British Timber Trade - Trade Restrictions

Trade Restrictions

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 then Karri in the constructions of ships.