The prohibition, notwithstanding all the penalties which guard it, does not prevent the exportation of wool.It is exported, it is well known, in great quantities.The great difference between the price in the home and that in the foreign market presents such a temptation to smuggling that all the rigour of the law cannot prevent it.This illegal exportation is advantageous to nobody but the smuggler.A legal exportation subject to a tax, by affording a revenue to the sovereign, and thereby saving the imposition of some other, perhaps, more burdensome and inconvenient taxes might prove advantageous to all the different subjects of the state.
The exportation of fuller's earth or fuller's clay, supposed to be necessary for preparing and cleansing the woolen manufactures, has been subjected to nearly the same penalties as the exportation of wool.Even tobacco-pipe clay, though acknowledged to be different from fuller's clay, yet, on account of their resemblance, and because fuller's clay might sometimes be exported as tobacco-pipe clay, has been laid under the same prohibitions and penalties.
By the 13th and 14th of Charles II, c.7, the exportation, not only of raw hides, but of tanned leather, except in the shape of boots, shoes, or slippers, was prohibited; and the law gave a monopoly to our bootmakers and shoemakers, not only against our graziers, but against our tanners.By subsequent statutes our tanners have got themselves exempted from this monopoly upon paying a small tax of only one shilling on the hundred-weight of tanned leather, weighing one hundred and twelve pounds.They have obtained likewise the drawback of two-thirds of the excise duties imposed upon their commodity even when exported without further manufacture.All manufactures of leather may be exported duty free; and the exporter is besides entitled to the drawback of the whole duties of excise.Our graziers still continue subject to the old monopoly.Graziers separated from one another, and dispersed through all the different corners of the country, cannot, without great difficulty, combine together for the purpose either of imposing monopolies upon their fellow citizens, or of exempting themselves from such as may have been imposed upon them by other people.Manufacturers of all kinds, collected together in numerous bodies in all great cities, easily can.Even the horns of cattle are prohibited to be exported; and the two insignificant trades of the horner and combmaker enjoy, in this respect, a monopoly against the graziers.
Restraints, either by prohibitions or by taxes, upon the exportation of goods which are partially, but not completely manufactured, are not peculiar to the manufacture of leather.As long as anything remains to be done, in order to fit any commodity for immediate use and consumption, our manufacturers think that they themselves ought to have the doing of it.Woolen yarn and worsted are prohibited to be exported under the same penalties as wool.Even white cloths are subject to a duty upon exportation, and our dyers have so far obtained a monopoly against our clothiers.Our clothiers would probably have been able to defend themselves against it, but it happens that the greater part of our principal clothiers are themselves likewise dyers.Watch-cases, clockcases, and dial-plates for clocks and watches have been prohibited to be exported.Our clock-makers and watch-makers are, it seems, unwilling that the price of this sort of workmanship should be raised upon them by the competition of foreigners.
By some old statutes of Edward M, Henry VIII, and Edward VI, the exportation of all metals was prohibited.Lead and tin were alone excepted probably on account of the great abundance of those metals, in the exportation of which a considerable part of the trade of the kingdom in those days consisted.For the encouragement of the mining trade, the 5th of William and Mary, c.17, exempted from the prohibition iron, copper, and mundic metal made from British ore.The exportation of all sorts of copper bars, foreign as well as British, was afterwards permitted by the 9th and 10th of William III, c.26.The exportation of unmanufactured brass, of what is called gun-metal, bell-metal, and shroff-metal, still continues to be prohibited.Brass manufactures of all sorts may be exported duty free.
The exportation of the materials of manufacture, where it is not altogether prohibited, is in many cases subjected to considerable duties.
By the 8th George I, c.15, the exportation of all goods, the produce or manufacture of Great Britain, upon which any duties had been imposed by former statutes, was rendered duty free.The following goods, however, were excepted: alum, lead, lead ore, tin, tanned leather, copperas, coals, wool cards, white woolen cloths, lapis calaminaris, skins of all sorts, glue, coney hair or wool, hares' wool, hair of all sorts, horses, and litharge of lead.If you expect horses, all these are either materials of manufacture, or incomplete manufactures (which may be considered as materials for still further manufacture), or instruments of trade.This statute leaves them subject to all the old duties which had ever been imposed upon them, the old subsidy and one per cent outwards.