have 
 
 2 g 
 
 others, 1- we ought not to tax them upon their going to them. 
 
 However, nothing was done until March 5, 1770, when the 
 London merchants trading to America attended the House of Commons 
 in a body and presented a. petition "setting forth the great losses 
 they had sustained, and the fatal effects of the late laws, which, 
 for the purpose of raising a revenue in the colonies, had imposed 
 duties upon goods exported from Great Eritain thither. This one 
 petition served the same purpose that a multitude of petitions had 
 served upon the previous occasion, in that it did arouse Parliament 
 
 1 Gr o n v i 1 1 e Papers , vol.4, p.3oS. 
 
 2 Because of the Navigation Acts. 
 
 3 Ibid., p.480. 
 
 4 Annual Register . 1770, p.73. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
17 
 
 to action. In the debates which followed, there were frequent 
 references made to the alarming state of commerce and industry in 
 Britain, but again there was a hesitancy about taking any action 
 that would resemble a surrender of authority on the part of the 
 mother country. Lord North, who had just assumed the leadership 
 of the Ministry, said in reply to those who favored retaining all 
 of the duties merely as a sign of the dominion and control of the 
 mother country over her colonies: “I know Sir, at the present per- 
 iod, how extremely unacceptable to many gentlemen any intended 
 favour to America will be; but such gentlemen, in the vehemence of 
 their resentment against their fellow subjects beyond the Atlantic, 
 must not forget the prosperity of this country." 
 
 Governor Povruall also sounded warning in his speech 
 against repealing only a portion of the duties, but his warning was 
 ignored and the duty on tea left in force, in order to make sure 
 that the colonies did not get the notion that Great Britain was re- 
 nouncing her claim to the right to tax them as she saw fit. How- 
 ever, these concessions on the part of Parliament did bring a re- 
 laxation of the non- importation restrictions on all articles except 
 tea, and trade returned to its former channels in greater volume 
 than ever . 
 
 The victory on this occasion was not as complete and un- 
 qualified as upon the former occasion. However, Parliament was 
 obliged to confess the utter failure of the Towashend Acts, for 
 there was no effort made to conceal the fact that the tax on tea 
 was retained out of obstinacy rather than as a source of revenue. 
 
 1 Parliamentary History of England, vol.16, p.359. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
13 
 
 "I am clear there must always be one tax to keep up the right, and. 
 as such I approve of the Tea Duty, " w rote George III to Lord North 
 
 at this time. 1 So the tax on tea was retained in spite of the 
 fact that it was frequently pointed out in the debates in Parlia- 
 ment and elsewhere that the cost of collecting the duty would 
 amount to more than the money taken in. Certainly no fair-minded 
 person would claim complete success for this instance of the use of 
 economic pressure, but it would be just as unfair to brand this 
 case as a complete failure. It did fail in that it did. not force 
 England to concede all, but it succeeded in a larger sense in that 
 it forced her to acknowledge the economic futility of the offending 
 acts and brought about the repea.1 of them as far as the revenue 
 aspect was concerned. As in the previous case, the fact that the 
 commercial and industrial groups were inadequately represented in 
 the Government delayed action, and in this case prevented the re- 
 peal being as complete as it otherwise would undoubtedly have been. 
 
 1 Cor responde nce of George I II wi th Lord North , vol.1, p.202. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CHAPTER IV. THE THIRD NON - I r SPORT AT I ON AGREEMENT. 
 
 Following the repeal of the duties on paints, paper, and 
 glass, there was a lull in the quarrel between England and her Am- 
 erican colonies. This was the result of the dire financial cir- 
 cumstances of the East Indie. Company because of the oppressive 
 duties on teas shipped into England. An appeal to the government 
 for the remission of these duties was made by them, and Lord North's 
 Ministry willingly gave the relief they requested. This enabled 
 them to begin shipping tea to the colonies in 1773. In most cases, 
 the Americans merely refused to purchase the tea and either sent 
 the cargoes back or left the tea on the wharfs to rot. But in 
 Boston the Royal Governor refused to permit the captain of a ship 
 loaded with tea to return to England with his cargo, and the colon- 
 ists thought he contemplated forcing the tea upon them whether they 
 wished it or not. That was not to be thought of, a/nd the result 
 was the famous Boston Tea Part}', when a band of about fifty men 
 dressed as Mohawk Indians boarded the ship and threw all of the tea 
 into the harbor . 
 
 V/hen the news of this escapade reached England, indig- 
 nation ran high among those in authority, and even those who were 
 popularly known as friends of America agreed that Boston should be 
 punished. Since the measures of economic pressure which the col- 
 onists had exerted upon them had been successful to such a large 
 degree, it was decided to give Boston a "taste of the same medi- 
 cine." So the Boston Port Bill was pa,ssed providing "for the im- 
 mediate removal of the officers concerned in the collection and 
 management of his Majesty's duties of customs from the town of Bos- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
20 
 
 ton, in the province of Massachusetts Bay, in North America; and to 
 discontinue the landing and discharging, lading and shipping, of 
 goods, wares, and merchandizes , at the said tov.ni of Boston, or with- 
 in the harbour thereof."^ 
 
 The English authorities thought that "the shutting up of 
 the port of Boston would have been naturally a gratification to the 
 neighboring towns, from the great benefits which would accrue to 
 them, by the splitting and removing of its commerce; and that this 
 would prove a fruitful source of jealousy and disunion within the 
 
 province The event was however very different. The 
 
 neighboring towns disdained every idea of profiting in any degree 
 by the misfortune of their friends in Boston. The people of the 
 province, instead of being shaken by the coercive means which were 
 used for their subjugation, joined the more firmly together to 
 brave the storm In the same Manner, the other colonies, in- 
 
 stead of abandoning, clung the closer to their devoted sister as 
 the danger increased; and their affection and sympathy seemed to 
 rise in proportion to her misfortune and sufferings." 1 2 
 
 The following is an extract from the copy of the resol- 
 utions sent to the Governor by Boston's neighboring town, Salem: 
 
 "By shutting up the port of Boston, some imagine that the course of 
 trade might be turned thither, and to our benefit; but nature, in 
 the formation of our harbour, forbids our becoming rivals in com- 
 merce with, that convenient mart. And were it otherwise, we must 
 
 1 Annu a 1 Register . 1774, p.103- 
 
 2 Ibid., 1775, p.2 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
21 
 
 be dead to every idea of justice, lost to all feelings of humanity, 
 could we indulge one thought to sieze on wealth, and raise our 
 fortunes on the ruins of our suffering neighbor." 1 2 3 4 The Annual 
 Register says of another town near Boston: "Their neighbors, the 
 merchants and inhabitants of the town and port of Marblehead, who 
 were among those that were to profit the most by their ruin, in- 
 stead of endeavoring to reap the fruit of their calamity, sent them 
 a generous offer of the use of their stores and wharfs, of attend- 
 ing to the lading and unlading of their goods, and of transacting 
 all the business they should do at their port, without putting them 
 to the smallest expence. 
 
 The other colonies also roused to action at receiving the 
 news of the Boston Port Act. "Even those who were moderate, or 
 
 seeaed wavering, now became sanguine Nothing was to be 
 
 heard of but meetings and resolutions. Liberal contributions for 
 the relief of their distressed brethren in Boston, were everywhere 
 recommended, and soon reduced into practise.' 1 ^ Thus England's 
 attempt at economic coercion of one port of a large country failed 
 in that it served as a point of union rather than as a point of 
 division. The colonies would have had no better luck if they had 
 been content to cut off trade with only one port of England. 
 
 This time the colonies were thoroughly aroused, and when 
 the First Continental Congress met in Philadelphia, September 5, 
 1774, representatives from all but one of the colonies were there. H 
 
 1 Ibid., p.9* 
 
 2 Ibid. , p. 15 . 
 
 3 Ibid . , p . 10 . 
 
 4 Georgia. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
22 
 
 The most important action of this Congress was to form an agreement 
 to import no English products after December 1, 1774, and to export 
 to no British port, home or colonial, after September 10, 1775. 
 Again panic took possession of the merchants and manufacturers of 
 England and Scotland. Burke drew a most depressing picture of "an 
 impoverished revenue; famished millions; the stagnation of nanufac- 
 tures; the total overthrow of commerce; the increase of the poor's 
 rate; the accumulation of taxes; innumerable bankruptcies; and 
 other shocks which may make the fabric of public credit totter to 
 its basis." 1 2 3 4 
 
 In Parliament there were frequent appeals "to save our 
 commerce from that destruction which seems almost inevitable,"" but 
 no immediate action was taken, and, as Mr. G-lover representing the 
 West India merchants at the Bar of the House of Commons said: 
 "High-sounding words imply no food to the hungry, no raiment to the 
 naked; and these throughout our empire may amount to millions in 
 number."^ Edmund Burke wrote in a letter to Richard Champion: 
 
 "You tell me that Lord Clare’s slummerv still prevails in Bristol. 
 Any diet, to be sure, in hard times, is something. This, however, 
 is a maip;re which will scarcely keep flesh on the bones of the 
 manufacturers, who are starving by the measures of those whom he 
 supports."^ Lord Dudley, another member who advocated the use of 
 harsh measures in dealing with the recalcitrant colonies, is quoted 
 as saying in the course of the debate on the bill to restrain the 
 
 1 Parli am entary History of England , vol.18, p . 1 90 . 
 
 2 Annu al Re m i s t e r . 1775, p.103. 
 
 3 Parliamentary History of England , vol.18, p.47C. 
 
 4 Corr e spondence of Edmund Burke , vol . 2 , p . 3 • 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
23 
 
 commerce of all New England: "Two of the noble lords who spoke on 
 the other side, seem to feel greatly for the distresses of the 
 Americans; but said not a syllable of the present miseries of our 
 own manufacturers, who were daily dismissed for want, oi employment, 
 and whose suffering would, if not prevented by this Bill, or some 
 other of the same nature, become intolerable. For his part, he 
 lived in the neighborhood of one of the greatest manufacturing 
 towns in the kingdom (Birmingham) a.nd there the state of trade and 
 the want of work was such, that should it continue much longer, the 
 most dreadful consequences were justly to be dreaded." 1 2 Thus 
 representatives of both shades of political opinion in England at 
 that time have testified to the depressed state of affairs existing 
 because of the effectualness of the non- importation policy pursued 
 by the colonies. 
 
 Under such conditions as those depicted, Parliament was 
 naturally besieged with petitions, not only from all parts of the 
 British Isles, but even from all parts of the Empire. "Several 
 meetings of the great bodies of North American merchants in London 
 and Bristol were held, where those measures by which they were so 
 deeply affected, were fully discussed, their consequences explained, 
 and petitions to parliament prepared and agreed upon in both places. 
 The times were however altered, and such an opposition now, was not 
 productive of the efficacy or danger, which till very lately would 
 have rendered it terrible." "The principal trading and manufac- 
 turing towns in the kingdom, having waited to regulate their con- 
 
 1 Par l iamentary Histo ry o f E ngland , vol . 1 8 , p . 436 . 
 
 2 Annual Register . 1775, p.47. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
24 
 
 duct as to American affairs, by that of the merchants of London 
 and Bristol, now accordingly followed the example of those two 
 great commercial bodies, and precared petitions upon that subject 
 to be presented to parliament." 1 2 3 The petitioners supposed, of 
 course, that their petitions would be considered by the House as g 
 whole in their debates, but to their disgust a special committee 
 was created with no other powers or duties beyond considering the 
 petitions submitted concerning American affairs. This the oppos- 
 
 r\ 
 
 ition termed "the committee of oblivion" for obvious reasons. 
 
 "On the day appointed for taking the American papers into 
 consideration, a second, and very strong petition was presented 
 from the merchants of London, in which they argue, that the con- 
 nection between Great Britain and America originally was, and ought 
 to be, of a commercial kind; and that the benefits derived there- 
 from to the mother country are of the same nature; that 
 
 presuming therefore on that opinion, and supported by that observ- 
 ation, they represent, that the fundamental policy of those laws of 
 which they complain, and the propriety of enforcing, relaxing, or 
 amending them, are questions inseparably united with the commerce 
 between Great Britain and America; and consequently, that the con- 
 sideration of the one cannot be entered on, without a full discuss- 
 ion of the other. 
 
 On the day following the rejection, or rather disregard- 
 ing of their second petition, one of their body, deputed by the 
 
 1 Ibid., p .50 . 
 
 2 Ibid . , p .52 . 
 
 3 Ibid., p.52 . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
25 
 
 committee of merchants, in their name represented at the bar of the 
 House "that merchants revealing at that bar the state of their 
 affairs, was i c a sure which all would wish to avoid, unless upon 
 such great occasions as the present, where the public weal is evi- 
 dently at stake, when their duties as good subjects requires it of 
 them; but when the mode of examination is such as totally precludes 
 them from answering the great public object, which in their opinion 
 is clearly the case at present, they beg leave humbly to signify 
 that they wave appearing before the committee which has been 
 appointed.; and that the merchants are not under any apprehensions 
 respecting their American debts, unless the means of remittance 
 should be cut off by measures that may be adopted in Great Britain 1 .' 1 
 
 Another notable set of petitions was that offered by the 
 merchants dealing with the British ’Jest Indies, who declared them- 
 selves ready to offer evidence to prove that "several of the West- 
 India islands could not be able to subsist after the operating of 
 the proposed address in America."^ There were also petitions from 
 the inhabitants of these same islands averring the sane thing. 
 Petitions continued to come from all over the Empire in such large 
 numbers that Burke announced that he "would not trouble the noble ' 
 lord (North) and his train to walk out every five minutes in funer- 
 al pomp to inter petitions."^ 
 
 Why did not this great inundation of petitions have the 
 influence they had had under similar circumstances in the past? 
 
 They came too late. Burke, writing in January, 1775, said: "If 
 
 1 Ibid . , p .56 . 
 
 2 Ibid., p.56. 
 
 3 Parliamentary History of ;~Yi gland . vol . 1 8 , p . 1 82 . 
 
 -1— — — — ■. — — .. .. . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 * ~ wt m 
 
26 
 
 the merchants had thought fit to interfere last winter, the dis- 
 tress of this might certainly have been prevented; conciliatory 
 measures would have taken place." 1 2 3 4 5 But in the early part of 1775, 
 the only thought in the minds of the party in power in England was 
 to compel the American colonies to submit, and every other consid- 
 eration was left out and forgotten as far as they were concerned, 
 although they admitted the economic folly of their course. "The 
 Solicitor General 2 defended the measure. He gave every allowance 
 for, and paid all deference to, the interests of commerce and 
 manufactures; but contended, that in the present case interests 
 were concerned of yet greater consequences . " J It was determined 
 that the American matter "was to be taken up in a political, not 
 in a commercial light. That therefore, as there was little con- 
 nection between the views of the house, and those of the merchants, 
 it would be the highest absurdity, that a committee, whose thoughts 
 were occupied by the first, should be at all broke in upon or dis- 
 turbed by the ratter. "As to the petitioners, it was not doubt- 
 ed but they were aggrieved; it might be granted, that all their 
 allegations were well-founded, and that they laboured under great 
 
 and singular distresses But these were circumstances that 
 
 did not interfere with the motion; they are a part of the evils 
 incident to mankind, which may be deplored but cannot be avoided. 
 "It was allowed, that for the sake of tranquility, of our trade and 
 manufactures, it were much to be wished, that lenient measures 
 
 1 Correspondence of Edmund Burke , vo 1 . 2 , p . 1 . 
 
 2 Alexander Wedderburn . 
 
 3 Parliamentary H isto ry of England , vo 1 . 1 8 , p.4. 
 
 4 Annual Register . 1775, p.50. 
 
 5 Ibid., p.75. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
27 
 
 could be successfully pursued,"^ but national pride and personal 
 pride were in the saddle and reason was cast to the winds. 
 
 In less than three months from the time v/hen the merchants 
 of London were pleading their cause at the bar of the House of Com- 
 mons, the first armed skirmishes were taking place at Lexington and 
 Concord between the King's regiments and the American farmers. 
 Peaceful methods of coercion had been abandoned. The differences 
 between the English Parliament and the American people were to be 
 settled by war. But even then, and for some months afterwards , 
 many of those of the merchant ile and industrial cla.sses continued 
 to cling to the hope that peace could be restored and with it their 
 lost prosperity. Of course the outbreak of war brought no relax- 
 ation of the non-intercourse policy, but rather brought stricter 
 enf orcement . 
 
 As late as October 11, 1775, six months after the begin- 
 ning of hostilities, the merchants and traders of London submitted 
 a petition to the King praying his Majesty "to cause hostilities to 
 cease in your Majesty's colonies in America, and to adopt such mode 
 of reconciling this unhappy controversy as may best promote the 
 interest of commerce and the welfare of all your people." 2 This 
 petition was signed by 1171 persons. Three days later another 
 bearing 941 signatures was presented. Still later in the same 
 month, a petition from the Lord Mayor, the Aldermen, and Commons of 
 the City of London was presented. In this latter petition, fear 
 was expressed for "the loss of the most valuable branch of our com- 
 merce, on which the existence of an infinite number of our indus- 
 
 1 Ibid., p.67. 
 
 2 Ibid., p.2o7. 
 
 — ii i — 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
20 
 
 trious nanuf acturers and mechanics entirely depends."^ 
 
 To speculate over what might have been is an idle way to 
 spend one's tine, but it requires little speculation or prophetic 
 figt to see from the facts presented regarding the three non- 
 importation agreements of the colonies that the third association 
 would have been as successful as the preceeding two, or more so, 
 but for the entrance of certain facts that must be considered. 
 
 First, as has been pointed out in both of the preceeding cases, the 
 oligarchical nature of the English Government at that time always 
 retarded action desired by the commercial and industrial classes, 
 and often, as in this case, entirely precluded such action. In 
 the second place, this was the third time in a decade that the col- 
 onies had used this kind of pressure to bring the mother country to 
 their way of thinking. In the first two cases, important concess- 
 ions had b en made in order to restore trade to its former channels . 
 This too frequent use of it by the colonies had strengthened the 
 party in Parliament which opposed conesssions to the colonies on 
 the grounds that there was no such thing as satisfying them as they 
 would not stop until they had gained complete independence anyhow. 
 
 In the third place, the domineering, antogonistic policy followed 
 by the British in the colonies precipitated war before the influ- 
 ences named in the first and second points above could be neutral- 
 ized by the effectualness of the boycott. If the beginning of the 
 conflict could have been postponed until that point could have been 
 reached, the third non-importation movement would have been as 
 successful as the other two, for the English Parliament could not 
 go on forever ignoring the commercial and economic needs of the 
 
 1 Parliamentary Hist o ry of Engla nd , vol . 1 8 , p . 098 . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
29 
 
 people, especially when they themselves, as Burke put it, be.^an 
 to "feel the effects in their purses or in their bellies. 
 
 1 Correspondence of Edmu n d Burke , vo 1 . 2 , p . 23 . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
30 
 
 CHAPTER V. THE EMBARGO AND NON- INTERCOURSE ACTS. 
 
 A cumulative series of grievances and indignities brought 
 the attempts at economic coercion of England and France made by the 
 Government of the United States under the leadership of Jefferson 
 and Madison. A mighty struggle for supremacy was in process 
 across the Atlantic with the forces of France under Napoleon and of 
 Great Britain as chief participants. In the anxiety to achieve 
 victory, both sides had been negligent of the rights of neutrals, 
 especially of the rights of neutra,! carriers, and since the United 
 States was the chief neutral carrier, causes for complaint against 
 the belligerents were often found in this country. The offenses 
 of the French were usually more flagrant, but since they were less 
 frequent, the Non- Importation Act of 1806 was directed against the 
 English nation alone. This was followed by the Embargo Act of 
 December 2 1 , 1807, which was in its turn replaced by another Non- 
 importation Act fourteen months later. The latter two acts were 
 directed against France as well as against England. 
 
 The effects of these acts on France were negligible, 
 since trade between that country and the United States had not been 
 developed to any extent. The average amount of exports sent from 
 France to the United States during the years from 1795 to 1 S0 1 in- 
 clusive amounted to $1,701,836 while the same figure for Great 
 Eritain and Ireland reached $29,057,877, or more than seventeen 
 times as much. The average amount of imports into France from the 
 United States during this same period was $2,855,422 while for 
 England the figure reached $16,044,403, or about 5.64 times as 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
31 
 
 that for France. 1 2 3 4 Thus the United States did not furnish much of 
 a market for the products of France, and few American products, 
 comparatively speaking, found their way to French markets, and the 
 cutting off of commercial relations by the United States had little 
 effect on the commercial and industrial life of France. 
 
 In England, on the other hand, the effects of the embargo 
 we re marked. "The American Government, in resorting to a general 
 
 Embargo, took a measure which was certainly to a great degree 
 
 efficient, " said James Stephen during the parliamentary debates at 
 
 2 
 
 that time. But American historians have tended to emphasize the 
 disasterous effects of this policy on our own commerce and industry, 
 and to forget that it had an effect equally disasterous on the 
 commerce of Great Britain. "This embargo cuts us off from trade 
 with at least one foreign country, viz., America itself; and this 
 country happens to be the only one with which we had any trade re- 
 maining, "said the author of an unsigned article in the Edinborough 
 Review of that time. "The effects of this decisive step upon the 
 commerce and industry of Great Britain was beyond all measure dis- 
 asterous . The British exports to North America were then 
 15,000,000 pounds (sterling) -- worth as Mr. Brougham stated in the 
 debate which ensued on the subject, all other foreign markets put 
 together. It was the closing of this immense vent for our manu- 
 factured produce which v/as the cause of the unparalled depression 
 of our foreign trade during the year 1811."^ 
 
 1 Pitkin, Timothy: Statistical View o f t he U.S. . pps. 201-223. 
 
 2 Parliamentary Debate s. vol.lP, p.xcv. 
 
 3 Edinborough Review . vol.2l, p.1134. 
 
 4 Alison: Lives of Lord Cestlereagh and Sir Charles Stewart , 
 
 vol . 1 , p .520 . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
32 
 
 However, one must not judge from this that there was no 
 depression at all prior to 1811. "There was great distress in 
 1807, and there were riots at Manchester and other places, in con- 
 sequence of this distress," declared Stephen at another time in the 
 House, * and Mr. S. Whitbread, apeaking in the House of Commons, 
 
 March 3, 1809, said: "We predicted that our manufacturers would de- 
 cline and our exports and imports be diminished^ -- and the result 
 has verified the prediction as is but too obvious from the papers 
 on the table. We predicted that our manufacturers would be destit- 
 ute of employment and reduced to extreme distress -- and unhappily 
 the prediction is true, as appears from the number of your starving 
 
 manufacturers If you wish to ascertain the extent of 
 
 the injury inflicted on this country by these Orders-^, I ca.ll upon 
 you to reflect upon the condition of the extensive town of Manches- 
 ter, where the poor rates have risen within the last year from 
 24,000 pounds (sterling) to 49,000 pounds, in consequence of the 
 number of manufacturers thrown out of bread: where of the numerous 
 cotton mills which were formerly employed, 32 are now idle and six 
 only at work.^ Cast your eyes to Ireland and behold the state of 
 its linen manufacture for the want of flax-seed. Whence can it be 
 supplied? Not from America or from the Baltic. There is not, I 
 understand, seed for a twentieth part of the land usually sown with 
 flax in Ireland this year, and the consequence will and must necess- 
 arily be, that in the course of the next year a vast multitude of 
 
 1 Par l iamentary Debates . vol.21, p . 1 134. 
 
 2 Because of severance of trade relations with the United States. 
 
 3 In England the continuance of the Orders in Council were pop- 
 ularly blamed for the continuance of the Non- Importation Act. 
 
 4 Baring's figures on the Manchester cotton mills were: 9 in full 
 employment, 31 on half-time, and 44 with no work at all. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
33 
 
 persons will and must necessarily be thrown out of employment in 
 that country . " ^ 
 
 Prices were also on the upward grade, as is usually the 
 case in time of war, and this added to the misery from unemploy- 
 ment. "Sugar and coffee rose 100 per cent, in the continental 
 markets, but bread and beef rose nearly as much in the British. 
 Wheat was 105 s. a-quarter, meat Is. a-pound in England. Worse 
 than this, the great diminution of the foreign trade deprived a 
 great part of the working classes of the means of purchasing pro- 
 visions at these extravagant rates. The exports of the empire, 
 which in 1309, had risen to 45,000,000 pounds (sterling), sank in 
 1611 to 29,000 000 pounds, lower than they had been since the re- 
 newal of the war. The consequence was, that distress in all the 
 manuf acturing districts was universal and intense beyond precedent; 
 and the unhappy operatives, ascribing their misery to the intro- 
 duction of machinery, formed combinations in many places for its 
 destruction . 
 
 Alexander Baring, speaking in the House of Commons, said 
 that the cause of all the suffering was to be found in "the defic- 
 iency in our imports from America; for the raw material had become 
 so scarce, and in consequence so high, that in many places it was 
 not to be procured . Baring was referring especially to the cot- 
 ton manufacturing industry, but this condition was not confined to 
 that industry, but was rather universal as far as the British Isles 
 
 1 Parliamentary Debates . vol .12, p . 1 1 63 . 
 
 2 Alison: Lives of Lo rd Castler e agh and Sir Charle s Btewart , 
 
 vol . 1 , p.5t9 . 
 
 3 Parliamentar y De ba tes , vol . 1 2 , p . 1 1 94 - 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
34 
 
 were concerned, except for the few industries that are always stim- 
 ulated by war conditions and even some of those were languishing 
 because of a scarcity of raw materials. "It is not the effect of 
 the Orders in Council or the Continental System of the enemy which 
 has caused the distress so severely felt in this country, but the 
 interruption of our commercial intercourse with America, in con- 
 sequence of the Non- Intercourse Act passed in that country," wrote 
 Lord Castlereagh in a letter.^ This feeling was quite general 
 among the more intelligent of the commercial and manufacturing 
 classes . 
 
 The announcement of the American G-overnment that the Em- 
 bargo and Non- Intercourse Acts would be relaxed as far as either 
 England or France were concerned when those countries had removed 
 the restrictions on American commerce brought a large number of 
 petitions to Parliament praying for the repeal of the Orders in 
 Council or for other measures of relief . From Bolton came a 
 petition saying "that the petitioners suffer great privations on 
 account of the depressed state of the manufacturers, whereby the 
 price of labour is r duced in the most unprecedented degree, and 
 thousands of the petitioners threatened with the want of employ- 
 ment; and that the depressed reduction of trade reduces 
 
 thousands of the petitioners to the most extreme distress; and that 
 many useful enterprising and ingenious manufacturers have been re- 
 duced from affluence to complete poverty, the consequence of which 
 is, that a number of the petitioners have been reduced to the ab- 
 solute want of the necessaries of life for themselves and helpless 
 
 1 Alison: Live s of Lord Castlereagh and Sir Cha rles Stev/art , 
 
 vol . 1 , p.525 • 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
35 
 
 offspring." 1 2 "Several subscriptions have been made by the 
 
 friends of humanity, yet these are very inadequate, nor can effect- 
 ual relief be given, as the distressed objects increase, unless the 
 wisdom of the House devise some method to remove or alleviate the 
 general calamity, which now threatens one common ruin to the great- 
 er part of the inhabitants of that once happy country."^ 
 
 A similar petition came from Oldham. A petition from 
 Paisley and nearby towns set forth "that the petitioners, in con- 
 sequence of the depressed condition of trade, have of late been 
 subjected to difficulties unknown e.t any former period; and at pre- 
 sent such is the low state of the Cotton Manufactures, that large 
 numbers have been thrown out of employment, and the wages of those 
 that are employed have in general, within the last ten months, been 
 reduced two thirds, so that it requires great exertions for an in- 
 dividual to procure the necessaries of life; and such is the gener- 
 al distress, that of a population of about 30,000, upwards of 1,200 
 families, who formerly supported themselves by their own industry, 
 are reduced to the necessity of receiving precarious and temporary 
 assistance from their humane and more wealthy neighbors; and that 
 the present calamity, though first felt by the manufacturers and 
 operatives, has not been confined to them alone, but has extended 
 to almost every rank and profession, involving in ruin many re- 
 spectable individuals of large capital; bankruptcy has succeeded 
 bankruptcy to such an alarming extent as nearly to destroy all 
 confidence betwixt the manufacturer and merchant, and that the 
 
 1 Parliamentary Debates , vol.10, p. 692 . 
 
 2 Ibid., vol.20, p.342. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
36 
 
 present depressed state of our m; nufacturs is chiefly owing to the 
 exclusion of our commerce from the continent of Europe, and the 
 
 stoppage of our trade with America; and praying the House 
 
 to take into consideration the present alarming state of the coun- 
 try, and to adopt such measures as may appear to them best calcul- 
 ated to afford relief."^ 
 
 Petitions in the same tenor came from Lanark, Ayr, and 
 Renfrew. From Ilanchester came a petition "subscribed by more than 
 forty thousand signatures, the majority/ - of whom were reduced to a 
 state of extreme distress," and saying "that a revocation of the 
 Orders in Council would pave the way to a removal of the Non- 
 intercourse and Non-importation Acts lately passed by the Congress 
 and Senate of the United Sta-tes of America, which have already add- 
 ed, and will no doubt still further tend to add, to the distresses 
 of the Petitioners, and would, in the opinion of the Petitioners, 
 by opening a more extended mart for commerce, in a partial degree 
 
 O 
 
 be the means of restoring them to a more comfortable state. "“ 
 
 The knitters of Leicester sent in a petition signed by 
 
 3 
 
 11,000 persons, and the merchants and manufacturers of Birmingham 
 and Sheffield submitted a petition bearing 14,000 signatures.^ 
 
 The potters of Straff ordshire and Yorkshire "humbly conceive that 
 the Orders in Council issued in 1807, and continued in certain of 
 their provisions in an Order of 1309, were intended to force com- 
 mercial communications with the continent of Europe from the press- 
 
 1 Parliamentary D eb ates . vol . 19 . p.1017. 
 
 2 Ibid., vol. 20, p.342. 
 
 3 Ibid. , vol .22 , p . 1 
 
 4 Ibid., vol. 22, p.424. 
 

 
 
 
 , 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
37 
 
 ure of its necessities, but instead of producing that effect, they 
 are manifestly the cause of still further curtailing our trade, by 
 depriving us of the market of the United States of America, the 
 only one of importance which was left to us." 1 2 3 Other towns sub- 
 mitting petitions were Shrewsbury, Kendal,- Dumferline, South 
 Shields,^ Glasgow, 4 5 6 7 Sunderland,^ Blackburn, 0 and Worcester.? Also 
 " 6,560 most respectable individuals of the town of Liverpool, in 
 the space of only four days, had stepped forward to affix their 
 signatures, for the purpose of praying the repeal of the Orders in 
 Council as the cause of the commercial distress which affected not 
 
 Q 
 
 that place only, but the country in general." 
 
 There were also, as was to be expected, a few counter- 
 petitions, most of which were sponsered by the shipowners of Brit- 
 ain, who, of course, did not wish to see a strong American merchant 
 marine develop. A number of the signers of these latter petitions 
 were patriotic individuals, who frankly put their desire to win the 
 war against Napoleon ahead of any personal desires for commercial 
 prosperity. These admitted with all candor that conditions in the 
 country were anything but satisfactory, but thought that the task 
 of winning the war should take precedence over everything else. 
 
 However, the leaders of the party in Parliament which was 
 
 1 Ibid., vol.22, p.329. 
 
 2 Ibid., vol.22, p.329- 
 
 3 Ibid., vol.23, p.232. 
 
 4 Ibid., vol.23, p.247. 
 
 5 Ibid., vol.22, p.1057. 
 
 6 Ibid., vol.22, p.2l2. 
 
 7 Ibid., vol.23, p.351. 
 
 3 Ibid., vol.22, p.1053. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
33 
 
 supporting the Orders in Council were not so frank, but insisted 
 that all this hue and cry about financial and industrial depression 
 was without reason or foundation; that the country was more pros- 
 perous, in fact, than it usually had been in the past. They even 
 went so far as to quote figures of exports and imports of present 
 and past years to show what prosperity the country was enjoying. 
 Whitbread, a leader of the opposition party in the House of Commons, 
 said this "put him in mind of the correspondence which had taken 
 place between a noble lord ( Castlereagh) and General Moore, as to 
 the force commanded by the latter. The General observed, 'I had 
 only such a number of men:' ' 0, ' said the noble lord, 'you had a 
 great nany more; -- here I can prove it on paper.’ So, to the 
 starving manufacturer, who exclaimed, 'I am unable to exist,' the 
 House of Commons night exultingly say,-- 'Look to these accounts -- 
 behold the flourishing state of our exports and imports.'" 1 
 
 Upon this same occasion, Alexander Baring said that "he 
 really could not help feeling a good deal of surprise, when he 
 heard the hon. and learned gentleman (Stephen) confidently talk of 
 the prosperous state of the trade of this country, and assert that 
 it was now more flourishing than previous to the Orders in Council. 
 Would any man in the House who was in any way engaged in trade say 
 this? Was there any nan so unconnected with trade as not to know 
 how utterly unfounded this assertion was? It was really surpris- 
 ing to him that there should be any man so blind to everything 
 passing around him, so deaf to the language of ev ry part of the 
 country, or so infatuated by the spirit of the system, as to 
 
 1 
 
 Ibid., vol.21, p.lloO 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
39 
 
 venture gravely to assert such a proposition. Could any man be 
 ignorant of the universal distress of the manufacturing towns; of 
 the petitions from Straf fordshire ; of the reduced state of that 
 
 once most flourishing trading town, Liv rpool? He thought 
 
 these distresses were so evident, as not to require any argument ; 
 in that House to prove their existence."' 
 
 Although the majority leaders themselves refused to admit 
 the existence of these distressing conditions, the committee 
 appointed to consider the petitions did "fully acknowledge, and 
 most deeply lament the great distress of numbers of persons engaged 
 in the cotton manufacture, in various trades connected with it,"^ 
 etc., but could promise no relief to the petitioners. 
 
 Finally, however, affairs within the kingdom came to such 
 a pass that some measure of relief seemed imperative; so the Com- 
 mercial Credit Bill was introduced. This aimed to make it possible 
 for merchants and manufacturers to have their personal credit ex- 
 panded by means of government backing, in order to enable them to 
 weather the storm. In the debates on the subject, Lord Grenville 
 announced that he had little use for the bill as it did not in any 
 sense remove the cause of the trouble. Curwen, In the House of 
 Commons, was even more outspoken, saying he "trusted the Committee 
 would not limit its attention to this single measure of relief; but, 
 at a proper and early opportunity, apply itself to an investigation 
 of the original and radical cause . From the inquiries he had 
 
 1 Ibid., vol.2l , p.?36. 
 
 2 Ibid., vol.20, p.oC9. 
 
 3 Ibid., vol.20, p.oC9. 
 
 =»■ 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
40 
 
 made in the great manufacturing districts of Lancashire, he knew, 
 that the distresses and sufferings of that deserving body were by 
 themselves attributed to the nature of our relations with America. 
 The agricultural interest was now feeling the evil; for, from the 
 distress of the manufacturer, no longer able to purchase the same 
 food as formerly, the farmers could not obtain the same market for 
 
 their produce He conjured the Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
 
 therefore, whatever may be his own predilections, not to continue 
 bigotted to a scheme of policy, which had produced and must con- 
 tinue to produce such widespread distress and privations."' Lord 
 Castlereagh declared that "no question more vital, both to the 
 national security and the commercial interests of the country, ever 
 came before Parliament. There can be no doubt that a case of 
 grave distress to the manufacturing classes has been made out in 
 the evidence, and there is reason to fear that if the North Amer- 
 ican market is not speedily opened that suffering will be augment- 
 
 ' 1 ! 2 
 ea . 
 
 The effect of the embargo on the United States is well- 
 known to students of American history. John Lambert gives an 
 interesting description of the port of New York during the time 
 when the embargo was being enforced: "The coffee-house slip, the 
 wharfs e„nd quays along South-street, presented no longer the bustle 
 and activity that had prevailed there five months before. The 
 port, indeed, was full of shipping; but they were dismantled and 
 laid up. Their decks were cleared, their hatches frstened down, 
 and scarcely a sailor was to be found on board. Not a box, bale, 
 
 1 Ibid., vol.19, p.344. 
 
 2 Lives o f Lord Castlerean.Ii and Si r Charles Stevmrt . vol . 1 , p.325. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
41 
 
 cask, barrel, or package, was to be seen upon the wharfs. Many of 
 the counting-houses were shut up, or advertised to be let; and the 
 few solitary merchants, clerks, porters, and labourers, that were 
 to be seen, were walking about with their hands in their pockets. 
 Instead of sixty or hundred carts that used to stand in the street 
 for hire, scarcely a dozen appeared, and they were unemployed: a 
 few coasting sloops, and schooners, which were clearing out for 
 some of the ports in the United States, were all that remained of 
 that immense business which was carried on a few months before. 
 
 The coffee-house was almost empty: or, if there happened to be a 
 few people in it, it was merely to pass away the time which hung 
 heavy on their hands, or to enquire anxiously after news from Eu- 
 rope, and from Washington; or perhaps to purchase a few' bills, that 
 were selling at ten or twelve per cent, above par. In fact, 
 
 everything presented a melancholy appearance The scene was 
 
 so gloomy and forlorn, that had it been the month of September in- 
 stead of April, I should verily have thought that a malignant fever 
 was raging in the place; so desolate were the effects of the em- 
 bargo, which in the short spare of five months had deprived the 
 first commercial city in the States of all its life, bustle, and 
 activity; caused above one hundred and twenty bankruptcies; and 
 completely annihilated its foreign commerce."' 
 
 With conditions such a.s these existing in every American 
 port, is it surprising that there arose a strong opposition to the 
 embargo from the very beginning, and that there was a vast amount 
 of evasion? The embargo was an insane attempt to apply the eco n- 
 
 1 Lambert : Travels through Canada and the United Stakes of _ for th 
 
 America , p.63. 
 

 * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
42 
 
 omic method of coercion, in that it could not fail to injure the 
 state using it more then the states against whom it was directed. 
 ' T ere non-intercourse with the offending powers would have been 
 more difficult of strict enforcement, but it would have left im- 
 portant markets open to American shipping and would have imposed 
 enough restraints to cripple the offenders. 
 
 The success of the Non-Intercourse Act, v/hich followed 
 the repeal of the Embargo Act, has been clouded by the breaking 
 out of the War of 1812, but it should be remembered that Parliament 
 did actually repeal the offensive Orders in Council in so far as 
 they applied to America before the news that the United States had 
 declared war had reached England. If the war spirit in America 
 could have been cooled down for another two or three months, there 
 is plenty of reason for believing that with the repeal of the 
 Orders in Council, war with England could have been avoided. 
 

 
 ' 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
43 
 
 CHAPTER VI. THE CHINESE BOYCOTT OF AMERICAN GOODS . 
 
 "China now has the distinction of having organized the 
 most extensive boycott in the annals of history," wrote W. A. P. 
 Martin in the January (1906) number of Worlds Work, ^ concerning the 
 boycott Y/hich the Chinese were carrying on against American pro- 
 ducts at that tine. This movement was organized and carried on by 
 the Merchant Guilds of that country in retaliation for the alleged 
 unfair treatment which the students, merchants, and professional 
 men of China were receiving at the hands of the immigration offic- 
 ials of the United States. The movement was essentially a popular 
 one although it had "the countenance and sympathy, open or secret, 
 of all officials, high or low."^ The attitude of the Government 
 is shown to some degree in their act annulling the contract of the 
 
 Canton-Hankow railroad which was held by a. syndicate controlled by 
 
 3 
 
 J. P. Morgan & Company. 
 
 The American authorities demanded that the Imperial Gov- 
 ernment of China, issue an edict commanding the Chinese tradesmen to 
 desist from their boycotting tactics, and this was done. Some 
 time afterwards the Journal of Commerce was quoted as saying: 
 "Cables received by American houses doing business in South China 
 (say) that the boycott on American goods not only continues in 
 Canton and some interior ports, but is assuming a more aggressive 
 end dangerous character . Upon receiving such news, the Govern- 
 
 1 Martin, W.A.P.: Awake ni ng of Chi na. Worlds Work, 11:7124. 
 
 2 Ibid . , p .7 1 26 . 
 
 3 Review of Reviews, September, 1905, 32:281. 
 
 4 Literary Digest, November 11, 1905, 31:693. 
 
 1 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 * 
 
 ■ 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
44 
 
 raent of the United States demanded that the Government of China 
 take some drastic action to bring about enforcement, to which the 
 Imperial Government sagely replied that it could not force its sub- 
 jects to trade with or desist from trading with any nation. 
 
 The effectualness of the boycott is something of a mooted 
 question. "The movement in China to boycott American goods was 
 so far effective that it ca.used the United States Government to 
 take action with regard to the obnoxious immigrant regulations," 
 was the way a brief article in The Economist (London) approached 
 the subject. "Put as regards the actual volume of tra.de, the 
 movement would appear to have been abortive, seeing that exports 
 from the United States to China, in the ten months ending October 
 last were more than twice as great as in any corresponding period in 
 the history of American commerce, while for the month of October 
 the total was larger than in any preceeding October except that of 
 1904. More than half of the American exports to China consist of 
 cotton cloths, and the following table shows the quantity of these 
 goods shipped and also the value of the United States total ship- 
 ments to that market in the ten months ending October in the years 
 named: 
 
 Year 
 
 Exports of Cotton 
 Cloth (yards) 
 
 Total Exports 
 ( dollars ) 
 
 1905 
 
 1904 
 
 1903 
 
 1395 
 
 451 , 501,271 
 171 , 1 16,493 
 177 , 037,479 
 31 , 781 ,765 
 
 $ 50 , 104,767 
 $ 20 , 557 , 184 
 $ 13 , 311 ,480 
 $ 2 , 834,803 
 
 These figures point to a trade development of a very pronounced 
 
 character, and they afford adequate reason for the desire of the 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
45 
 
 United States Government to cultivate friendly relations with 
 China." 1 2 
 
 This was written in December when the boycott had been in 
 force for nearly five months. However, even before it went into 
 effect, Dun's Review forsaw the situation ahead and hs.d an explan- 
 ation for the continued exports to China throughout 1905, saying 
 that they were "evidently in anticipation of the intended boycott, 
 and that a provision has been made in all the boycott agreements 
 exempting merchandize already purchased. To the end of the pre- 
 sent calendar year, therefore, our trade w r ill not suffer very mat- 
 erially however stringent or effective the boycott may be. Should 
 it be permitted to remain in force indef initely, however, there can 
 be no question that not only our trade with China but our trade in 
 many other parts of the Orient, including the Philippines and the 
 Straits Settlements, will be seriously imperilled."" 
 
 "It required little more than a threat on the part of 
 China to boycott United States products to bring us to time," com- 
 mented the Milwaukee Free Press when President Roosevelt issued 
 his instructions to Secretary Metcalf to exercise less rigor in ex- 
 ecuting the exclusion laws.^ Such would seem to be the facts in 
 the case. May 10, 1905, the meeting was held at Shanghai which 
 declared the boycott of American wrares to go into effect August 1, 
 and less than seven weeks later the president hah issued the order 
 mentioned above. A sort of terror seemed to take possession of 
 the trading and oanuf acturing population of the United States at 
 the mere suggestion of a boycott by China. The boycott was 
 
 1 Economist (London), December 16, 1$05, 43:2013 
 
 2 Dun's Review', July 29, 1905. 
 
 5 Literary Digest, July 8, 1905, 31:38. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
46 
 
 scheduled to begin August 1, hut several weeks before that time, in 
 fact from the very beginning, agitation was on in the United States 
 
 to take measures that would avert what they believed would be a 
 catastrophe. Assistant Secretary of State Loomis informed the 
 American Minister to China that the protests were "increasing and 
 becoming more emphatic." 1 The officials of the Standard Oil Com- 
 pany notified the State Department that the American petroleum in- 
 dustry would be greatly and gravely affected by the movement in 
 China. Those connected in any way with the raising of cotton or 
 the manufacture of cotton cloth were also alarmed, as China was one 
 of the important markets for that commodity. 
 
 "The Chinese question formed the subject of the most hot- 
 ly debated resolution adopted by the Trans-Mississippe Commercial 
 Congress at Portland, Ore. The resolution referred to, after re- 
 citing the existence of the boycott, petitioned the President, if 
 deemed expedient, to reiterate his instructions for the proper 
 treatment of the privileged classes in China, to ascertain the rea- 
 son for the present boycott, and to appoint a commission to invest- 
 igate and report to Congress, with recommendations for a comprehens- 
 ive immigration law framed to remove all unreasonable restrictions'.'^ 
 In the beginning, sentiment in the Far West had been almost unan- 
 imously in favor of rigid enforcement of the lav/, but when their 
 financial welfare was threatened, a change took place in their 
 attitude of which the above instance is one example. "If news- 
 
 1 House Documents, vol . 1 , 59th Congress, p.212. 
 
 2 Ibid . , p .208 . 
 
 3 Brads treet ' s , August 26, 1905, 33:529- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
47 
 
 paper editorials are taken as a sign," commented The Outlook, "pop- 
 ular feeling seems strongly to be inclined towards sympathy with 
 the Chinese demands . " ^ 
 
 The fact that the first ten months of I905 had showed an 
 actual increase of exports from this country failed to reassure 
 many, as they realized with Dun's Review that the storm was yet to 
 break. This view was justified when in the opening months of 1906 
 the effects began to be more obvious. "So far from the boycott of 
 
 American goods being ended," declared The Outlook at this time, 
 
 "it continues seriously to affect American trade in the Yangtse and 
 Canton regions. Also the message of the President to Congress, 
 December 5, 19°5, called attention to the seriousness of the quest- 
 ion and demanded action that would relieve the situation."^ The 
 statement of Special Agent Durrill stationed at Hong Kong probably 
 had something to do with making the people of this country see the 
 real danger in the dispute. He said: "The boycott against the pro- 
 ducts of the United States must be given serious consideration. 
 
 It has constituted a grave menace to the maintenance of a market 
 which has taken years of earnest, conscientious work to build up, 
 and according to business men here (Hong Kong) , who are thoroughly 
 familiar with the situation in all its ramifications, its contin- 
 uance will deal a blow to the American exporters from which it will 
 require time to recover. This view of conditions now obtaining 
 in the Chinese market may be regarded as extreme by Americans in- 
 terested in the export trade with the Orient, but careful inquiries 
 
 1 Outlook, August 26, 1905, 80:992. 
 
 2 Outlook, January 20, 1906, 82:106. 
 
 3 House Documents, vol ■ 1 , No . 1 , 59th Congress, p.L. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
43 
 
 indicate that it is conservative and unbiased, and that it can 
 easily be verified by facts and figures." 1 2 3 4 5 A later report from 
 Hong Kong said: "The decrease in American exports to China in 1906, 
 which for general trade was one of the worst years almost in the 
 commercial history of that Empire, occurred in cotton piece goods, 
 copper, and mineral oil; the decrease in the three articles amount- 
 ing to $30,586,946 . 
 
 Consul Mason Mitchell reported for Chungking: "The year 
 of 1905 was chronicled as the most disastrous since the port was 
 opened to trade in 1893, and the year 1906, as far as the returns 
 show, was fully as bad in trade as 1905*"^ Consul -General James 
 W. Ragsdale at Tientsin reported a falling off of 13 per cent, in 
 the importation of American cotton piece goods in 1906 at that 
 port, and a 2 6 ner cent, decrease in oil importations from America.^ 
 The Consul-G-eneral at Shanghai reported to the State Department 
 through the American Minister to China that "American trade was 
 suffering heavily and it was feared that it would take a long time 
 to regain the ground lost during the boycott. 
 
 Brief extracts from various issues of Dun's Review during 
 19 06 tell the same story: 
 
 March 31 , "Only a moderate export demand is noted, chief- 
 ly in sheetings for China." 
 
 April 7, "Little export interest is shown, small orders 
 
 1 Monthly Consular and Trade Reports, February, 19C6, p.4- 
 (In House Documents, vol.56, 59th Congress, 1st session.) 
 
 2 House Documents, vol.18, 59th Congress, 2nd. session, p.256. 
 
 3 Ibid., p.274. 
 
 4 Ibid. , p .291 • 
 
 5 House Documents, vol . 1 , 59th Congress, 1st session, p.216. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
49 
 
 for China and Manila. barely preventing inactivity in this depart- 
 ment . " 
 
 May 2 6 , "Many Southern mills are nearing the end of 
 
 their Chinese orders, which will add to the competition for bus- 
 iness . " 
 
 June 9, "The weakest feature of the cotton goods indus- 
 try ft the present time is the utter absence of export demand. 
 
 China is out of the market and a heavy accumulation of goods is 
 noted at Shanghai, while the outlook for their absorption is far 
 from promising." 
 
 June 16, "Absence of export demand continues the least 
 encouraging feature in the cotton goods industry." 
 
 June 30, "Exports to South America and other miscellan- 
 eous shipments only partially offset the utter lack of contracts 
 from China, which is the least satisfactory feature." 
 
 Under these conditions, the legislature of the State of 
 Georgia awakened to a burning zeal for the promotion of Christian 
 missions in China, and sent a petition to the President and to 
 Congress urging them "to repeal or so modify what is known as 'the 
 Chinese-exclusion act' as will not only restore friendly relations, 
 but extend our commerce with that country."^ In an article in 
 World Today, James J. Hill of the Great Northern Railroad is quoted 
 as saying, "The Chinese boycott has been the greatest commercial 
 disaster America has ever suffered:"^ and the Vice-President of the 
 Pacific Mail Steamship Company regretfully announced that our trade 
 with China was "practically gone" as a result of the boycott.^ 
 
 1 Congressional Record, vol.40, part 1, p.2t4. 
 
 2 World Today, March, 1906, 10:309* 
 
 3 Nation, February, 1906, 82:152. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
50 
 
 One thing that served to cloud the issue and confuse many 
 was the number of apparently conflicting reports that continuously 
 came in. From Amoy, Consul 0. S. Anderson reported that "the im- 
 ports of American kerosene show a great increase, in spite of the 
 keenest competition, boycott, and other troubles."* Reporting 
 from Hankow, Consul-G-eneral William Martin said that the imports of 
 American kerosene had increased 5 “I per cent, in that port during 
 the year 1906 as compared with the previous year . ^ Consul-G-eneral 
 Rodgers of Hong Kong went to great pains to show that the "so-called 
 boycott" had nothing to do with the falling off of the trade in 
 cotton cloth in 1906 , but that it was "wholly due to the fact that 
 the greater portion of the trade was in Manchuria, within the war 
 zone, and that the demoralization and waste of the war left the 
 people unable to purchase their usual quantities of the goods. 
 Vice-Consul Lupton at Amoy reported that "while agitation in re- 
 gard to the American boycott has been extreme, the effects on tre.de 
 have been almost nil."^ A number of other consular officials re- 
 ported without making any reference at all to the boycott, which 
 would seem to indicate that it had had no effect worth mentioning 
 in their region. 
 
 The explanation of these apparent contradictions is that 
 the boycott was not universal in the Chinese Empire, although it 
 did take in the chief ports such as Shanghai , Tientsin, Hong Kong, 
 and Hankow. The movement even spread to Siam and the Philippine 
 Islands where the Chinese entered into agreements supporting the 
 
 1 House Documents, vol.1t5, 59th Congress, p.331. 
 
 2 House Documents, vol.18, 59th Congress, 2nd session, p.280. 
 
 3 Ibid., p.2o6. 
 
 4 House Documents, vol.56, 59th Congress, 1st session, p.24. 
 
51 
 
 boycott. In China itself, the movement was confined, for the 
 most part, to the port towns of the South. A number of other 
 ports were left unaffected and American products poured into these 
 ports in greater volume than ever. 
 
 The boycott was a success in that it secured for the 
 Chinese what they desired in the way of concessions from the Gov- 
 ernment of the United States, but it was fear for loss of tra.de 
 more than actual loss of trade that brought the Americans to time. 
 More than a month before the boycott was scheduled to go into 
 effect, President Roosevelt issued instructions to Secretary Met- 
 cf If enjoining him to enforce the exclusion e.ct with less rigor, 
 and before it had been in force six months, resolutions and bills 
 were being introduced into both houses of Congress calling for 
 
 modifications of the law, or for resolutions providing for invest- : 
 
 1 
 
 igation by experts in order that all the information on the subject' 
 might be available for Congressmen to use in framing a new laW • 
 
 With the rssumption of this new attitude on the part of the United ’ 
 
 States, the boycott soon dwindled away in spite of the efforts of I 
 
 ! 
 
 certain agitators to keep it going. 
 
 In addition to ameliorating the conditions of Chinese 
 travelers and students in this country, other efforts were made at 
 bringing about better understanding between the peoples of the two 
 
 1 
 
 countries. It was about this time that the part of the indemnity 
 fund which had not been used by the United States in settling 
 claims of citizens for damages received in the Boxer uprising was 
 returned to the Chinese Government. This, coupled with the gen- 
 erous gifts from the United States to the famine relief of China, 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
52 
 
 served to allay much of the bitterness of the Chinese and to bring 
 fn end to the boycott. "The boycott will cease some time after 
 the causes which produced it have ceased to operate, and not soon- 
 er," srid Chester Holcomb in The Outlook, December 30, 1905, and 
 the future disclosed that he was right. Thanks to the government 
 officials and the merchant and industrial classes of America, con- 
 ciliation was brought about before any real damage had been done to 
 American commercial interests in China. This one ca.se considered 
 alone would not make out a very strong case for economic pressure 
 a s a means of bringing an offending nation to terms, but consider- 
 ing it in conjunction with the preceding cases, and considering 
 the disunified action of the Chinese nation, government and people, 
 at this time, it cannot be considered a failure, especially since 
 the object desired was attained. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ■; ■ | 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
53 
 
 CHAPTER VII. THE TURKISH BOYCOTT OF AUSTRO -HUNGARIAN GOODS . 1 
 
 Two Turkish provinces, Bosnia and Herzegovina, were hand- 
 ed over to the administration of Austria-Hungary in accordance with 
 the terns of the Treaty of Berlin (1878), but the understanding was 
 that their allegiance to the Sultan was in no wise impaired. No 
 time was set for the termination of the Austro-Hungarian control, 
 and there was a tacit understanding among the powers that when the 
 final breakup of the Ottoman Empire took place Austria-Hungary 
 should assume the sovereignty as well as the administration of these 
 provinces. But the surprising rejuvenescence of the "sick man of 
 Europe' at the time of the establishment of constitutional govern- 
 ment under the auspices of the Young Turk Party in July, I 908 , 
 alarmed the Government of Austria-Hungary, for it feared the rise of 
 a new, strong Turkey which would declare its sovereignty and rights 
 of administration over all of its territory. To forestall any such 
 possibility, Austria resolved to annex the two provinces, and thus 
 make them an integral part of her own empire. Accordingly, on the 
 7th of October, Emperor Francis Joseph announced to the world the 
 formal annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina to the Austro-Hungarian 
 Empire. This, of course, brought vigorous protests from the Porte 
 and from the Balkan countries bordering on Bosnia-Herzegovina, but 
 the only response Austria-Hungary gave was to mobilize troops along 
 her eastern frontier and in the annexed territory. Turkey did not 
 wish to go to war. Neither did she w ish to submit to such an im- 
 
 The basis of the general historical data of this chapter is, 
 
 Ho 1 t and Chi 1 t on : The His t ory of Europ e from 1 862 to 1914 . 
 
 — "r 
 
 1 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 . 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
54 
 
 position without £ struggle. The Government took no action, but 
 popular feeling was aroused and a general boycott of everything 
 Austrian was soon underway. 
 
 The best idea of the sequence of events in connection 
 with this boycott can be got from a series of extracts from the 
 bi-weekly articles written for The Economist (London) by its spec- 
 ial correspondent in Austria-Hungary. The first notice of the 
 boycott recognizing it as a potent force appeared October 31, I 908 : 
 
 "Austrian industry is suffering severely from the boycott 
 of Austrian goods which is being organized in Servia and Turkey." 
 
 After this, no more appeared in the column conducted by 
 the Austrian special correspondent until the number of November 28 , 
 when the following appeared under the date of November 24: 
 
 "Financial and commercial circles in Austria are looking 
 forward with the greatest anxiety to the development of the boycott- 
 ing movement in the East. Fears are expressed that Austrian indus- 
 try may lose one of its best markets. The ships of the Austrian 
 Lloyd have been warned not to land in Turkish ports, and have been 
 obliged to bring their passengers home again. Either the Turkish 
 authorities have not the power to put a stop to this movement, or 
 else they secretly encourage it. The travelling represent tives 
 of the big Austrian exporting firms describe the state of affairs 
 as quite desperate. The traveller of a Reichenberg cloth manu- 
 facturer returned home a week ago instead of extending his travels 
 to the middle of December as usual. He went to Egypt first, and 
 announced his coming to the firm's customers in Constantinople ; but 
 he was informed that no orders of any kind would be given, that he 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
55 
 
 had best not show himself in Turkey, where he would be badly re- 
 ceived. Beyrut and Smyrna firms gave the same advice. The boy- 
 cott of Austrian goods is now being carried out systematically. 
 
 At first it seemed a thing of no consequence, and only happened in 
 
 single instances in seaports. But now local committees have been 
 formed in all Turkish cities and towns, who organize the boycott 
 
 and see that it is everywhere carried out No one dares to 
 
 oppose their orders, since everybody who purchases Austrian goods 
 
 is accused of committing high treason In many instances 
 
 good old customers in Turkey have sent their usual orders at the 
 beginning of the winter, but afterwards cancelled them by letter or 
 telegram, declaring they would not be able to sell the goods. In 
 other cases the goods have been sent, but the ships were not allow- 
 ed to land, nor were the firms who ordered them allowed to take 
 them on shore. Several Lloyd steamers have already returned to 
 Trieste with Austrian goods that no Turkish port would receive. 
 
 The Austrian diplomatists were asked to interfere, but all they 
 have succeeded in obtaining is that the mob is not allowed to 
 attack the Llo 3 ' - d steamers or rob the Austrian merchants settled in 
 Turkey. No one can be compelled to buy Austrian goods if he has 
 a mind not to. The result of this state of things is that the 
 shares of the Lloyd Company, which for years were quoted at over 
 TOO crowns, now stand at the figure of 400. But besides the Lloyd 
 Company the railways suffer from the boycott, since no goods are 
 sent to Trieste from any part of the Empire." 
 
 Two weeks later, in the issue of December 12, the Aus- 
 trian correspondent made the following comments, along with some 
 others on the boycott situation: 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 a '' * .tv I 
 
 
 
56 
 
 "The returns of Austria's exports to Turkey up to the 
 month of October were published yesterday.”* The boycott of Aus- 
 trian goods began immediately after the announcement of the annex- 
 ation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The returns do not show what was 
 exported during October alone, but comprise the months of July, 
 August, September, and October. Turkey n@^t have stopped import- 
 ing Turkish caps (fezes) all at once, for the number exported dur- 
 ing those four months in 1907 was 750,000, in 1908 only 234,000, 
 which means, of course, that in October, 1903, none at 9,11 were ex- 
 ported. The exports of sugar, timber for building, cotton text- 
 iles, paper, rod iron, have all decreased considerably, but the 
 true stfte of affairs will only be known when Austrian manufacturers 
 cease to send goods to Turkey. The figures in the returns natur- 
 ally only apply to the goods which were sent, and no notice is tak- 
 en of the fi ct that by far the greater part of the goods could not 
 be landed, and had to be taken back to Trieste." 
 
 Under the date of January 5, 1909, this correspondent 
 
 wrote : 
 
 "The Turkish boycott against Austrian and Hungarian ships 
 has not in the slightest degree abated, but is spreading day by 
 
 day All Llojrd steamers tha,t arrive in Turkish ports are 
 
 boycotted. No boats come to them to land the passengers, and when 
 the captain lands them with his own boPts, they cannot obtain a 
 conveyrnce to take them to their destination, or even a man to car- 
 ry their luggage Manufacturers and merchants are seriously 
 
 considering the question whether retaliation v. T ill not become 
 
 1 December 7 , 1908. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
necessary as the only means of making Turkey come to her senses. 
 Turkey does not appear to fea.r retaliation, because its ex- 
 ports to Austria-Hungary are much inferior to its imports from 
 these countries.” 
 
 Before another article from this correspondent's pen 
 appeared, Austria's offer of financial compensation for Turkish 
 rights in the two provinces had been tentatively a.ccepted, so in 
 the issue of January 23 attention is given to the effect of this 
 turn of events on affairs in the dual monarchy? 
 
 "The Vienna Bourse, and, indeed, the Vienna and Budapest 
 world of business have had a very lively week, in consequence of 
 the almost unexpected acceptance of Austria-Hungary's offer to pay 
 for the consent of Turkey to the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegov- 
 
 i na - It was assumed from the very first that an immediate 
 
 stop would be put to the boycott against Austrian and Hungarian 
 goods in Turkey, and the prices of the shares which had suffered 
 most from the boycott rose very high indeed. Turkish lottery 
 oonds from IV5 to 134; Turkish Tobacco Monopoly Company from 314 to 
 332. 50; Fez Manufactory from 500 to 553; Lloyd Navigation Company 
 from 400 to 423. The shares of the Orient Railways rose by 20 
 crowns five minutes after the news had been received." 
 
 In the issue of February 6, the whole matter was summed 
 up with a rough estimate of the loss Austria-Hungary had suffered: 
 
 "The boycott has lasted four months, and has cost Aus- 
 trian industry, Austrian railways, and Austrian navigation very 
 nearly a milliard crowns. The financial sacrifice which Austria- 
 Hungary made officially to pacify Turkey is very small when cornnar- 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
58 
 
 ed to the sacrifice which the boycott has extorted." 
 
 This testimony of The Economist's special correspondent 
 is confirmed by abundant witnesses whose reputations for veracity 
 md accuracy go unquestioned. The foreign affairs department of 
 the Fortnightly Review for January, 1 909, said: 
 
 "The boycott has proved an instrument of formidable power. 
 The damage to Austro-Hungarian interests has been immense. The 
 commercial war has done more than anything else to shatter the cal- 
 culations of Baron Aerenthal . This was a form of reprisals upon 
 which the Ballplatz had not reckoned for a single moment. The boy- 
 cott has been a popular movement. It has been enforced in every 
 harbour. Even the threats of the Turkish authorities could not 
 induce the porters to unload, the Austrian ships and to handle Aus- 
 trian goods." 
 
 The New International Year Book for I 909 summarized the 
 events connected with the boycott as follows: 
 
 "The principle on which Austria seemed at first to take 
 her stand was that having taken nothing from Tirkey she could not 
 admit Turkey's right to claim compensation. She urged that she 
 was giving back more than enough in restoring Novi -Bazar . 1 But 
 the Turkish boycott of Austrian goods, which prevailed in the clos- 
 ing months of 1908, brought Austria to a more serious vi ew of the 
 situftion, and she finally acceded to certain of the Turkish de- 
 mands: namely, the increo.se of Turkish customs duties to fifteen 
 per cent., the establishment of Turkish monopolies in ciga.rette 
 paper and matches, the personal and religious freedom of the H 0 s- 
 
 1 A former Turkish sa.n .iak or small district now in Jugo-Slavia. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
59 
 
 lemo in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the eventual suppression of the Aus- 
 trim postoffices in Turkey, modifications of the capitulations and 
 abrogation of certain privileges as to the Albanian Catholics. 
 
 But to the demand of Turkey for an indemnity of 100,000,000 francs 
 Austria at iirst refused to accede. Later, however, she offered 
 50 , 000,000 francs and finally struck a bargain at 2,500,000 pounds 
 (Turkish) ( 62 , 500 ,000 francs ) . " 1 
 
 T.iis payment on the part of Austria~Hunga.ry to Turkey was 
 in reality more significant than any other of the concessions, al- 
 though it was disguised as "a grant in consideration of the former 
 Turkish State properties in Bosnia and Herzegovina ." 2 3 Dr. E. J. 
 Dillon writing on "Foreign Affairs" in the February ( I 909 ) number of 
 
 The Contemporary Review said this on the subject: 
 
 r'er more significant is the financial compensation offer- 
 ed. To begin with, it represents a departure on the part of Baron 
 Aenrenthal from the position he took up immediately after the 
 annexation. He then declared that the matter concerned only 
 
 Austria-Hungary end the incorporated provinces, and that he could 
 not entertain the demand for money. "3 
 
 ing Age reiused to admit that the boycott ws s the 
 only instrument that had brought about the concessions on the part 
 of Austria, and declared that the compensation was "in reality a 
 fine imposed upon a violator of treaties by the moral sense of Fu- 
 rope , and that "the boycott of Austri s,n goods could never of it- 
 
 1 p .74 . 
 
 2 Annual Remister , 1 909 , p . 7 1 4 . 
 
 3 95 : 245, February, I 909 . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
60 
 
 oelf have availed to wring from her." 1 2 Even though this be true, 
 it does not imply any impairment of the argument for the broader 
 aspects of economic coercion. In fact it is a confirmation of the 
 plan set forth in the Covenant of the League of Nations according 
 to which all intercourse, commercial and otherwise , between the 
 nationals of the member states and those of the offending state 
 would be cut off. Thus a most powerful economic pressure would be 
 exerted, but it would be ridiculous to say that no moral pressure 
 was being applied at the same time. In the case of the Turkish 
 boycott, one nation was exerting economic pressure and moral press- 
 ure,'* and several other nations were exercising moral pressure 
 alone. Under those conditions, Austria-Hungary held out a little 
 over three months. What would have been the result had all the 
 nations which contented themselves with applying moral influence 
 ranged themselves alongside of Turkey in declaring and enforcing a 
 boycott of everything Austro-Hungarian? 
 
 1 February 6, 1909, 260:381. 
 
 2 Montenegro and Servia also declared boycotts, but they did not 
 get into operation until negotiations for settlement with Turk- 
 ey were well under way. However the fact that they had enter- 
 ed the lists when they did may have had something to do with 
 the readiness with which Austria acceded to the Turkish de- 
 mands . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
61 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. SOME OTHER CASES. 
 
 In addition to the cases already cited, there are several 
 others of the same kind which might be treated in the same manner, 
 would time and space permit. However, in order to round out the 
 study, this chapter will be devoted to mentioning a/nd giving a sum- 
 mary of the events connected with these cases. 
 
 One case was that of the Prussian Government against Great 
 Britain in 1822. The Navigation Acts had developed into restrict- 
 ions stating that "no sorts of wine other than Rhenish, no sorts of 
 spices, grocery, tobacco, potashes, pitch, tar, salt, resin, timber, 
 or olive oil should be imported from the Netherlands or Germany in 
 sny ship whatsoever."^ This brought a reply from Prussia in the 
 shape of a great increase of port dues on ships belonging to na.tions 
 that did not admit the ships of Prussia on a. reciprocal basis. To 
 the remons trainee of the British Government which followed at once, 
 the Prussian Minis ter to England answered: "You have set us the ex- 
 ample by your port and light charges, and your discriminating duties 
 on Prussian ships, and we have not gone beyond the limits of that 
 example. Hitherto we have confined the measure of our port and 
 tonnage charges to ships only; but it is the intention of my Govern- 
 ment next yea.r to immitate you still more closely, by imposing dis- 
 criminating duties on the goods imported in your ships. Our object 
 is a just protection to our own navigation, and so long as the 
 measure of our protection does not exceed that which is afforded in 
 your ports to Prussian ships, w r e cannot see with v;het reason you 
 
 1 Levi, Leone: History of British Commerce , part iii, Chapter II. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
62 
 
 crn complain ." 1 The English Government saw the point and immed- 
 iately negotiations were begun for a reciprocity treaty with Pruss- 
 ia . 
 
 Another striking case is that of the boycott carried on 
 by the Chinese against Japanese products in I 908 . A Japanese 
 steamer was siezed by Chinese officials on the charge that it was 
 engaged in smuggling arms and ammunition to the Chinese revolution- 
 ists. "There was no mistake about the cargo and apparently none 
 about the intent, but the Japanese Government claimed that the 
 steriner had been overhauled in Portuguese and not in Chinese waters. 
 Tokyo forced Peking to apologize, to pay indemnity, to salute the 
 Japanese flag when it was rehoisted over the Tatsu-Maru 2 , and to 
 punish the Chinese customs officials who had captured the vessel."^ 
 There was an outburst of indignation in China which expressed it- 
 self in the form of a boycott of everything Japanese. Almost im- 
 mediately the Government of Japan adopted a more conciliatory 
 attitude; their consul at Canton who had refused to take any pro- 
 pitiatory measures was recalled; Je.pan conceded certain points of 
 dispute over the railways of China; and agreed that no Chinese 
 revolutionaries should find refuge in Japan . 4 
 
 Following the award of the Shantung province to Ja.pan by 
 the Conference of Versailles in 1919, another boycott was declared 
 by the Chinese against Japanese wares . China, refused to enter in- 
 
 1 Ibid., p . 164 . 
 
 2 The name of the captured Japanese steamer. 
 
 3 Worlds Work, June, 1908 , p. 10305 
 
 4 The International Settlement , p. 89 . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
to any negotir tions whatsoever concerning the matter until the 
 Japanese Government "should cease to occupy the concession of Tsing 
 tao, the Kiaochow leased territory, and the Tsingtao-Tsinan railway 
 and should make unconditional restoration of these concessions and 
 properties to China." 1 Mr. Reginald V/heeler, who was an eye wit- 
 ness of the boycott movement in Shanghai, gives the following 
 account: "The boycott was taken up by the merchants and was rigidly 
 enforced. The Japanese goods in their stores were taken out and 
 burned; Japanese banknotes were refused; the great Chinese depart- 
 ment stores in Shanghai pledged themselves not to order more Japan- 
 ese goods. Chinese stevedores refused to work on Japanese boats; 
 the ricksha coolies refused to haul Japanese passengers. It be- 
 came dangerous for even a. foreigner to anpear on the streets wear- 
 ing a straw hat made in Japan.” 2 
 
 By April of the next year (1920), "Japan faced new diff- 
 iculties in respect to finances The stock market was swamped 
 
 by securities. Tokio Exchange Stock dropped 210 points 
 
 Contributing causes of the crash were the tightening of the money 
 market, the loss of gold and the adverse balance of trade. The 
 excess of imports during the first three months of 1920 was 
 $ 1 30 ,000 , 000 , equal to nearly 50 per cent, of total exports. The 
 Chinese boycott played an important part in the unfavorable trade 
 balance . 
 
 In the same month, appeared the following statement based 
 
 1 Current History, June, 1920, p.463. 
 
 2 Ibid., April, 1920, p.o2. 
 
 5 Ibid., June, 1920, p.4o3. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
54 
 
 on statistics which appeared in "Hillard's Review" and in "The 
 Herald of Asia": "The serious decline in the trade of the Japanese 
 steamship companies is seen in the fall from 154 tons per trip in 
 1913 to an average of barely seventy-one tons per trip during the 
 first ten months of 1 0 1 9 * Cotton yarn, paper, cotton cloth, um- 
 
 brellas, canvas bags, matches showed a net decrease of 70 per cent.; 
 prtent medicines, looking glasses, earthen ware, soap, hats and 
 caps, fms, cotton hosiery, cotton tissues, satin, a decrease of 
 54 per cent.""* 
 
 In May, 1920, the Japanese consul at Tientsin said the 
 boycott had wrought "incalculable loss" to Japanese commerce-, and 
 in October the' Mini chi (Japanese newspaper) said that the movement 
 was "growing in vehemence, with the result that an increasing num- 
 ber of embittered Japanese merchants are returning to Japan. Many 
 of the men declared that unless some resolute steps are taken by 
 the Japanese authorities, Japanese commercial interests would be 
 seriously undermined." The loss sustained by the import trade 
 for the month of August alone was declared to be over $17,000,000.^ 
 
 In the middle of the following year, the Mimichi announc- 
 ed that the Council Extraordinary meeting in Tokio had recognized 
 the "necessity of withdrawing the Japanese garrison now stationed 
 in the zone a.long the Shantung Railroad.. ..and that delay in carry- 
 ing out this withdrawal had been due solely to the failure of China 
 
 to provide an adequate policing force Besides the withdrawal, 
 
 it was planned bo abandon Japanese rights over collieries and other 
 
 T Ibid., April, 1920, p. 62 . 
 
 2 Ibid., Hay, 1920, p.253. 
 
 3 Ibid., December, 1920, 0 . 457 . 
 
 4 Ibid., p.458. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
65 
 
 mines and salt fields, as well as other rights acquired under the 
 Versailles Treaty.” 1 2 3 However it was not until the tine of the 
 Washington Conference that the treaty bet ween the two powers defin- 
 itely arranged the terms of the withdrawal. The 'Washington corres- 
 pondent of the New York Tribune wrote: "Japan is as well pleased as 
 
 China, for the anti- Japanese boycott throughout China has more than 
 
 o 
 
 offset any advantage which Shantung gave to Japan." Altruism had 
 little to do with her surrender of her rights in Shantung; as the 
 
 ■z 
 
 Tokyo C humai Shogyo put it, she "ate hunble pie."^ There is little 
 doubt but what the Chinese boycott was the big factor in bringing 
 her to see things from China's point of view. 
 
 Another recent case is that of the Int ernational Feder- 
 ation of Trade Unions against the "White Terror" Government of 
 Hungary. Bela Kun ' s communist government had been overthrown by 
 the Whites under Admiral Horthy, and in the so-called reign of 
 terror which followed, many atrocities were committed against the 
 supporters of Kun according to reports which reached Western and 
 Central Europe. The International Federation of Trade Unions 
 appealed "to the workers of all countries to refuse, beginning June 
 20, 1920, to do any work which might directly or indirectly benefit 
 the Hungary of the White Terror. Beginning June 20, 1920, no 
 train shall cross the Hungarian frontier, no ship shall enter Hun- 
 gary, and no letter or telegram shall enter or leave Hungary. All 
 traffic should be stopped. Wo coal, no raw material, no food- 
 
 1 Ibid., August, 1921, p.887. 
 
 2 Literary Digest, February 11, 1922, p.12. 
 
 3 Ibid., May 20, I 922 , p.19. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
66 
 
 stuffs, nothing shall enter the country." 1 2 3 According to the 
 
 Journ a l de Geneve . a Swiss publication, the initiative was taken 
 
 in this movement by the English, French, and Dutch Federations of 
 
 Labor, while the Federations of Germany, Austria, Italy, Czecho- 
 
 o 
 
 Slovakia, and Switzerland fell in line.- 
 
 "Postal and telegraphic communication between Hungary and 
 Austria was almost immediately completely suspended. At Austrian 
 railway terminals the workmen sidetracked all cars destined for 
 Hungarian cities, and the sidings were soon filled with this inter- 
 rupted traffic. Similar action was taken in Jugo-slavia and Po- 
 land. The Czechs to some degree ignored the boycott because of 
 unf riendliness for Austria The other countries, however, in- 
 
 cluding even the labor unions of Great Britain, joined vigorously 
 in the boycott, and within a few days it was apparent that Hungary 
 was feeling its effects to a more serious extent than the Govern- 
 ment admitted At the middle of July, when this article went 
 
 to press, the boycott wa s still tightening its grip on Hungary, but 
 the cessation of mail communication, coupled with the significance 
 of the Horthy Government, prevented the receipt of fuller details 
 on the subject. n> 
 
 The boycott "was lifted on August 9, after the leaders 
 had decided that its continuance would be useless. A proclamation 
 issued by the Amsterdam labor executive to the workers of Austria 
 enumerates the reasons why the embargo failed. 4 In the first 
 
 1 From the Appea.l of the International Federation of Trade 
 
 Unions as published in The H at ion . July 3, 1920, p.27. 
 
 2 Living Age, August 14, 1920, p.394. 
 
 3 Current History, August, 1920, p.381. 
 
 4 Ibid., October, 1920, p.76. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
67 
 
 place, the statement says, the co-operation of the workers of Aus- 
 tria, Czecho-slovakia, Rumania and Jugo-slavia proved inadequate 
 for lack. of substantial support from workers in countries without 
 frontiers in common with Hungary. The success of the blockade was 
 expected on the assumption that the workers of Western Europe would 
 exert pressure, on their Governments in favor of intervention against 
 the White Terror." In other words, they did not expect to bring 
 the Hungarian Government to terms by economic pressure alone, but 
 expected to influence their governments to intervene with their 
 armies. They were not prepared to wait for the results of the 
 economic boycott in Hungary and depend on that to get results, and 
 when the Powers did not intervene as soon as they had hoped, the 
 whole thing was dropped. 
 
 "In the second place, the Magyar working class was so ex- 
 hausted by suffering from the White Terror that it was unable to 
 act with the workers of neighboring states." The revival of the 
 Communist Revolution was another part of their program. In add- 
 ition to stirring up armed external intervention, they expected to 
 bring about the overthrow of Horthy's Government by internal forces. 
 
 "In the third place, the failure of the blockade is due 
 to the indirect support accorded to the terrorist regime by some of 
 the Entente Governments desirous of using the armed forces of Hun- 
 gary for their own ends." Instead of intervening, as the boycott- 
 ers desired, the Governments were, recording to this, giving rid 
 and comfort to "the enemy." 
 
 To sum up, there are four main reasons why this instance 
 
68 
 
 of economic coercion failed: 1 ) an organization making up a small 
 
 pert of the population in general or even of the laboring population 
 curried on the boycott, and this made it differ from the other in- 
 stances cited in which all classes of people co-operated together; 
 (2) the Federations themselves of some countries took part only 
 he If -heart edly , especially those of Cz echo -Slovakia and Germany, 
 and this weakened it at vital points; (3) according to their own 
 statements given above, they were not using the boycott as a weapon 
 but a s an advertising medium, and when it failed in the latter 
 c pacity, they did not wait to see whether it would truly function 
 a s a weapon or not; (4) the Governments were often, in fact usually, 
 out of sympathy with the movement, and this, coupled with the fact 
 that large numbers of laborers vrere out of the ranks of the Feder- 
 ations and therefore not definitely co-operating, made failure al- 
 mo s t in evi tabl e . 
 
 1 Nation, September 11, 1920, p.236. 
 
 

69 
 
 CHAPTER IX. CONCLUSIONS. 
 
 What conclusions ' can one draw after examining the fore- 
 going crses? First, in no one of them can economic coercion be 
 a total failure as a substitute for war, although there are some, 
 
 such as the third non-inporta tion agreement of the colonies and the 
 embargo and non-intercourse acts of 1306-1812, when other events 
 have clouded the effects of the policy, or 7/hen the existence of 
 war has a.cted as a neutralizing agent. In practically every one of 
 
 •i 
 
 these cases, the pressure has been exerted by one nation alone 
 against another lone nation. If one nation, working alone, can 
 force another to terms by the exertion of economic pressure, as was 
 done in the cases given, how much sooner results would be secured 
 if several nations cut off relations with the offending country as 
 provided for in the plan of the League of Nations. It is generally 
 admitted that such coercion would be irresis table , and that, after 
 ?n experience or two, the mere threat of such pressure would be 
 sufficient in most cases. 
 
 One of the things shown in the historical section of this 
 study is that it is not at all necessary to bring a nation to the 
 point of starvation before it is ready to make some kind of terms. 
 Because men will patiently and silently suffer business losses in 
 time of war is no indication that they will do the same in time of 
 commercial war. In fact, history shows that men complain very 
 readily and vociferously under such circumstances. If a man's bus- 
 iness is suffering because his country is engaged in war with 
 
 1 An exception is the case against Austria when Servia and Nonte- 
 negro joined Turkey in boycotting the dual monarchy . 
 
mother nation, he thinks of his sons and of his neighbors' sons, 
 who are out there "somewhere" in the fight, suffering as no busi- 
 ness loss can possibly make him suffer, end he stifles his com- 
 plaints. The snirit of self-sacrifice permeates the whole nation 
 and he is ashamed to find fault about a financial loss. If, on 
 the other hand, a man's business is suffering because his country 
 is cut off from commercial relations with other nations as a punish- 
 ment for some offense against international morality, he is not go- 
 ing to bear his losses silently end charge them up to patriotism. 
 
 The whole affair is reduced to a business basis, and he is looking ; 
 rt it from the standpoint of dollars end sense. He will complain. 
 He will protest. He will demand action on the part of his govern- 
 ment that the grievance of the other nations may be removed, in 
 order that his business may go on as before. He forgets the old 
 ideas of "national honor", "national pride", and a "place in the 
 sun" • He is more interested in crea ting a commercial empire than 
 he is in building up a huge, inchoate political empire of question- 
 able value, and his behavior is governed accordingly. 
 
 > 
 
 The use of economic coercion has been objected to by 
 many on various grounds. Robert G-oldsmith complains that "it 
 would injure non-combatants more than responsible aggressive gov- 
 ernments . " 1 So does war. Economic pressure invariably accompan- 
 ies war, and non-combatants usually suffer more from such coercion 
 applied in time of war because of the reasons set forth in the 
 paragraph above. In cas es where economic pressure a.lone is used ; 
 to coerce an offending nation, it is not necessary to bring its ' 
 
 1 Goldsmith, Robert: A League to Enforce Peace , p.13o. 
 
 ! 
 
71 
 
 inhabitants to the point of starvation before the government is 
 ready to make concessions. This is especially true of countries 
 having a democratic form of government, but even the most desx)otic 
 government cannot stand out long against the united will of an agi- 
 tated people. Were it a case of helpless women and children being 
 starved to death, economic pressure would be even more horrible 
 than war, but, with the glamour of war and the arousing of pugnacity 
 end hate absent, it is doubtful whether any nation would ever sub- 
 mit to its government permitting it to arrive at such a state. 
 
 The facts presented in the preceeding chapters bear out this idea. 
 
 One of the most com ion objections raised is that it acts 
 
 as a boomerang. It causes great inconveniences to the nation that 
 
 applies it. In reply to this, Viscount Bryce has convincingly 
 
 said: "Whatever that inconvenience might be, it would be less than 
 
 the evils a war would cause, and it could not last long, because no 
 
 excommunicated State could support for more than a few weeks or 
 
 months the painful consequences of total isolation and would dread 
 
 *| 
 
 permanent injury to its commerce." 
 
 > 
 
 Another objection is that stated by J. A. Hobson as fol- 
 low’s: "Though postal, railway and telegraphic intercourse could be 
 cut off easily by agreements between Governments , private trading 
 could not so easily be stopped. It is not found a simple matter 
 to stop all trading between members of nations actually at war when 
 national sentiment sides strongly with the legal prohibition. It 
 might be much more difficult to prevent all commercial intercourse 
 
 1 Bryce, James: Intern' tionel Relations , vol.1, p.252. 
 
 
72 
 
 for private gain when there was no special hostility between the 
 two nations in question.""' This handicap was present in every one 
 of the cases presented in the previous chapters of this study, yet 
 r large degree of success attended the majority of them. There 
 is no doubt but what a one hundred per cent, perfect application of 
 economic pressure would get much quicker results, but it does not 
 necessarily follow that it would take twice as long to get results 
 with one only fifty per cent, efficient. The objection stated by 
 Mr. Hobson cannot be considered seriously as an argument against 
 the use of economic pressure, and probably he did not intend it as 
 such . 
 
 Samuel G-ompers fears that a League of Nations with such 
 
 an effective tool "would almost certainly become the repressive 
 
 .. 2 
 
 tool of the reactionary and privileged forces of the world. 
 
 Here, undoubtedly, does lie a real danger, but even to that one 
 may cynically reply that since it is advocated as a substitute for 
 war, its taking such a turn would only make it more truly a genuine 
 substitute. War has been used as such a tool. The terms of 
 peace dictated by a conquering nation "are not in themselves con- 
 formable to the sense of justice or the reasonable will of the 
 parties concerned, but are a mere register of the preponderance of 
 power when the conflict is brought to a close." ; Such a settle- 
 ment merely leaves the seeds of future strife, whether it is en- 
 forced by military or economic pressure, but that cannot be a.ccept- 
 
 1 Hobson, J. A.: Towards Internationa l 0- over nine nt . p-93- 
 
 2 Enforced Peace , p . 1 1 4 . 
 
 3 Hobson, J. A.: Democracy after the 7'ar , p." 7 - 
 
 J 
 
73 
 
 ed as an argument against economic coercion as a substitute for 
 war. It merely points out that both can be misused. 
 
 J. A. Hobson also points out the fact that the use of 
 economic coercion involves the risk that the boycotted nation might 
 retaliate with force of arms and precipitate war itself. ^ This 
 is a possibility which cannot be ignored, but it cannot in any 
 sense militate as an argument against the use of economic pressure 
 in place of resorting to war. In the one case, war may arise as 
 one of the results, but it is only a possibility and not a necess- 
 ary consequence. In the other case, war is the only recognized 
 means of chastising the recalcitrant nation, and therefore follows 
 as a natural result in case diplomatic efforts break down in the 
 attempt to make an adjustment. 
 
 Militarism "stands as the surviving incarnation of pure 
 physical force in a civilization the value and progress of which 
 consist in the supersession of physical by intellectual and moral 
 direction. The feet that it has harnessed to its chariot some of 
 the finest activities of the human intellect and will cannot hide 
 the truth that it stands for barbarism." This ides, is coming to 
 be recognized by practical men more and more, and when the League 
 to Enforce Peace advocated as part of their program "economic 
 pressure through non-intercourse" , this plan was approved by the 
 Chamber of Commerce of the United States, the National Association 
 of Manufacturers , the National League of Commission Merchants, and 
 the National Wholesale Dry C-oods Association, as well as by a. large 
 
 1 Hobs on , J . A . : T owards I ntern a tion al -ov eminent , p . 94 . 
 
 2 Hobs on , J . A . : Democracy after the War , p . 1 9 • 
 
 - 
 
74 
 
 number of state and. local Chambers of Commerce and other commercial 
 
 1 
 
 organizations in the United States and Canada. 
 
 Although economic pressure has been shown to be success- 
 ful when applied by one nation against one other nation, there can 
 be little doubt but that the most satisfactory results can be ob- 
 t' ined when some type of international co-operation reinforced by 
 interne t ions 1 government is in existence. Whether the League of 
 Nations fills this place satisfactorily or not, it would seem that 
 even an unsatisfactory government is better than no government at 
 all. As J. L. G-arvin, the English journalist, says: Interorgan- 
 ization between governments is "unprecedented ; but if we want re- 
 newed wars we have only to stick to precedent."' 
 
 The outstanding obstacle to every effort to perfect a 
 true league of nations is the jealous fashion in which the individ- 
 ual states cling to every vestige of their own sovereignty, and 
 there must be sole surrender of authority before there can be any 
 such thing as an international government . "Society implies re- 
 straint," said Theodore Marburg, former United States Minister to 
 Belgium. "And a. society of nations is not exempt from the rule. 
 The one license which it ha.s become perfectly clear the nations 
 must surrender is the license to make war at will. ^ That sur- 
 render has not yet been made, and probably will not be made until 
 the League of Nations, or its successor if it ha.s one, has given a 
 practical demons tre tion of the efficacy of economic means of co- 
 
 1 Lake Mohonk Conference, 19 16, p.215. 
 
 2 G-arvin, J. L.: The Economic Foundations of Peace , p.105* 
 
 3 Marburg, Theodore: Lea gu e of Nations , p.61. 
 
75 
 
 ercion. "The right of the individual state to stand out against 
 
 *t 
 
 the progress of the world is open to serious question." As the 
 Newark Advocate puts it, "There can't be any concert of nations 
 
 p 
 
 while each one of them wants to be a, soloist." 
 
 To sun up the whole thing, the principle of the economic 
 boycott as a means of coercing recalcitrant nations is sound, and 
 when tried, has worked except when disturbing influences have pro- 
 duced a state of mind a iong the citizenry of the boycotted nation 
 which causes them to consider commercial prosperity secondary as 
 compared with some other object pursued by the government . When 
 ideas of national honor and national pride have been left out of 
 the reckoning, the boycott has invariably been found to work satis- 
 factorily. Since, under these conditions, economic pressure has 
 been found so satisfactory as a substitute for war, it should be 
 even more satisfactory if used as a means of backing the authority 
 of a society of nations . When so used, it is probable that it 
 would be almost impossible for a single nation to defy the injunct- 
 ions of an international court or to ignore the moral sense of the 
 civilized nations of the earth. 
 
 One should remember that in the cases cited in the prev- 
 ious chapters, the nations involved have invariably been of the 
 highly civilized, commercial type. Were all nations of that type, 
 armies end navies could probably be safely scrapped as soon as a 
 real spirit of co-oper tion had been established among the nations, 
 and machinery of interns tional government had been constructed to 
 
 1 Sayre, Francis Bowen: Experiments in International Administrat - 
 
 ion . p.152. 
 
 2 Current Opinion, Way, 1922, p.5o3. 
 
 J 
 
76 
 
 direct it. However there are backward peoples who must remain 
 under the tutelage of the more advanced nations, and for the pro- 
 tection of ^oth classes some kind of an armed force must be main- 
 tained for the present at least. As strong as the case is for 
 economic coercion as a substitute for war, it would be height of 
 folly to depend on it alone at this stage of the world's develop- 
 ment . 
 
 Neither the presence nor the absence of arms works as an 
 absolute insurance of peace. Real peace is based upon deeper 
 foundations and will not come until there is a genuine spirit of 
 peace in the hearts of men. You can disarm a man, but if he is 
 provoked he will fight anyhow with whatever comes to hand, provid- 
 ing his opponent is no better armed than himself. However there 
 c?n be little doubt but that a reasonable limitation of armaments 
 would go a long way towards the pro lotion of peace. In the 
 countries of Western Europe, the sale of firearms is regulated and 
 restricted by law, while in the United States anyone may buy a gun. 
 The results of these two policies are reflected in the number of 
 homocides in each country. Where anyone may own a gun without its 
 being any other person's affair, there is pretty ant to be some 
 shooting occasionally. It should not be left to each nation to 
 decide whether it will arm or not, or to what extent it shall arm. 
 That is a question that should be settled by the society of nations. 
 
 There are dozens of such questions which are related to 
 
 the general subject of "world peace and organization, but not direct- 
 ly to the subject of economic coercion as a substitute for war. 
 However, he who would work for the cause of substituting the boy- 
 
77 
 
 cott for warfare must at the same time work for these other means 
 of promoting world unity and harmony, or there can be no sure and 
 permanent result. To be sure "the boycott is not a lovely weapon", 
 neither does it bring real peace which can never exist, in an im- 
 perfect society, but in that it is less destructive of life and 
 property than is war, it should be commended and advocated as a 
 means of coercing offending nations until the genuine peace is 
 ushered in, whenever that is. 
 
 1 Goldsmith, Robert: A League to Enforce Pe: ce , p.135. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 ' 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
m3 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY . 
 
 Angell , Norman: The Great Illusion . 2nd eel . , Putnam: 1 9 13. 
 Angell , Norman: The Worlds Highway . Doran: 19 15. 
 
 Baseless, John: The Economic Cau ses of ^odern "Tars . Moffat : 192 1 . 
 
 Bigelow, John: v , r o rid Perce . Mitchell Kennerley: 1 9 16 . 
 
 Bourne, Randolph S., ed . : Towards an Endur ing P eace . 
 
 Auer lean Association for International Conciliation . 
 
 Brailsford, H. N.: A Leagu e of Nations . 2nd ed . , Macmillan : 1917 . 
 
 Bryce, James: International Relations . 2 vols . , Macmillan: 1 922 . 
 
 Buxton, Charles, ed.: T owa r d s a La sting Settle n e nt . Macmillan: 1 9 16 . 
 
 Crosby, Oscar T.: International War . Macmillan: 1 9 1 9 • 
 
 Duggans, Stephen Pierce, ed . : The Lea pue of Nations . 
 
 Atlantic Monthly Pres s : 1 9 1 9 • 
 
 Erzberger, M. : The League of Nations , translated by Bernard "Mall, 
 
 Holt: 1919 • 
 
 Garvin, J. L.: The Economic Foundations o f Peace . ' ,T acmillan: 19 19 • 
 Goldsmith, Robert: A League to Enfor c e Peace , Macmillan: 19 17 . 
 Hobson, J. A.: Democracy after the far , Macmillan. 
 
 f 
 
 Hobson, J. A.: Towards Intern at ional Government . Macmillan: 1 9 1 5 • 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
79 
 
 Hogan, Albert E . : Pacific Blockade . Oxford: 1903. 
 
 Huet, Bishop: Histoire du Commerce . Paris: 1717. 
 
 Jordan, David Sts.rr: Unseen Empire . American Unitarian Ass'n:l9l2. 
 
 Ki lien, Horace Meyer: The Structure o f Lasting; Peace . 
 
 Jones, Boston: 1918. 
 
 Marburg, Theodore: A League of Nations . Macmillan : 1 9 17 . 
 
 Minor, Raleigh C.: A Republic of nations . New York:l9l8. 
 
 Peish, G-eorge: A Permanen t Lea gue of Na tions . London: 1 918 . 
 
 Percy, Eustace: The Responsibilities of the League . London. 
 
 Sayre, Francis Bowes: Experi m ents in International Ad ministration . 
 Harpers : 1 9 1 9 • 
 
 Schvan, August: F oundation s o f Pernanent Peace , London . 
 
 Sts llybrass , W. T. S.: A Society of Nations , New York : 1 9 1 9 • 
 
 Problems of the Interna tional Settlement . (A series of studies by 
 scholars and experts of various nations , with an intro- 
 duction written by G- . Lowes Dickinson.) 
 
 Covenant of the L e agu e of Nations . 
 
 Enforced Peace , (Proceedings of the League to Enforce Peace, I 9 I 6 .) 
 
 Proceedings of the Lake Uohonk Conferences . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
30 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTERS II, III, IV, and V. 
 
 Yorks of General Reference : 
 
 Br tier oft, G- . : Hist ory of th e United States , 10 vols . , last revision, 
 New York : 1 884 . 
 
 Br s s e 1 1 , J ohn So oncer: A Short Hist ory o f the Un ited 5 totes , 
 Macmillan : 1919- 
 
 Bogart, Era e s t Lud low: 2£c on on ic History of the United States , 
 
 3rd ed . , Longmans : 1 92 1 . 
 
 Chsnning, Edward: Th e Jeff er s on ion S y s t em . in Hart's American Nation 
 series, Harpers : 1 906 . 
 
 Howard, George Elliot: Prelioinaries of the Revolution , in Hart's 
 American Nation series, Harpers : 1 905 • 
 
 YcYaster, John Bach: History of the Peopl e of the United States . 
 Svols . , Appleton : I 9 IO . 
 
 Pr imary Sources : 
 
 An n ual Reg i ster . 
 
 Almon, John, ed . : Interesting Letters . 2 vols., London: 1767. 
 
 Burke, Edmund: Vr i t ing s and Spe eche s . Beaconsfield edition, 12 vols. 
 Boston : 1 90 1 . 
 
 Fitzwilliam end Bourke, ed.: Correspondence of Edmund Burke, 4 vols. 
 
 London : 1844 . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
31 
 
 Alison, Sir Archibald: Lives of Lo r d CaBtlereagh end Sir Charles 
 
 Stewa rt . (contains much of their correspondence) , 3 vols. 
 Blackwood, London: 1861 . 
 
 Donne , W. Bodham, ed.: Correspondence of Georye III with Lord 
 North . 2 vols., London : 1 367 . 
 
 V/; lpole, Horace: "~ono Irs of Gcorne ITT . Barkers ed., 4 vols., 
 
 London : 1 894 . 
 
 Anson, Sir illiam, ed.: Autobiography of the D u ke of Grafton . 
 
 London : 1 898 . 
 
 Suith, "illia.m James, ed • : Grenville Papers . 4 vols., London:1853. 
 
 Albemarle, Bari of: ' T enoirs of the ~ r ar; uis of Rockingham . 2 vols., 
 Loudon : 1852. 
 
 Ha ns rd , T . C . : Parlia isntary Hi stor y of By; land , London : 1813. 
 
 Hansard, T. C.: Pa r 1 i am ent ary D ebs. t e s . London:1813- 
 
 Robertson, C. Grant, ed . : Select Statutes Cases and Documents . 
 
 London : 1913- 
 
 Prime Second' ry Sources: 
 
 Bissett, Robert: History of the Reign of George III . 6 vols., 
 
 London : 1 820 . 
 
 Winterbotham, W.: View of the American United States , 4 vols., 
 London: 1795 • 
 
 Lor d North's Adminis t ration , London : 1732. 
 
BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER VI. 
 
 A nnurl Register , 1 905 - I906 . 
 
 Brrdstreet ' s . I905-I906. 
 
 Dun's Review . 1905-1906. 
 
 The Eco no mist (London) , 1905-1906. 
 
 Lit e r: r v Pi ~ e s t . 1905- 1906. 
 
 N r t Ion (New York) , 1905 - 1906 . 
 
 Out I o oh (New York), 1905-1906. 
 
 Review of Reviews . 1905-1906. 
 
 ■To rid Tod- y . I 9 O 6 . 
 
 Y orlds York . 1 905- 1906. 
 
 Congressional Record , vo 1 . 40 . 
 
 Ho use Documents . 59th Congress. 
 
 Honthly Consuls r and Trr.de Reports . I 905 -I 906 . 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
83 
 
 BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR CHAPTER VII . 
 
 A n nit' 1 Re "is ter . I908-I9C9. 
 
 Contempor: rv Review . I9O8-I9O9. 
 
 Economist . (London) I908-I909. 
 
 Portal "An tlv Review . 1 908- 1 909 . 
 
 J ournal des ^cononistes . I908-I909. 
 
 Living Ame . 1903 - 1909 . 
 
 New Intern.- tionel Yet r -qqV , 1 9 0 9 . 
 
 R^vue -Aon.0 nioue Int ernetionr 1 e , 1 908 - 1 909 . 
 
 Zoitschrif t fur Staats- u nd 'R^lksv/irts ch; ft , 1 9 0 3 - 1 90 9 . 
 
 B I BL 1 OGrRAPHY FOR CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 Current History (New York Times) 
 
 Liter? ry Digest . 
 
 Living A ge . 
 
 N' : t ion . 
 
 Worlds York . 
 
 Levi, Leone: History of British Commerce, London:t88Q.