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viii. commerce.
silk trade up to Narva and Riga, which attempts, however, stranded, owing to
insurmountable difficulties.
Charles XII, too, attached much importance to trade, but during the
constant wars all trades were rained.
During the so-called "Period of Liberty", the Government and the Estates
devoted much attention to material development. The mercantile theories of
the day were stringently applied. In order to protect home shipping, the
so-called "Products Proclamation", an imitation of the English Navigation Acts,
was promulgated in 1724, by which every foreign nation was forbidden to
import into Sweden any products other than its own. Moreover, increased
customs and other import prohibitions were established.
During the period 1731—40, Swedish trade already began to experience
considerable expansion. From this time England replaces Holland as the greatest
purchaser of the products of Sweden. Large, privileged companies still
continued to be formed for more far-reaching and .risky enterprises. The most
important of these was the East India Company, which lived more than eighty
years (1731—1813) and maintained a regular and profitable commercial
connection between Sweden and the Far East.
The clogging fetters and the arbitrary privilegies, under cover of which many
abuses were introduced, led to many inconveniences, however, and after the
great crisis towards the end of the decade 1761—70 more liberal ideas began
to prevail. Through Gustavus Ill’s reform of the currency and the armed
neutrality during the American War of Independence, our foreign trade entered
upon a period of prosperity, and it is probable that our shipping has never
been more profitable than during that period. Failures of the harvest and the
Russian war of 1788—90, however, gave our trade a great set-back. Then,
in the beginning of the reign of Gustavus IV Adolphus, favourable trade
conditions followed, owing to the neutrality which Sweden observed during the great
Napoleonic wars, but soon the country was visited by fresh crop-failures, trade
dwindled on account of the insecurity of the seas, and finally the war with
Napoleon paralyzed our foreign commerce and shipping, in spite of . the fact
that the profitable smuggling trade with England (who sent her goods here to
be forwarded to the continent) produced temporary profit; Gothenburg in
particular enjoyed a brief period of splendid prosperity.
During the unbroken peace that Sweden has enjoyed since 1814, our foreign
trade has made great general progress. Even during the reign of Charles XIV
it expanded noticeably, particularly through the regulation of the finances and
the more extended freedom of commerce and trade which slowly worked its
way through. More thorough still were the reforms in commercial legislation
carried out in the reign of Oscar I. By means of new commercial treaties and
more especially by the annulment of the Öresund Customs, concerning which an
agreement was made with Denmark in 1857, Swedish foreign trade was advanced.
That the progress of the communication system, as well as the increased capacity
of production and consumption, was also a powerful lever is a matter of course.
Through the commercial and YYicivitnTie treaty with France of 1865, Sweden
accepted the free-trade system to a wider extent than before. In 1888 and 1892,
the raising of many old customs and introduction of new ones marked a return
to the old system. Subsequently the customs have been further revised in the
direction of prohibition by resolutions of the Riksdags of 1910 and 1911. (An
idea of the extent to which the new customs tariff differs from the old may
be gained from the figures in the articles Customs and Commercial Policy.)
At present, however, the commerce of Sweden can be considered to be
of considerable importance in comparison with the size of the population..
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