British timber trade

From before the industrial revolution period the price of timber in England had been increasing as domestic quantities became more difficult to obtain. Many industries thus were forced to change to substitutes. As the industrial revolution progressed coal replaced timber for use as fuel, while brick replaced timber for use in construction.

It would be many decades, however, before iron could be used to replace timber in shipbuilding. By the eighteenth century England had not exhausted its supply of suitable domestic hardwood timber but – like the Netherlands – it imported softwood supplies. While every nation has trees and wood, ship timber is a far more limited product. The ideal woods were oak, Scots pine – but not spruce, and other large trees. Especially difficult to find were trees suitable to be masts, a crucial requirement for any sailing ship, and one that often had to be replaced after storms or wear. As suitable trees take decades to grow, in densely populated nations like England any given square meter of land could, usually, be far more valuably employed by producing foodstuffs rather than timber.

Timber was thus only viable industry in sparsely populated lands such as Scandinavia, those in the Baltic Sea area, and in North America. The Baltic countries, and especially Norway, had other benefits including superior sawmills, and often lower transport prices than distant overland travel. The British shipping industry, by the late seventeenth century, increasingly used imports of Baltic timber.

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Shipbuilding

Shipbuilding

Shipbuilding is the construction of ships and other floating vessels. It normally takes place in a specialized facility known as a shipyard. Shipbuilders, also called shipwrights, follow a specialized occupation that traces its roots to before recorded history.

Netherlands

Netherlands

The Netherlands, informally Holland, is a country located in northwestern Europe with overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The Netherlands consists of twelve provinces; it borders Germany to the east, and Belgium to the south, with a North Sea coastline to the north and west. It shares maritime borders with the United Kingdom, Germany and Belgium in the North Sea. The country's official language is Dutch, with West Frisian as a secondary official language in the province of Friesland. Dutch, English and Papiamento are official in the Caribbean territories.

Spruce

Spruce

A spruce is a tree of the genus Picea, a genus of about 35 species of coniferous evergreen trees in the family Pinaceae, found in the northern temperate and boreal (taiga) regions of the Earth. Picea is the sole genus in the subfamily Piceoideae. Spruces are large trees, from about 20 to 60 m tall when mature, and have whorled branches and conical form. They can be distinguished from other members of the pine family by their needles (leaves), which are four-sided and attached singly to small persistent peg-like structures on the branches, and by their cones, which hang downwards after they are pollinated. The needles are shed when 4–10 years old, leaving the branches rough with the retained pegs. In other similar genera, the branches are fairly smooth.

Mast (sailing)

Mast (sailing)

The mast of a sailing vessel is a tall spar, or arrangement of spars, erected more or less vertically on the centre-line of a ship or boat. Its purposes include carrying sails, spars, and derricks, giving necessary height to a navigation light, look-out position, signal yard, control position, radio aerial or signal lamp. Large ships have several masts, with the size and configuration depending on the style of ship. Nearly all sailing masts are guyed.

Scandinavia

Scandinavia

Scandinavia is a subregion in Northern Europe, with strong historical, cultural, and linguistic ties between its constituent peoples. In English usage, Scandinavia most commonly refers to Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. It can sometimes also refer more narrowly to the Scandinavian Peninsula, or more broadly to include all of Finland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands.

Baltic Sea

Baltic Sea

The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.

Norway

Norway

Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic country in Northern Europe, the mainland territory of which comprises the western and northernmost portion of the Scandinavian Peninsula. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of Norway. Bouvet Island, located in the Subantarctic, is a dependency of Norway; it also lays claims to the Antarctic territories of Peter I Island and Queen Maud Land. The capital and largest city in Norway is Oslo.

Sawmill

Sawmill

A sawmill or lumber mill is a facility where logs are cut into lumber. Modern sawmills use a motorized saw to cut logs lengthwise to make long pieces, and crosswise to length depending on standard or custom sizes. The "portable" sawmill is simple to operate. The log lies flat on a steel bed, and the motorized saw cuts the log horizontally along the length of the bed, by the operator manually pushing the saw. The most basic kind of sawmill consists of a chainsaw and a customized jig, with similar horizontal operation.

The importation of timber from the Baltic had two notable defects in the mind of British statesmen. The first was one of economics. The British had a large trade deficit with the entire Baltic region. Great Britain required a large number of essential resources from the Baltic, but did not have enough goods to export to the Baltic to make up for these purchases. Thus the shortfall had to be made up in bullion exports. This imbalance caused great displeasure among the mercantilist economists of the day. Further compounding the problem was that unlike other areas where the British had a trade deficit, such as India, the Baltic trade could not be justified on the grounds that Great Britain gained in the end from re-export to the continent, Baltic goods were overwhelmingly used in Britain. Most during the later half of the seventeenth century regarded the Baltic trade as a regrettable, but necessary expenditure for the defence of the land. Some consolation was, however, provided to the mercantilists by the employment of the timber in the merchant fleet that would later assist in bringing bullion into the land. Also of concern was the foreign domination of the Baltic timber trade. This problem was only partially solved by the inclusion of timber in the Navigation Acts of 1651 and 1660. While the acts successfully excluded the Dutch from Britain's trade with the Baltic, it still allowed the Baltic countries the right to import their own timber. It was mostly the Danes, Swedes, and Germans who replaced the Dutch in this trade as British merchants did not see it as profitable enough. This was because the Baltic trade was a difficult one to profit from as one load of British manufactured goods could buy seventy loads of timber, most ships entering the Baltic were thus empty, a great inefficiency. Most British merchants could employ their ships in more profitable colonial and manufactured goods trades, an option that the Baltic merchants did not have.

These commercial problems of Baltic timber imports were compounded by a military and strategic problem. The dependency on Baltic timber was paramount in the minds of British statesmen in the late seventeenth century mostly because of the strategic dangers. There were no trades as militarily important as the Baltic lumber trade, but there were also few more fragile. Besides the trade coming from Norway, the timber ships had to come through the Sound – the narrow straits separating Denmark from Sweden- a passage easily blocked by enemy navies, especially the Dutch who were geographically well placed to impede trade through the North Sea, as could, to a lesser extent, the French. Also threatening was the rise of Sweden who by 1690 was at the height of its brief period of being a global power. Sweden also was a strong trade protectionist and had imposed high duties of British imports. Sweden's empire was also expanding having seized Livonia as well as Pomerania, both important sources of timber. Thus beginning with the Anglo-Dutch wars of the later seventeenth century British statesmen and merchants began to look for some alternative to these imports.

Despite commercial clamouring for regulation of the Baltic timber trade, Josiah Child, for instance, thought the trade should be limited to only British vessels, no actions were taken until 1704 when British security was threatened. The great threat to Britain's security occurred during the War of the Spanish Succession, what some have termed the first global conflict. Only then did the British parliament attempt to break Britain's dependence upon Baltic timber. The only viable alternative to the Baltic areas was North America, New England especially had vast amounts of suitable timber. The great disadvantages were a lack of infrastructure in the colonies and much higher transport costs to British markets. Beginning in 1704 a number of initiatives were launched to try to encourage the use of colonial timber over that from the Baltic. These encouragements included bounties from North American producers, and rules forbidding the export of colonial timber to anywhere other than England. These efforts were quite unsuccessful, however, and both the navy and the merchant fleets remained dependent upon Baltic timber. Baltic timber still remained about a third the price of timber from North America. After the War of the Spanish succession ended the threat to British timber supplies receded, and despite the continuation of strong mercantilist pressure to increase the protectionism this was not done for the next century.this increased the opportunities for jobs in British North America (B.N.A).

Over the entire eighteenth century Britain's naval supremacy in the North Sea area was never questioned. However, Britain's commercial position remained unfavourable. With only occasional exceptions Britain was still in constant trade deficit with the entire Baltic region. Despite this condition being viewed as harmful by the economists of the day no action of any significance was taken to try to prevent it. While the laws of Queen Anne's era remained in place, these were well known to be totally ineffective in curbing the dependence on the Baltic. During this period more economic disadvantages of the trade also developed. The American colonies still could exported little timber to England, only great masts could justify the cost of the long transatlantic journey. Thus New England, rather than producing timber and naval stores for the motherland was instead building its own ships that were cheaper and often of superior quality to those produced in Britain. This further violated important tenets of mercantilism and the old colonial system which considered manufacturing in the colonies to be counter Britain interests. Parliament, however, failed to be swayed by shipwrights, merchants or colonial timber producers who were hoping for an end to Baltic competition. It would again take pressure from the navy to introduce mercantilist policies.

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Baltic region

Baltic region

The terms Baltic Sea Region, Baltic Rim countries, and the Baltic Sea countries/states refer to slightly different combinations of countries in the general area surrounding the Baltic Sea, mainly in Northern Europe. The term "Baltic states" refers specifically to one such grouping.

Bullion

Bullion

Bullion is non-ferrous metal that has been refined to a high standard of elemental purity. The term is ordinarily applied to bulk metal used in the production of coins and especially to precious metals such as gold and silver. It comes from the Anglo-Norman term for a melting-house where metal was refined, and earlier from French bouillon, "boiling". Although precious metal bullion is no longer used to make coins for general circulation, it continues to be held as an investment with a reputation for stability in periods of economic uncertainty. To assess the purity of gold bullion, the centuries-old technique of fire assay is still employed, together with modern spectroscopic instrumentation, to accurately determine its quality.

India

India

India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area and the second-most populous country. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the south, the Arabian Sea on the southwest, and the Bay of Bengal on the southeast, it shares land borders with Pakistan to the west; China, Nepal, and Bhutan to the north; and Bangladesh and Myanmar to the east. In the Indian Ocean, India is in the vicinity of Sri Lanka and the Maldives; its Andaman and Nicobar Islands share a maritime border with Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia.

Mercantilism

Mercantilism

Mercantilism is an economic policy that is designed to maximize the exports and minimize the imports for an economy. It promotes imperialism, colonialism, tariffs and subsidies on traded goods to achieve that goal.

Navigation Acts

Navigation Acts

The Navigation Acts, or more broadly the Acts of Trade and Navigation, were a long series of English laws that developed, promoted, and regulated English ships, shipping, trade, and commerce between other countries and with its own colonies. The laws also regulated England's fisheries and restricted foreigners' participation in its colonial trade. While based on earlier precedents, they were first enacted in 1651 under the Commonwealth.

Lumber

Lumber

Lumber is wood that has been processed into uniform and useful sizes, including beams and planks or boards. Lumber is mainly used for construction framing, as well as finishing. Lumber has many uses beyond home building. Lumber is sometimes referred to as timber as an archaic term and still in England, while in most parts of the world the term timber refers specifically to unprocessed wood fiber, such as cut logs or standing trees that have yet to be cut.

Denmark

Denmark

Denmark is a Nordic constituent country in Northern Europe. It is the most populous and politically central constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the autonomous territories of the Faroe Islands and Greenland in the North Atlantic Ocean. Metropolitan Denmark is the southernmost of the Scandinavian countries, lying south-west and south of Sweden, south of Norway, and north of Germany, with which it shares a short land border, its only land border.

Sweden

Sweden

Sweden, formally the Kingdom of Sweden, is a Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. It borders Norway to the west and north, Finland to the east, and is connected to Denmark in the southwest by a bridge–tunnel across the Öresund. At 447,425 square kilometres (172,752 sq mi), Sweden is the largest Nordic country, the third-largest country in the European Union, and the fifth-largest country in Europe. The capital and largest city is Stockholm. Sweden has a total population of 10.5 million, and a low population density of 25.5 inhabitants per square kilometre (66/sq mi), with around 87% of Swedes residing in urban areas, which cover 1.5% of the entire land area, in the central and southern half of the country.

North Sea

North Sea

The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Denmark, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and France. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Sea in the north. It is more than 970 kilometres (600 mi) long and 580 kilometres (360 mi) wide, covering 570,000 square kilometres (220,000 sq mi).

Josiah Child

Josiah Child

Sir Josiah Child, 1st Baronet, was an English economist, merchant and politician. He was an economist proponent of mercantilism and governor of the East India Company. He led the company in the Anglo-Mughal War.

New England

New England

New England is a region comprising six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York to the west and by the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick to the northeast and Quebec to the north. The Atlantic Ocean is to the east and southeast, and Long Island Sound is to the southwest. Boston is New England's largest city, as well as the capital of Massachusetts. Greater Boston is the largest metropolitan area, with nearly a third of New England's population; this area includes Worcester, Massachusetts, Manchester, New Hampshire, and Providence, Rhode Island.

Anne, Queen of Great Britain

Anne, Queen of Great Britain

Anne was Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland from 8 March 1702 until 1 May 1707. On 1 May 1707, under the Acts of Union, the kingdoms of England and Scotland united as a single sovereign state known as Great Britain. Anne continued to reign as Queen of Great Britain and Ireland until her death in 1714.

The next attempt to break Britain's dependence on the Baltic once again occurred during a great Europe wide conflict that had significant naval elements. The Napoleonic Wars reopened Britain's fears of the Baltic timber trade being severed. Denmark and the straits, like all of continental Europe, were at the mercy of Napoleon's army and many of the rest of the timber ports within the Baltic were threatened by Napoleon's Continental system. The government thus made a more concerted attempt than ever before to break Britain's dependence upon Baltic timber. Throughout the period commencing in 1795 tariffs on foreign timber imports steadily rose. Eventually in 1807 a 275% levy was placed upon all Baltic timber imports to Britain. This levy succeeded in making Canadian timber more cost effective than that from the Baltic. Canadian timber exports to Britain more than tripled from 27,000 loads in 1807 to 90,000 loads in 1809. The sheer bulk of timber and its many requirements soon led the transatlantic timber trade to become Britain's largest employing a quarter of Britain's merchant tonnage. The previous large Baltic trade almost vanished with European wood being used only for luxury items.

After peace had returned to Britain the timber tariffs did not have long to survive. While at first they were continued, and even strengthened, by 1820 timber became one of the first areas for free trade theory to be applied. In part this was caused by the continued existence of powerful merchants who wanted to see the old Baltic trade restored. The trading interests with the colonies were even stronger, however. The much longer voyage from British North America to Britain meant far more ships and seamen had to be employed. The longer route not only meant more business, but it also was a more profitable route for British merchants, especially since foreigners were still excluded by the Navigation Acts. Military sources, however, disliked Canadian timber. The longer voyage lowered its quality and it was far more susceptible to the dry rot that was one of the navy's more implacable foes. A frigate made of colonial wood tended to have only half the life span of a Baltic ship.

Because of timber's great importance, in 1820 a committee of the House of Lords was formed to review the state of the timber trade. Led by Lord Lansdowne the committee strongly supported the reduction of the duties. This has been viewed as one of the first successes of free trade ideology in Britain. The duties were not eliminated, but they were brought to a level that left Baltic wood competitive with that from Canada. These reductions were a rare example of laissez-faire in an era still almost totally committed to mercantilism. The post-war era also saw a great unwillingness to enforce the duties that were in place. Rampant smuggling of timber into and out of Norway was mostly ignored, as were the illegal exports of bullion to fund the trade. In 1824 the duties were further lowered when Britain began to sign reciprocity treaties with other powers. Out of the first ten bilateral trade treaties signed, seven of them were with Baltic nations covering all the major timber exporters except for Russia. These quick reversals of Baltic trade policy in an era before free trade was paramount can almost certainly be attributed to the navy's unwillingness to become reliant on Canadian timber now that trade with the Baltic had been unquestionably secured.

In seeking the exploit of further timber resources was one of the reasons of the First and the Second Anglo-Burmese War (1824–1826 and 1852, respectively). Burma had to cede Assam, Manipur, Rakhine (Arakan) and Tanintharyi (Tenessarim) and later the remaining coastal provinces: Ayeyarwady, Yangon and Bago. During the following years timber was harvested introducing new techniques. The British cut the bark off the trees and left them to dry before felling them roughly four years later with the use of elephants. Dry wood was easier to fell and floated in water and therefore the river Irrawady was used for transporting the wood to the saw mills near Rangoon.

Other sources were the wood from Australia which included Jarrah and Karri wood. Some streets in London are still paved with Karri wood from the southern parts of Western Australia. But Jarrah wood is more resistant to water and therefore more valuable than Karri in the constructions of ships.

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Napoleonic Wars

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of conflicts fought between the First French Empire under Napoleon (1804–1815), and a fluctuating array of European coalitions. The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and from the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802), and produced a period of French domination of Continental Europe. There were seven Napoleonic Wars, five named after the coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres: (i) the War of the Third Coalition (1803–1806), (ii) the War of the Fourth Coalition (1806–1807), (iii) the War of the Fifth Coalition (1809), (iv) the War of the Sixth Coalition (1813–1814), (v) the War of the Seventh Coalition (1815), (vi) the Peninsular War (1807–1814), and (vii) the French invasion of Russia (1812).

British North America

British North America

British North America comprised the colonial territories of the British Empire in North America from 1783 onwards. English colonisation of North America began in the 16th century in Newfoundland, then further south at Roanoke and Jamestown, Virginia, and more substantially with the founding of the Thirteen Colonies along the Atlantic coast of North America.

Navigation Acts

Navigation Acts

The Navigation Acts, or more broadly the Acts of Trade and Navigation, were a long series of English laws that developed, promoted, and regulated English ships, shipping, trade, and commerce between other countries and with its own colonies. The laws also regulated England's fisheries and restricted foreigners' participation in its colonial trade. While based on earlier precedents, they were first enacted in 1651 under the Commonwealth.

Dry rot

Dry rot

Dry rot is wood decay caused by one of several species of fungi that digest parts of the wood which give the wood strength and stiffness. It was previously used to describe any decay of cured wood in ships and buildings by a fungus which resulted in a darkly colored deteriorated and cracked condition.

Marquess of Lansdowne

Marquess of Lansdowne

Marquess of Lansdowne is a title in the Peerage of Great Britain created in 1784, and held by the head of the Petty-Fitzmaurice family. The first Marquess served as Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Second Anglo-Burmese War

Second Anglo-Burmese War

The Second Anglo-Burmese War or the Second Burma War was the second of the three wars fought between the Burmese Empire and British Empire during the 19th century. The war resulted in a British victory with more Burmese territory being annexed to the Company Raj.