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French and British trade regulations

[1608their farms and to push on their settlements little by little, when it comes to a question of removing to a distance they will not do so, because the expense will fall upon themselves. . . . The settlers of New France are of a different mind. They always want to push on without troubling themselves about the settlement of the interior, because they earn more and are more independent when they are further away.” In the main portion of the colony, the social tyranny, to escape from which is often the emigrant's first desire, was fully as oppressive as in the mother-country. Indeed, the Church in Canada ruled society with a severity only paralleled by that of the New England Puritans; it sought to restrict men's pleasures and enforced, at least in La Hontan's prejudiced view, "a perpetual Lent."

Energy and enterprise rather than patience were characteristic of the early French colonist in Canada, if the opinion of Le Clercq, writing in 1691, may be trusted; they want to reap, he says, as soon as they have sown. Had agriculture been made a definite and primary object, Upper Canada, Detroit, Illinois, and the Ohio valley must have been opened with successful results; failing that impulse, the drift westward towards a more favourable soil and climate was necessarily very slow. It is curious to observe, too, how markedly the French failed as breeders of stock, a business in which the Spaniards succeeded when necessity drove them to take it up. Having at first deliberately set aside the agricultural intention as unworthy and unnecessary when other forms of profit were accessible, the Spaniards ultimately made excellent use of the fertile hattes and savannahs, and developed a business which they were well suited by disposition to undertake. But the French lacked zeal in an employment the results of which are slower even than those of tillage. Thus, for example, in St Domingo, while the French colony imported large supplies of meat and was sometimes in danger of famine, the Spanish in the larger half of the island engaged in a salt-meat trade. The French backwardness would seem to have been partly due to certain unfortunate restrictions, for instance on slaughter-houses.

The commercial regulations of the British and French colonies, though directed by like principles, worked out very differently in practice. The populous condition of New England and its confined geographical position quickly brought the question of the mother-country's control of manufactures to the front. With the single exception of clayed sugars the French colonial produce never competed with home manufactures in a manner sufficiently threatening to raise professional alarm. The fact that the colonial sugar-refiners were for the most part liberally treated may, however, serve as an indication that, had a conflict of home and colonial interests arisen, the French government was more willing than the British to allow indulgence to the colonies. England, guided by the exigencies of the moment, swayed by each manifestation of mercantile hostility, and without continuous colonial policy, was

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guilty of what Burke calls "a chain of petty, interested mismanagement," to which France felt no temptation.

The French colonies were apt, on the other hand, to be treated too much as hothouse plants, when a hardier culture might have suited them better. The British colonies, like thistles planted by the hand of nature, seemed to grow apace out of sheer wilfulness. England took interest in the sugar colonies only, because they were not competitors with her in the field of manufactures; but here her success was by no means continuous, and the example from which she expected to learn most was the example of France. To many minds the only conclusive argument in favour of colonial expansion was that the French King believed in colonies, and undoubtedly knew his own interest better than England knew hers.

The French colonies, however, would seem to have received less support from the individual capitalist than those of England, and less support from the French at home than from the colonials themselves. The one large and regular French shareholder was the government. The British government was as a rule chary of risking anything till the eighteenth century, when Georgia and Acadia were made notable exceptions to the rule. The French colonies, of which very few were proprietary, show no such great sacrifices on the part of individuals as were made by the English proprietors.

The colonial currency question was one which troubled both peoples alike and was dealt with in an equally unsatisfactory way by both. The French King tried to meet the difficulty by sending small quantities of bullion, but the supplies were wholly inadequate. The early Spanish colonies were free at least from the dislocation of trade caused by the want of coin, to which both French and English were continually subject.

The contrast between the comparative absence of commercial restraint in the French colonies and the subjection to it of the English is balanced by that other contrast between the governmental institutions of the two countries which, obvious as it is, yet always needs accentuation as the most fundamental cause directing the issue of events. Representative institutions were banished from the colonial empire of the Old Régime, and with them every governmental idea which the English cherished in their colonies, tropical and temperate. No attempt whatever was made to resist the action of the monarch in this respect. The French colonists believed that their welfare was dependent on the sovereign's will, for they saw that if with one hand he took from them certain profitable issues, he returned fully as much with the other. The sense of commercial oppression from which the colonists of New England suffered was not paralleled, apparently, by any sense of governmental oppression on the part of the Canadians. They suffered no disabilities which were not suffered by their countrymen at home. The colonists took pride in the

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[1608

sense of central unity which their form of government brought home to them, and perceived in it a source of strength against the disunited British colonies, some of which were known to be also disaffected. The French colonies were constituent parts of the empire, and no single colony was permitted to detach itself from its neighbour. Louisiana and Acadia were parts of New France, and the islands were attached to Martinique as a centre.

The French had a further advantage in the union of the Marine and Colonial Offices at home, which forced into recognition the dependence of the colonies upon the protection of the navy, contrasting in this respect favourably with the British Board of Trade and Plantations. A Conseil de Commerce was added to the Conseil de Marine, at the beginning of Louis XV's reign, consisting of deputies from some of the chief French towns an administrative department much admired by Burke. But it does not appear that its influence was by any means so great as he had been led to suppose.

The bureaucratic system enforced by the Minister of Marine required the colonial officials to keep constantly in correspondence with him, and it is from their memoirs, censuses, and reports, that the history of the colonies may be built up in extraordinary detail. But there are indications of weakness in the spirit of subserviency which marks the colonial reports; and it is clear that the colonial leaders suggested urgent reforms only in a timid, hesitating manner. A further indication of

weakness is to be found in the government's persistent repetition of courses of action that had already failed. That at times indecision and ignorance prevailed in high quarters is clear from several cases in which an official was recalled, only to return again soon afterwards as obviously the right man for the post.

That the system of dual authority that of a military governor and an intendant of police, justice, and finance, with functions not clearly delimited should have worked well with few exceptions, can only be ascribed to the strong spirit of loyalty and sincere co-operation which was zealously inculcated. The cases of friction, though salient enough, are comparatively few in number. This dual system may fairly be described as a French constitutional invention; it is the only constitutional experiment of any sort tried by the French in their colonies, whereas the experiments tried by the English were most diverse. The very small salaries of the highest officials contrast unfavourably with those of the English; the poverty of the French governors exposed them to great temptations; and, although the government repeatedly forbade them to engage in trade lest this should influence their judgments, they were driven to more or less clandestine methods of raising an income. Fortunately their tenure of office was not ultimately fixed at the short term of three years, which was tried at first, after the example of the Spanish colonies. Materials for the history of the French

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French colonial taxation

107 colonies exist in such profusion and, as regards Canada at least, have been studied in such full detail, that the character and actions of the French officials may be fully known; yet matter for a scandalous history is for the most part absent. The number of great and world-remembered names that stand out in the list of French colonial governors is strikingly large. Whereas the British colonies repeatedly failed signally in their military undertakings for want of leadership, the Canadian governors were not only generals by profession but leaders of men in a more than military sense. Unhappily France could not spare a De la Gallissonière to the New World for more than a brief space; but the fact that he should have been even for a time a Governor of Canada shows that France was willing to give of her best.

In no respect was there greater divergence in the governmental systems of the British and French colonies than in the matter of taxation. While the British colonists as a rule taxed themselves heavily, both directly by poll-taxes, and indirectly by customs, and in nearly all cases bore the whole expense of government, the French were not suffered to tax themselves. The King kept taxation as the most carefully guarded sovereign right; the Crown bore the expense of government and paid all salaries; the colonies contributed direct to the Crown through the Domaine d'Occident. The rate levied by the Crown on Quebec and Montreal for their fortifications is a solitary example of a direct tax levied in Canada to defray local expenses. In the sugar islands, in this respect as in others, there was a somewhat stronger tendency to self-government. In 1713, when it was found that the indigo duty did not cover the expense of governing St Domingo, the Minister of Marine wrote to the Governor and Commissary of St Domingo ordering that a meeting of habitants should be summoned to negotiate the provision of an octroi that would cover governmental expenses. Again, in 1714, a general assembly of habitants and merchants was held in Martinique, convoked by parishes, in which the habitants offered to bear the whole expense of the colony's maintenance if the King would release the island from the rights of the farmers-general. But these instances are isolated, and serve only to indicate that a change in the system of government could not be very much longer delayed.

No nation perceived so early and so fully as the French the importance of geographical position in political and military strategy. The magnitude of French designs is best witnessed by the names "La Nouvelle France," "La France Septentrionale" (the Great Lakes and the St Lawrence), "La France Méridionale" (Louisiana), "La France Equinoxiale" (Guiana and the Antilles), not to speak of "La France Orientale." During the rise of the French colonial empire the French were pre-eminent in geographical discovery and cartography. The nature of the fur-trade, and the character of the missionaries early dispersed the French wanderers into the heart of the continent. Once

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the wilderness had been penetrated, it became obvious immediately that the possession of the waterways gave mastery in a land then deemed incapable of land-carriage. To Burke the French colonies were "the most powerful, their nature considered, of any in America"; for in the Great Lakes lay the throne, the centre of vast dominion, by their alliance with the waters of the St Lawrence and the waters of the Mississippi. If, says Governor Pownall, we give attention to the nature of this country and the one united command and dominion which the waters hold throughout it, we shall not be surprised to find the French (though so few in number) in possession of a power which commands this country. The French work proceeded far more rapidly on the Mississippi than on the St Lawrence, for climate and soil offered no hindrance, and the unbounded range of Indian trade allowed scope for those qualities in which the French colonist proved himself strongest. But to establish dominion something more is needed than a full recognition of the possibilities of the future. No steady stream of trade poured down from Canada to Louisiana or vice versa. The entire neglect of the portage between Lake Erie and the Ohio, in favour of the distant communication by Green Bay and Wisconsin, proves that there was no trade seeking a route. That the appreciation of the importance of the Ohio came late, serves to show the unreality of the whole scheme of dominion. Similarly, in Guiana the French found themselves shut out from the waterways of the Amazon and Orinoco through delay in planting a populous and enduring colony. Whereas to Burke it appeared sheer madness on the part of the English to have allowed the French to shut them in from behind the Alleghanies, to Oldmixon it was possible to speak lightly of French "dreams of colonies and commerce in the moon." Whereas alarmists saw the French work already accomplished, others foresaw that it would take a hundred years to make the French scheme a reality. With Canada, Louisiana, and half St Domingo under one. power, and Spain in alliance, it was thought that Jamaica and Cuba would next be absorbed, and that the English would be driven from the New World. The very dispersal of the scanty French population seemed to magnify their strength, for, like the Iroquois, they could give trouble out of all proportion to their numbers.

There appears to be no reason to doubt that the French and British peoples proved equally prolific on the American continent. With both it was natural increase, and not a continuous stream of emigrants, that mainly raised the population. But in the race for numerical increase the handicapped competitor is sure to fall further and further behind; and from the outset France was handicapped. With no Huguenot exodus to parallel the twenty years' Puritan exodus, the French colonies depended for their origin on a mere handful of men and women, despatched many of them against their will and kept in the colonies by compulsion. All the French colonies were dependent on the engagés; not all the