LSE Economic History undergraduate Lina Gäbel explores the effects of mercantilist trade policy for 18th century Sweden. The Great Northern War ended Sweden’s ‘Era of Great Power’ in 1721. To promote its economic position from its new, weaker vantage point, Sweden passed the Commodity Act in 1724, a trade protection law that limited Swedish shipping to Swedish vessels, to promote the Swedish carrying trade in the Baltic and North seas. How well did the Commodity Act achieve its goals?
Did Swedish shipping increase? Did the shipped tonnage of iron, Sweden’s most important export, rise, or fall? My analysis of maritime toll records shows the number of ships and the total weight of iron shipped per year, and per ship, from Sweden to Britain increased after the Commodity Act in 1724. However, it is not clear if the Act, or Sweden’s abstention from war, or ships with bigger cargoes, explains these increases.
The Danish Crown collected toll payments from ships that passed through the Sound of Elsinore, which connected the Baltic and North seas between Sweden and Denmark. The toll-collectors obtained inventories of the ships, and the ports of departure and destination. From these records we can observe shipping patterns.
With these records I analyse Swedish shipping to Britain from 1674 to 1773. In the 18th century iron was Sweden’s most important export. The quantity of iron exported between 1730 and 1799 averaged more than 43,000 tonnes per year, with Sweden exporting more than half of that average to Great Britain. Trade with Britain mattered to Sweden.
The graph above shows the number of ships transporting iron from Sweden to Britain. The average number of passages only rose slightly following the implementation of the 1724 Commodity Act. The pattern following the implementation of the Act is somewhat more stable, but this might be due to the resolution of the two largest wars of the 18th century, rather than the Act.
This next figure shows the average weight of iron per ship from Sweden to Britain increased moderately overtime, albeit with some variations. One historian argues that, since vessels built in Sweden during the 18th century were built for larger tonnages, increased cargo space preceded an increase in the number of ships in the Swedish fleet. The proportion of these larger ships in the Swedish fleet grew between 1726 and 1776. We may be able to see those larger ships reflected in the average weights of iron per ship: the average increased steadily throughout the eighteenth century, in conjunction with the growing proportion of ships with larger cargoes.
Last, this graph shows the total weight of iron shipped per year from Sweden to Britain. There is no clear overall increasing trend in the total weight of iron shipped per year. However, the greatest total weight in my sample followed the implementation of the Commodity Act. Additionally, the periods of low to no iron trade were considerably shortened after 1724.
So, how well did the Act achieve the aims of its authors? It’s hard to say. War was undoubtedly a determining factor in the fluctuations of iron trade from 1721. The first collapse across the measurements reported here parallels the Nine Years’ War, fought from 1688 to 1697 between several European powers. The second collapse in the 1710s parallels the Great Northern War, during which Britain instituted a trade embargo against Sweden in the 1710s. And the collapse following the implementation of the Act in 1724 coincides with the end of the war of Austrian succession which was fought between 1740 and 1748.
Whether the Act, larger ship cargoes, or abstention from war contributed most to the growth of Swedish trade cannot yet be discerned. But this quantitative investigation of the valuable toll records of Elsinore does confirm that the total, and average, weight of iron per year and per ship increased sustainably following the 1724 Commodity Act.
