First Book: The History
Chapter 1
The Italians
At the revival of civilisation in Europe, no county was in so
favourable a position as Italy in respect to commerce and industry.
Barbarism had not been able entirely to eradicate the culture and
civilisation of ancient Rome. A genial climate and a fertile soil,
notwithstanding an unskilful system of cultivation, yielded
abundant nourishment for a numerous population. The most necessary
arts and industries remained as little destroyed as the municipal
institutions of ancient Rome. Prosperous coast fisheries served
everywhere as nurseries for seamen, and navigation along Italy's
extensive sea-coasts abundantly compensated her lack of internal
means of transport. Her proximity to Greece, Asia Minor, and Egypt,
and her maritime intercourse with them, secured for Italy special
advantages in the trade with the East which had previously, though
not extensively, been carried on through Russia with the countries
of the North. By means of this commercial intercourse Italy
necessarily acquired those branches of knowledge and those arts and
manufactures which Greece had preserved from the civilisation of
ancient times.
From the period of the emancipation of the Italian cities by
Otho the Great, they gave evidence of what history was testified
alike in earlier and later times, namely, that freedom and industry
are inseparable companions, even although not unfrequently the one
has come into existence before the other. If commerce and industry
are flourishing anywhere, one may be certain that there freedom is
nigh at hand: if anywhere Freedom was unfolded her banner, it is as
certain that sooner or later industry will there establish herself;
for nothing is more natural than that when man has acquired
material or mental wealth he should strive to obtain guarantees for
the transmission of his acquisitions to his successors, or that
when he has acquired freedom, he should devote all his energies to
improve his physical and intellectual condition.
For the first time since the downfall of the free states of
antiquity was the spectacle again presented to the world by the
cities of Italy of free and rich communities. Cities and
territories reciprocally rose to a state of prosperity and received
a powerful impulse in that direction from the Crusades.
As matters actually stood, however, Venice was not merely left
to her own resources, she found herself crippled by the external
attacks of her sister states and of the neighbonring European
powers.
It could not have proved a difficult task to a well-organised
league of Italian military powers to defend the independence of
Italy against the aggression of the great monarchies. The attempt
to form such a league was actually made in 1526, but then not until
the moment of actual danger and only for temporary defence. The
lukewarmness and treachery of the leaders and members of this
league were the cause of the subsequent subjugation of Milan and
the fall of the Tuscan Republic. From that period must be dated the
downfall of the industry and commerce of Italy.(4*)
In her earlier as well as in her later history Venice aimed at
being a nation for herself alone. So long as she had to deal only
with petty Italian powers or with decrepid Greece, she had no
difficulty in maintaining a supremacy in manufactures and commerce
through the countries bordering on the Mediterranean and Black
Seas. As soon, however, as united and vigorous nations appeared on
the political stage, it became manifest at once that Venice was
merely a city and her aristocracy only a municipal one. It is true
that she had conquered several islands and even extensive
provinces, but she ruled over them only as conquered territory, and
hence (according to the testimony of all historians) each conquest
increased her weakness instead of her power
At the same period the spirit within the Republic by which she
had grown great gradually died away. The power and prosperity of
Venice -- the work of a patriotic and heroic aristocracy which had
sprung from an energetic and liberty-loving democracy-maintained
itself and increased so long as the freedom of democratic energy
lent it support, and that energy was guided by the patriotism, the
wisdom, and the heroic spirit of the aristocracy. But in proportion
as the aristocracy became a despotic oligarchy, destructive of the
freedom and energies of the people, the roots of power and
prosperity died away, notwithstanding that their branches and
leading stem appeared still to flourish for some time longer.'(5*)
A nation which has fallen into slavery,' says Montesquieu,(6*)
'strives rather to retain what it possesses than to acquire more;
a free nation, on the contrary, strives rather to acquire than to
retain.' To this very true observation he might have added -- and
because anyone strives only to retain without acquiring he must
come to grief, for every nation which makes no forward progress
sinks lower and lower, and must ultimately fall. Far from striving
to extend their commerce and to make new discoveries, the Venetians
never even conceived the idea of deriving benefit from the
discoveries made by other nations. That they could be excluded from
the trade with the East Indies by the discovery of the new
commercial route thither, never occurred to them until they
actually experienced it. What all the rest of the world perceived
they would not believe; and when they began to find out the
injurious results of the altered state of things, they strove to
maintain the old commercial route instead of seeking to participate
in the benefits of the new one; they endeavoured to maintain by
petty intrigues what could only be won by making wise use of the
altered circumstances by the spirit of enterprise and by hardihood.
And when they at length had lost what they had possessed, and the
wealth of the East and West indies was pouted into Cadiz and Lisbon
instead of into their own ports, like simpletons or spendthrifts
they turned their attention to alchemy.(7*)
In the times when the Republic grew and flourished, to be
inscribed in the Golden Book was regarded as a reward for
distinguished exertions in commerce, in industry, or in the civil
or military service of the State. On that condition this honour was
open to foreigners; for example, to the most distinguished of the
silk manufacturers who had immigrated from Florence.(8*) But that
book was closed when men began to regard places of honour and State
salaries as the family inheritance of the patrician class. At a
later period, when men recognised the necessity of giving new life
to the impoverished and enfeebled aristocracy, the book was
reopened. But the chief title to inscription in it was no longer,
as in former times, to have rendered services to the State, but the
possession of wealth and noble birth. At length the honour of being
inscribed in the Golden Book was so little esteemed, that it
remained open for a century with scarcely any additional names.
If we inquire of History what were the causes of the downfall
of this Republic and of its commerce, she replies that they
principally consisted in the folly, neglect, and cowardice of a
worn-out aristocracy, and in the apathy of a people who had sunk
into slavery. The commerce and manufactures of Venice must have
declined, even if the new route round the Cape of Good Hope had
never been discovered.
The cause of it, as of the fall of all the other Italian
republics, is to be found in the absence of national unity, in the
domination of foreign powers, in priestly rule at home, and in the
rise of other greater, more powerful, and more united nationalities
in Europe.
If we carefully consider the commercial policy of Venice, we
see at a glance that that of modern commercial and manufacturing
nations is but a copy of that of Venice, only on an enlarged (i.e.
a national) scale. By navigation laws and customs duties in each
case native vessels and native manufactures were protected against
those of foreigners, and the maxim thus early held good that it was
sound policy to import raw materials from other states and to
export to them manufactured goods.(9*)
It has been recently asserted in defence of the principle of
absolute and unconditional free trade, that her protective policy
was the cause of the downfall of Venice. That assertion comprises
a little truth with a great deal of error if we investigate the
history of Venice with an unprejudiced eye, we find that in her
case, as in that of the great kingdoms at a later period, freedom
of international trade as well as restrictions on it have been
beneficial or prejudicial to the power and prosperity of the State
at different epochs. Unrestricted freedom of trade was beneficial
to the Republic in the first years of her existence; for how
otherwise could she have raised herself from a mere fishing village
to a commercial power? But a protective policy was also beneficial
to her when she had arrived at a certain stage of power and wealth,
for by means of it she attained to manufacturing and commercial
supremacy. Protection first became injurious to her when her
manufacturing and commercial power had reached that supremacy,
because by it all competition with other nations became absolutely
excluded, and thus indolence was encouraged. Therefore, not the
introduction of a protective policy, but perseverance in
maintaining it after the reasons for its introduction had passed
away, was really injurious to Venice.
Hence the argument to which we have adverted has this great
fault, that it takes no account of the rise of great nations under
hereditary monarchy. Venice, although mistress of some provinces
and islands, yet being all the time merely one Italian city, stood
in competition, at the period of her rise to a manufacturing and
commercial power, merely with other Italian cities; and her
prohibitory commercial policy could benefit her so long only as
whole nations with united power did not enter into competition with
her. But as soon as that took place, she could only have maintained
her supremacy by placing herself at the head of a united Italy and
by embracing in her commercial system the whole Italian nation. No
commercial policy was ever clever enough to maintain continuously
the commercial supremacy of a single city over united nations.
From the example of Venice (so far as it may be adduced against
a protective commercial policy at the present time) neither more
nor less can be inferred than this -- that a single city or a small
state cannot establish and maintain such a policy successfully in
competition with great states and kingdoms; also that any power
which by means of a protective policy has attained a position of
manufacturing and commercial supremacy, can (after she has attained
it) revert with advantage to the policy of free trade.
In the argument before adverted to, as in every other when
international freedom of trade is the subject of discussion, we
meet with a misconception which has been the parent of much error,
occasioned by the misuse of the term 'freedom.' Freedom of trade is
spoken of in the same terms as religious freedom and municipal
freedom. Hence the friends and advocates of freedom feel themselves
especially bound to defend freedom in all its forms. And thus the
term 'free trade' has become popular without drawing the necessary
distinction between freedom of internal trade within the State and
freedom of trade between separate nations, notwithstanding that
these two in their nature and operation are as distinct as the
heaven is from the earth. For while restrictions on the internal
trade of a state are compatible in only very few cases with the
liberty of individual citizens, in the case of international trade
the highest degree of individual liberty may consist with a high
degree of protective policy. Indeed, it is even possible that the
greatest freedom of international trade may result in national
servitude, as we hope hereafter to show from the case of Poland. In
respect to this Montesquieu says truly, 'Commerce is never
subjected to greater restrictions than in free nations, and never
subjected to less ones than in those under despotic
government.'(10*)
NOTES:
1. De l'Ecluse, Florence et ses Vicissitudes, pp. 23, 26, 32, 163,
213.
2. Pechio, Histoire de l'Economie Politique en Italie.
3. Amalfi contained at the period of her prosperity 50,000
inhabitants. Flavio Guio, the inventor of the mariner's compass,
was a citizen of Amalfi. It was the sack of Amalfi by the Pisans
(1135 or 1137) that that ancient book was discovered which later on
became so injurious to the freedom and energies of Germany -- the
Pandects.
4. Hence Charles V was the destroyer of commerce and industry in
Italy, as he was also in the Netherlands and in Spain. He was the
introducer of nobility by patent, and of the idea that it was
disgraceful for the nobility to carry on commerce or manufactures
-- an idea which had the most destructive influence on the national
industry. Before his time the contrary idea prevailed; the Medici
continued to be engaged in commerce long after they had become
sovereign rulers.
5. "Quand les nobles, au lien de verser leur sang pour la patrie,
au lieu d'illustrer l'etat par des victoires et de l'agrandir par
des conquetes, n'eurent plus qu'a jouir des honneurs et a se
partager des impots on dut se demander pourquoi il y avait huit ou
neuf cents habitants de Venice qui se disaient proprietaries de
toute la Republique." (Daru, Histoire de Venise, vol. iv. ch.
xviii.)
6. Esprit des Lois, p. 192.
7. A mere charlatan, Marco Brasadino, who professed to have the art
of making gold, was welcomed by the Venetian aristocracy as a
saviour. (Daru, Histoire de Venise, vol. iii. ch. xix.)
8. Venice, as Holland and England subsequently did, made use of
every opportunity of attracting to herself manufacturing industry
and capital from foreign states. Also a considerable number of silk
manufacturers emigrated to Venice from Luces, where already in the
thirteenth century the manufacturer of velvets and brocades was
very flourishing, in consequence of the oppression of the Lucchese
tyrant Castruccio Castracani. (Sandu, Histoire de Venise, vol. i.
pp. 247-256.)
9. Sismondi, Histoire des Republiques Italiennes, Pt. I, p. 285.
10. Esprit des Lois, livre xx. ch. xii.
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