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1 Comparing Early Trade Statistics: the Case of Austrian Netherlands And Comparing early trade statistics: The case of Austrian Netherlands and France from 1759 to 1791 Loïc Charles, University of Reims / EconomiX Ann Coenen, University of Antwerp Guillaume Daudin, Lille-I (EQUIPPE) / Sciences Po (OFCE) (This version is unfinished. French and Belgian data are given, but no analysis is conducted yet of their differences) 150 words abstract This paper compares foreign trade data from France and the Austrian Netherlands during the second part of eighteenth-century. The datasets we use were produced by the French and the Austrian Netherlands’s bureaus of balance of trade. First, we want to determine the robustness of both theses sources and their usefulness for the contemporary researcher. Second, we use these data to provide a better understanding of the evolution of the relative positions of France and the Austrian Netherlands’s economies in the international division of labour and their level of economic developments through the second part of the eighteenth century. The first part compares the administrative context in which both set of data were produced. The second part contrasts their construction, and pays particular attention to their trade nomenclatures. The third part studies whether they give comparable pictures of the evolution of the trade of the Austrian Netherlands. The eighteenth century witnessed the rise of rational policy making in Europe. Trade policy became an important topic for governments wanting to make room or get a decisive edge for their country against political and economic competitors. Accordingly, these governments made significant efforts to gather economic information in particular on their external trade, which was considered as the most strategic economic area. In doing so, they hoped to be able to get a sufficient clear view on the pros and cons of the economy they were managing, to device more efficient regulations and policies. By the end of the eighteenth century most of European states did have some sort statistical office that measured the flows coming and going out of the state. Surprisingly, at the exclusion of English trade statistics these data have been only rarely investigated to account for the evolution of European economies in the second part of the eighteenth century. In this paper, we want to use two set of such external trade statistics to discuss the relative evolution of Austrian Netherlands (the area called Belgium after 1830) and France. The data we use were produced by two public agencies: the French and the Austrian Netherlands’s bureaus of balance of trade. The first aim of the paper is methodological. We want to determine the robustness of both theses sources and their usefulness for the contemporary researcher looking for comparative historical analysis. Here the existence of two sets of data is of special relevance. First it should enable us to control the economic trend provided by one set of data by looking at the other set. The second aim is to use them to give a satisfying sketch of the evolution of the relative positions of France and the Austrian Netherlands’s economies in the international division of labour and their level of economic developments through the second part of the eighteenth century. More specifically, we want to discuss whether the possibility of an early industrial take-off in the Austrian Netherlands in the second 1 part of the eighteenth-century and the part that French colonial trade might have had in spurring Flanders’s industries. Of special relevance is the fact that while Austrian Netherland data do not figure systematically the origins and destination of goods traded whereas the French statistics provide this information. The first part compares the administrative context in which both set of data were produced. The second part contrasts their construction, and pays particular attention to their trade nomenclatures. The third part studies whether they give comparable pictures of the evolution of the trade of the Austrian Netherlands. The customs administration in eighteenth-century France and the Austrian Netherlands The customs data were produced by two public agencies: the French and the Austrian Netherlands’s bureaus of trade. Both bureaus of trade are well-documented examples of the interest of national administrations for foreign trade statistics.1 The French royal state had been interested in measuring the trade balance since the middle of the seventeenth century. Still, it was only during the preparation of the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, that the cost of the absence of knowledge on French external trade became obvious to French negotiators and that the relevant administration was created. The Habsburg government of the Netherlands only started to show interest after 1748, when they had finally gained enough political independence from the neighbouring powers to introduce their own cautious but efficient customs policy. In France an administrative entity produced nearly complete data on bilateral French trade from 1713 to 1791. The sources confirm the chronology observed by past historians. A break occurred between the first Bureau of the balance of trade, which was terminated in 1783 when its director Pierre Bruyard was dismissed, and the second Bureau, which was nominally terminated on September, 27th 1791 by a décret of the Assemblée Nationale. The bureau actually continued its work in 1792. The transformation of the Bureau in 1783 had little relation with the quality of Bruyard’s work, which was quite satisfactory considering its very limited budget. The transformation was actually linked to a thorough reorganisation of the finance administration. Necker started this and his successors, hesitantly, continued. The second Bureau of the balance of trade had a much larger budget and a much larger area of expertise than the first one. The task of the first Bureau was mainly the redaction of an annual statistical table including bilateral imports and exports. The second Bureau was trusted with much larger responsibilities requiring economic expertise. While it was still in charge of the annual table, it was also asked to produce detailed reports on specific aspects of the external trade of France, and other economic topics such as the tax system. In the Austrian Netherlands, the idea for the customs statistics was first envisaged by the general treasurer, Patrice de Nény. From 1759 to 1791 the data were collected by the bureau de la régie des droits d’entrée et de sortie. The first secretary of the bureau de la régie – and thus the first to be responsible for the new customs management – was Benoît Dupuy. When Dupuy started to collect data for a general trade record a few years before 1759 he was strongly supported by the minister 1 Herman Coppens, 'Bureau voor het beheer van de douanerechten (1737-1794)', in: Erik Aerts (ed.), De centrale overheidsinstellingen van de Habsburgse Nederlanden (1482-1795) (Brussel 1995) 523- 530; Loïc Charles en Guillaume Daudin, 'Le bureau de la balance du commerce au XVIIIe siècle', Revue d'Histoire moderne et contemporaine (accepted for publication). 2 plenipotentiary Karl von Cobenzl because the customs administration was seen as the cornerstone of a mercantilist economic policy. As a part of this wider commercial policy, the Habsburg government welcomed the compilation of a rélévé général (general inventory) of all the merchandise that crossed the border: imports, exports and transit. However, already in 1757, before a first inventory could be completed, Dupuy fell out of grace and was succeeded by Ferdinand Paradis and later on Henri Delplancq. Especially during Delplancq’s leadership the bureau reached its full potential.2 Like the second Bureau in France, the tasks of the bureau de la régie became larger and larger through time. Delplancq developed an interest in all aspects of trade and fiscal policies. Nonetheless, the Habsburg bureau de la régie never got as far as the second Bureau in transforming into a more general statistical agency. Its focus remained mainly on the refinement of customs policy as a means to boost the domestic industries. “Objet général” and “rélévé general” The main French source this paper examines is named the Objet général du commerce de la France. The main source from the Austrian Netherlands is named Relevés généraux des Marchandises, Manufactures et Denrées entrées et sorties par les XXI departemens des Pays-bas Autrichiens.3 The Objet général contains a list of goods imported and exported from between fifteen and twenty-two different geographical entities. It always includes the value of the goods. For some years, it also includes their volumes and, implicitly, their price. On the other hand, the relevé général never includes neither price data (only volumes) nor the origins and destinations of the trade flows. It does however contain abundant data on imports, exports and transit of over a 1000 goods ranging from books, gold and butter to charcoal and grains. It includes the yearly trade totals for each of these products as well as separate data for each of the 21 departments of the Southern Low Countries. It goes without arguing that administrative sources like these need to be handled with the utmost circumspection. We need to be aware of negligence, under- registration, contraband and fraud. For the Southern Netherlands, these weaknesses and others have been recorded by Cécile Douxchamps-Lefèvre and Jules Mees.4 Their main concerns are the following: the heterogeneity of units of measure makes it impossible to compose a unified trade balance, fraud was omnipresent, the values are highly minimal and goods that were free of duties (such as diamonds) were not recorded. These authors are undeniably right that we have to be careful not to compare the statistics with modern customs documents: before 1770 the staff in the regional offices of the departments was not even required to be able to read and write.5 Therefore we need to regard the data from the relevé général as an indication for trade volumes and trends, not as a factual record of the past.
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