RISE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 230, 28 September 1935, Page 6 (Supplement)

RISE OF CHARTERED COMPANIES.

Evolution of the British Empire.

WORLD'S GREAT COMMONWEALTH FACTORS.

(By BASIL FULLER, author <jf "Little-known Places of Empire,"

and member of the Canadian Geo graphical Society.)

(No. I.)

TO trace the growth of the British Empire to its early origins iu trading communities is not the least fascinating of tho many bypaths of history. It is often not realised that accident has been the evolution of the Empire as we know it to-day. Trade is to most people a very prosaic subject and the last source to which one would normally look for stories of romance. Yet the lapse of time has invested the story of trade origins with a kind of glamour none the less brilliant because the motive had in it more of the desire for gain than glory. Tlio aspirations of the old pioneers and adventurers, like all human motives, "were mixed love of adventure, the curiosity which led tlio explorers in crazy ships to tlio uttermost parts of the earth, the joy of discovering new lands, tho search for political and religious freedom, and all played their part in that great drama of litstory which has made the Empire of to-day. These were not the only motives. Human nature being what it is, the hope of some material reward played a large part in tho early story of adventure. All the wars for sovereignty of national expansion resolve themselves very largely into questions of land or loot. In the last analysis gold was the magnet that drew the old explorers over the seas. The connection between trade' and Empire is perhaps more remote, but not very far removed after all. It has happened more than once that settlements have been established in foreign lands purely for trading purposes. As these communities have grown in power and influence they have assumed sovereign rights. When the task has become too big for them the Government has intervened and assumed the control of the lands where trade has first planted the flag.. Only Survivor To-day. The exploits of individual explorers and adventurers is largely in tlio ordinary teaching of history. Tho work of the early trading companies is perhaps not so well recognised. Most of them played their part on the stage and vanished from sight. This work was completed, or at any rate their functions were absorbed, in some larger unity. Of the early companies the famous Hudson's Bay Company is the only one surviving to-day. • Others of even bigger fame, such as the East India Company— the Old John Company, as it was familiarly known —lost its identity as a company within living memory.

The student of history from the economic side is often impressed with the comparative modernity of all the movements which have made the world what we. find it to-day. The whole story of modern trade development is compressed within a period of less than 400 years. It is a period of experiment, of trial and error; out of it has evolved the present system of commerce and industry. It has been marked by rhythm of rise and fall, expansion and stagnation.

Trade and industry very largely stagnated through tho Middle Ages in Canada. The reign of Elizabeth saw a great expansion in commercial as in other forms of enterprise. It was as if seeds long dormant had suddenly burst forth into leaf and flower. This period gave birth to the beginnings of the regulated companies,i which later developed into the chartered companies and ultimately into the existing joint stock system. There is, indeed, a mention of a Company of Merchant Adventurers as early as 1339, but the movement did not attain its full growth until more than a century later. The Merchant Adventurers. The old trade guilds had passed their prime. It was impossible to maintain the monopoly at which they aimed. The London guilds were powerful enough to protect their privileges. English merchants began to look further afield than France, Belgium or the Baltic for their trade. New associations of merchants were formed called :regulated companies. They held a royal charter giving them exclusive privileges of trade with certain countries abroad. The merchants traded independently of .in partnerships wltli tho others limited to an individual yoyage. Each company had its own court, which regulated the trude and maintained the standard of the goods exported and the conduct of the members. The company had its factories and branches in the more important towns of the districts where it traded, where its agents or factors lived, and where the merchants stayed on their visits. Trading voyages were frequent and the good profits made'encouraged further ventures. Visions of new El Dorados arose before the eyes of the turers. Voyages were made from Plymoutfi to Guinea and to Brazil; Bristol merchants began to trade with Sicily, Cyprus and Syria. An expedition of Sir Hugh "VVilloughby to the northern seas to find a passage to China and the East set out with all the enthusiasm of a public celebration. The leader and crews of "two of the three ships were frozen in the ice of Lapland, but the third managed to penetrate to the White Sea. After a sledge journey to Moscow, the captain had an audience of the Czar, and received trading privileges which led to tho formation of the English Russian Company. Foundations of Indian Empire. The Eastland .Merchants traded to the Baltic. Many similar enterprises were set on foot. Trade was inspired with an animation never before felt. The merchant adventurers sent their ships to distant parts hitherto never dreamed of as within their range. 'i lie East Indian Company had to struggle against the competition of the Dutch East India Company, and against privileges of trading granted to a rival English company by James I. in direct contravention of its character. It had to defend its ships and stations in the wars with French, Dutch and Portuguese, but it won through and laid the foundations of the Indian Empire. All through the history of the regulated company runs the thread of opposition to the form of monopoly they »-»».iresentcd, outside traders—they 1 were k. f

called interlopers—put up a strong fight anil often undersold the companies by exporting cheaper and inferior goods to the districts they covered. The movement gradually developed in favour of freedom of trade and against all restrictions. The regulated companies gradually gave way to the newer principle of joint enterprise, and vanished during the wars of the eighteenth century. The once famous Levant Company, formed in 1005 was one of the most famous of its day but lias passed into oblivion. The market was in Constantinople and other parts of the East formerly monopolised by the Venetians. It exported broad cloths and tin, and imported great quantities of silks and Oriental produce from Turkey. Early Success and Failure. Sir Walter Raleigh had made an attempt to extend the Empire in Virginia, but without success. A charter was granted and the Plymouth Company too founded settlements in Virginia and New England for purposes of colonisation. Nine thousand people emigrated to Virginia in 1007 and large numbers later to New Zealand, but it was not until the coming of the Pilgrim Fathers that any success attended the new American colonies. The rise of these colonies was due more to private enterprise than Government encouragement. They provided a useful revenue for the Crown, and were regarded solely in this light. How they were lost to this country belongs to another page of history. Only the stress of events prevented the Virginia companies from playing their part in Empire building. The Massachusetts Company shared the fate of the Virginia companies.

Better fortune attended the Hudson's Bay Company, founded by Prince Rupert and others in 1080. It became owner of some three million square miles of land, and for many years made profits up to 50 per cent. As a profit making undertaking tho company became only second to the East India Company, and is. in fact the only one of the early chartered companies to reach the present day. The story of the Hudson's 15ay Company is very much that of the history of Canada.

Our colonies and Dominion in Africa owe much of their origin to the enterprise of the early trader. In Queen Elizabeth's day merchants began to trade with Senegal and Gambia, also Sierra Leone and Gold Coast. Further chartei's Avere given to London merchants by James I. to trade with Guinea, and another for trade between Cape Blanco and the Cape of Good Hope. The ißoyal African Company was founded in 1672 and the African Company of Merchants nearly 100 years later. This company depended largely on the traffic in slaves and came to an end when this trade was abolished. The Old Era Passes. The era of the old chartered companies with all the great work they did in Empire building was already passing at the end of the seventeenth century. It gave way completely before the rage for joint stock company formation which coincided with the foundation of the Bank of England and the Stock Exchange.

Two of the ambitious trading schemes of the time were closely concerned .with the projects of Empire. One was the Darien scheme promoted by Peterson, the founder of the Bank of England to establish a Scottish colony on the Isthmus of Darien. The other was the famous South Sea Company, formed with the ambitious motives of monopolising the trade of all the countries of the South Seas, with exclusive rights to work gold mines, fisheries and carry on the slave trade. The repayment of the national debt out of the profits on the company's gold and silver mining operations in South America were only part of its plan. The final collapse of the company and with it hundreds of other "bubble" concerns put an end to the first of the great peculative booms. ,

The present chartered company of Rhodesia, "the British South African Company, belongs to a more modern era. Its charter was granted in 1889 to colonise and develop territories south of the Zambesi. Eventually it administered the. whole of Southern and North-eastern Rhodesia, but conditions had changed from the days when a great company could hold sovereign rights. In 1923 the company gave up its administrative powers and since then has operated as a land and mining company and virtually the owner of the railways. It affords another outstanding example of the part played by trade in Empire building.