The Myth of Free-Trade Britain
自由贸易英国的神话
In the two and a half centuries since Adam Smith first articulated the basic case for free trade, no event has been more significant than the British conversion to open markets in the nineteenth century. In the fable that is now conventional wisdom, nineteenth century Britain turned its back on protection and chose to open its markets to the world.
在亚当·斯密首次清晰阐述了自由贸易基本原理后的两个半世纪里，没有比十九世纪英国转为开放市场更为重要的事件了。在如今已成传统智慧的寓言里，十九世纪的英国放弃了市场保护政策，转而选择向世界开放其市场。
A reform-minded British leadership, preaching the new gospel of free trade pushed their European confreres to open up their own markets, eventually ushering in an age of expansive commerce the likes of which the world had never seen—a precursor of late twentieth century globalization that was in many ways more open than anything before or since.
富有改革思想的英国领导人鼓吹自由贸易的新福音，推动了欧洲同仁们开放市场，最终开启了全世界前所未见的商业扩张时代——这是二十世纪晚期全球化的发端，许多方面比此前此后任何时期都要更加开放。
Yet this story has one big flaw: it’s inconsistent with the facts.
然而这个故事有个巨大的缺陷：与事实不符。
As the story is usually told, British free trade came in the 1840s after a bitter political struggle to repeal the Corn Laws—a name given to a series of agricultural tariffs and quotas designed to keep farm prices high. This was quickly followed by rapid and dramatic reductions in duties on hundreds of imports. By the 1850s, all but a handful of commodities were admitted to Britain free of all duties.
这故事常说，在寻求废除《谷物法》——一系列旨在维持农产品高价的农业关税和配额政策的总称——的艰苦政治斗争后，英国的自由贸易在1840年代来临了。紧接着便是几百种进口物关税的迅速急剧减少。到1850年代，除少数例外，几乎所有商品都获准完全免税进入英国。
Sounds good, until you look closely at what products remained subject to high duties: those handful of items were the most contentious and some of the most highly taxed items that historically had been at the core of the mercantile debate in British history. In previous centuries they formed a large and significant fraction of British trade.
这听起来很好，但待你看清关税仍然高启的产品到底是什么之后，就不会这么想了：那少数商品是英国历史上最具争议的，而且属于赋税负担最高的商品之列，它们一直都处于商业争论的核心。在那之前的几个世纪里，这些商品构成了英国贸易的重要部分。
Free trade should mean just that: free trade, with all goods admitted without duties, quotas, or restrictions. That was not British policy. They removed most tariffs but mostly on items in which they had a comparative advantage. In other words, they mostly removed tariffs on items for which Britain had little to fear in terms of competition or which were of trivial importance in overall trade.
自由贸易的内涵应该是：所有商品无关税、无限额、无限制的自由贸易。这可不是英国的政策。他们取消了大部分关税，但大部分都在他们有比较优势的产品上。换句话说，英国人主要取消了他们不惧任何竞争的产品的关税，或者在整体贸易中无足轻重的产品的关税。
Britain in the early 1800s had just passed through the Industrial Revolution and was the world’s leading producer of cotton textiles and other industrial products. It took little courage to lower tariffs on British manufactures. It would be like Japan promoting free trade in the 1980s by arguing for lower tariffs on compact cars imported from America. Since Japan already made some of the world’s best and most economical small cars, such a policy would have had very limited economic impact. Japan’s lowering trade barriers in agriculture would have been substantially more important and would have run up against enormous political resistance.
十九世纪早期的英国刚经历工业革命，是棉纺织品和其他工业产品的世界领先生产者。降低英国制造品的关税并不需要多大勇气。这就像1980年代的日本，通过主张降低从美国进口的紧凑型汽车的关税来促进自由贸易。因为日本已经制造出世界上最好、最经济的小型汽车，这样的政策对经济的冲击非常有限。如果日本降低农业方面的贸易壁垒，其重要性会大大加强，也会遇到极大的政治阻力。
Nineteenth-century Britain had no comparative advantage in agricultural and foodstuffs. That is why the Corn Laws were initially so controversial. Consumers had a lot to gain from the state’s permitting the import of grain, because the British were not the cheapest producers of grain, while British farmers had much to lose. Unfortunately, the British did little to modify the tariffs on other contentious items, goods which had made for the commercial equivalent of war. Of these goods, the most important and the most troublesome was wine.
十九世纪的英国在农业和食品上没有比较优势。这就是为何《谷物法》从一开始就备受争议。英国的消费者能从国家允许进口粮食中受益良多，因为英国人生产的粮食并不是最便宜的，而同时，英国农民则损失惨重。遗憾的是，英国人对其他有争议商品的关税少有改动，这些商品曾导致商战。在这些商品中，最重要且最棘手的就是葡萄酒。
But how important is wine? To answer that we need to go back to the 1600s. Britain in the mid-seventeenth century was a prodigious importer of wine, mostly French.
但是葡萄酒有多重要呢？回答这个问题我们要追溯到十七世纪。十七世纪中期的英国是葡萄酒的重要进口国，主要是法国葡萄酒。
So much so, in fact, that her trade balance was in the red, mostly because of trade with France and mostly because of French wine, spirits and a number of luxury goods. Attempts to limit these imports by restricting trade had mostly failed. Tariffs were levied but never so high as to reduce the imports drastically. But then came the wars.
如此这般，事实上，英国的贸易收支是呈赤字的，主要是源于跟法国的贸易，也就是法国葡萄酒、烈酒和诸多奢侈品导致的。通过限制贸易来减少这些商品进口的企图都失败了。关税一直在征收，但是从未高到能明显减少进口的程度。但是接着战争开始了。
Two major conflicts spanning a quarter century kept French wine—indeed, all French imports—out of the British market from 1689 to 1713. The Nine Years’ War and the War of Spanish Succession led to hostilities between Britain and France and a complete breakdown in trade for this quarter century.
绵延1/4世纪的两场大型冲突让法国葡萄酒——实际上，所有的法国进口产品——在1689年到1713年间退出了英国市场。九年战争和西班牙王位继承战争导致了英法之间的敌对和长达1/4世纪的彻底贸易中断。
During this grape-challenged period, three interest groups derived enormous benefit from the embargo on France—the British brewing industry, British distillers (gin, etc.) and British interests in foreign producers of alcohol—most notably the shippers of Portuguese wine. Prior to the late 1600s, the British drank plenty of wine, mostly French, a little Spanish, but virtually nothing from Portugal. The wars of 1689-1713 gave the Portuguese allies the opportunity of ten lifetimes.
在这葡萄酒缺乏的时期，三个利益集团从对法禁运中获得巨额利益——英国发酵酒工业、英国蒸馏酒商（杜松子酒等）、外国酒商中的英国利益集团——最明显的就是葡萄牙葡萄酒的运货商。在十七世纪晚期之前，英国人饮葡萄酒颇多，大部分是法国进口的，加上一点西班牙进口的，但是几乎没有葡萄牙进口的。1689-1713年的战争让葡萄牙盟友获得了千载难逢的良机。
Beginning in 1703 a treaty was signed granting Portugal access to British markets for their wines—generally of a much lower quality than those of France, and often needing to be fortified with brandy or spirits in order to keep from going bad. The Methuen Treaty (as it was known) promised that Portuguese tariffs would always be at least a third lower than those of other nations, most especially France.
从1703年开始，一个允许葡萄牙人的葡萄酒进入英国市场的条约就签订了——这些葡萄酒质量普遍不及法国葡萄酒，并且经常需要添加白兰地或者烈酒来防止其变质。这个被称为《梅图恩条约》的协定，承诺葡萄牙人的关税会一直比其他国家低至少1/3，尤其是法国。
Of course, most of the Portuguese wine trade was dominated by British ships, merchants, and even vintners working in Iberia. The end of hostilities between Britain and France was seen as a grave threat to all these British interests, and vigorous lobbying by brewers, distillers, and the Anglo-Portuguese merchants stopped attempts to return to the period of open trade with the French. A bill to revive trade on prewar conditions between Britain and France was defeated in Parliament.
当然，大多数葡萄牙葡萄酒贸易都被英国船只、英国商人乃至在伊比利亚半岛的英国酿酒商所控制。英法之间敌对状态的结束被视为是对所有这些英国利益集团的巨大威胁，啤酒商、蒸馏酒商和英葡商人的大力游说阻止了重回英法开放贸易时代的企图。一项旨在恢复英法战前贸易状态的提案在议会被否决。
Even worse, tariffs were raised even higher throughout the eighteenth century. The result was that French exports of wine to Britain in the 1700s fell to less than 5% of the levels (measured by volume) that had prevailed in the 1600s. A twenty-fold decrease! The high taxes kept out all but the finest French products.
更糟的是，整个十八世纪的关税甚至更高了。结果就是十八世纪法国出口到英国的葡萄酒降到不足之前十七世纪水平的5%（以体积计）。减少了二十倍！高关税驱逐了所有法国产品，除了最好的那些。
Indeed, the French were kept out of the British market for most of the period of the Industrial Revolution, when the middle classes emerged and middle class tastes developed. Only the rich had access to the very finest clarets of Bordeaux. Cheap wine was simply not worth importing. And the British brewers, distillers, and merchant shippers never had it better. One historian has remarked that absent war and protection, the Gin Age1 might never have come into existence.
事实上，在工业革命的大多数时期，当中产阶级出现并且中产品味得到发展时，法国产品都是被挡在英国市场之外的。只有富人才能找到最好的波尔多红葡萄酒。便宜的葡萄酒根本不值得进口。英国啤酒商、蒸馏酒商和运货商从未提高这些劣质葡萄酒的品质。一位历史学家曾说，若没有战争和保护政策，杜松子酒时代（脚注1）可能根本就不会出现。
These assorted tariffs on wine and other consumables—which Adam Smith had condemned for their inefficiency in the eighteenth century—remained at the core of British protection in the nineteenth, when trade was supposedly made free. Though claiming to have moved to open markets, the British hung on to tariffs that were of long standing, and that moreover, prevented much progress from being made in bilateral treaty negotiations. France was not about to sign a bilateral commercial treaty if Britain was unwilling to compromise on wine and spirits.
十九世纪，在这个人们认为贸易已变得自由的时期，这一系列对葡萄酒和其他消费品的关税——亚当·斯密在十八世纪就谴责过其低效——仍然是英国保护政策的核心。虽然声称已转变为开放市场，英国人还是坚持长期存在的关税，而且此举还阻止了双边条约谈判的进展。如果英国在葡萄酒和烈酒上不愿意妥协，法国就不会签署双边商务协定。
Figure 1. Average Tariffs in the U.K. and France, 1820–1913
图1.英国和法国的平均关税，1820-1913
[From: A. Imlah, 1958 Economic Elements of the PaxBritannica, New York; and M. Levy-Leboyerand F. Bourguignon, 1985L’Economie Francaise au XIXesiecle,Paris.]
[来源：A. Imlah，1958，“不列颠治世”中的经济元素，纽约；M. Levy-Leboyer和F. Bourguignon，1985，十九世纪的法国经济，巴黎]
Britain preached the gospel of free trade and France was cast in the role of the sinner, but there was little truth in this stereotype. France did have more protected products than England did but the average level of French tariffs (measured as total value of duties divided by total value of imports, cf. Figure 1) was actually lower than in Britain for three-quarters of the nineteenth century.2 In other words, tariffs had a smaller impact on French trade than British duties had on Britain’s trade. Britain preached the gospel of free trade and France was cast in the role of the sinner, but there was little truth in this stereotype. France did have more protected products than England did but the average level of French tariffs (measured as total value of duties divided by total value of imports, cf. Figure 1) was actually lower than in Britain for three-quarters of the nineteenth century.2 In other words, tariffs had a smaller impact on French trade than British duties had on Britain’s trade.
英国是自由贸易新福音的布道者，而法国则被铸为罪人的角色，但是这种刻板偏见里并没有多少事实。法国确实比英格兰有更多的受保护产品，但是法国关税的平均水平（以关税总值除以进口总值衡量，如图1）在十九世纪3/4的时间里实际上比英国要低（脚注2）。换句话说，关税对法国贸易的影响要比英国关税对于英国贸易的影响小。【编注：这一比较方法存在严重问题：它体现不出那些因税率过高乃至无利可图的贸易，或者被非关税壁垒禁止了的贸易，因而无法准确反映贸易自由度，比如在极端情况下，某国以零关税开放一项小规模贸易，同时禁止其他所有贸易，此时该指标为零，但贸易显然极度不自由，所以它必须结合其他指标才有意义。不过，它确实揭示了当时英国的关税率是非常高的。】
The French, while eschewing free trade, and openly rejecting the Anglo doctrine of open markets, actually succeeded in making their trade more liberal and more open than that of the more vocal British. The master of this was Napoleon III—Bonaparte’s nephew—who throughout the 1850s promoted the most radical liberalizing reforms of the French economy, all the while insisting that France was only interested in moderate reform.
法国人虽然避开自由贸易并且公开拒绝英国人的开放市场学说，但是它实际上却成功使其贸易比鼓噪发声的英国人更加自由和开放。这过程的主导是拿破仑三世——波拿巴的侄子——他在整个1850年代都在推动对法国经济最激进的自由化改革，却一直坚称法国只对温和改革有兴趣。
Indeed, it was not British unilateral tariff reduction that moved the world to freer trade. Despite the belief that is still common today that British exhortation opened the doors to European free trade in the late 19th century, it was the 1860 Treaty of Commerce, promoted by the Napoleon III and concluded between Britain and France, that really ushered in the age of nineteenth century “globalization”. British demands for unilateral tariff reduction usually fell on deaf ears.
事实上，并不是英国的单方面关税削减使得世界贸易更加自由。尽管认为十九世纪末英国的呼吁打开了欧洲自由贸易之门的观点现在仍很普遍，但其实是1860年《商贸条约》才真正开启了十九世纪的“全球化”时代，该条约由拿破仑三世推动，在英法之间缔结。英国提出的单方面降低关税要求通常无人理睬。
Doctrinaire free traders and economic theorists opposed the use of commercial treaties since they felt that unilateral reductions were the most efficient policies for all countries. While correct in the abstract, such claims did little to overcome political resistance to trade liberalization in most countries. On the other hand, unwillingness on the part of the British to lower wine tariffs killed early trade negotiations with both France and Spain.
教条主义的自由贸易者和经济理论家反对使用商业条约，因为他们认为单方面降低关税对所有国家来说都是最有效的政策。尽管理论上是正确的，但这种主张在大多数国家却很少能克服政治阻力，实现贸易自由。另一方面，部分英国人不情愿降低葡萄酒关税的态度已经早早地扼杀了该国与法国及西班牙的贸易协商。
When the British finally decided to moderate their wine tariffs, Britain and France successfully concluded a treaty in 1860 which dramatically changed the landscape of European commerce. Politicians throughout Europe—who had till then resisted all pressure to liberalize trade—suddenly became fearful of being left out of a trade pact that united the two great European powers. The result was that the other major European powers quickly signed bilateral treaties with Britain and France as well.
当英国最终决定将葡萄酒关税调整到适度水平时，英法才在1860年成功缔结了条约，这极大地改变了欧洲商业的形势。全欧洲的政治人物——不久前还抗拒贸易自由化的压力——突然开始担心被遗落在连接欧洲两大势力的贸易协定之外。结果就是，其他欧洲大国也迅速地与英法签署了双边条约。
Since these treaties were all Most Favored Nation treaties—whereby concessions to one party meant extending such concessions to all the others—not just France and Britain, but by 1870 nearly all of Europe including the German states, Spain, Russia, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and so on were integrated into a highly open trading market.
由于这些条约都是最惠国待遇条约——给予一方特权就意味着要给所有相关方特权——所以不仅法国和英国，到1870年几乎全欧洲，包括日耳曼各邦、西班牙、俄罗斯、荷兰、丹麦和瑞典等，都被整合进了一个高度开放的贸易市场里。
In many ways, Europe was freer than today, partly because the gold standard made capital extremely mobile, and because limitations in border control made immigration and the free movement of labor easy in practice despite differing rules across the continent.
在很多方面，那时欧洲都比现在更加自由，部分原因是金本位让资本极具流动性，还有边境控制有限使得移民和劳工的自由活动实际上比较容易，尽管欧洲大陆有各种不同的规定。
What politicians do and say are often quite different. That hasn’t changed. Indeed, though there is much talk about globalization and unfettered trade, there is no country in existence today whose policies come anywhere near the ideal of free trade.
政治人物的言行往往不相一致。这一点从未改变。确实，虽然现在有很多关于全球化和自由贸易的讨论，今天还没有哪个国家的政策在任何方面能接近自由贸易的理想状态。
Goods and services do flow vigorously throughout the globe, but most countries suffer from a mix of import duties and non-tariff barriers such as quotas, unnecessary inspection rules and a bewildering variety of regulations that make it impossible for any of us to benefit fully from the specialization possible in a truly open world economy.
虽然产品和服务在全球频繁流通，但是大多数国家都承受一系列的进口关税和非关税壁垒，比如配额、不必要的检查规则和诸多令人困惑的条例，这些让我们所有人都不可能从真正开放的世界经济可能带来的专业化中充分受益。
But more importantly, the example of Britain and France in the 1800s challenges us to rethink and reanalyze the relationship between trade policy and growth. The story of Britain and France shows how easy it is to be misled by the fables of conventional wisdom. The fact that Britain was not as free trade as it claimed doesn’t make the case for protectionism. The British did lower their tariffs, and in the last third of the nineteenth century, Britain did fully liberalize trade and benefited from the change.
但更重要是，十九世纪英国和法国的例子能让我们重新思考和重新分析贸易政策和增长之间的关系。英法的故事说明了我们是多么容易被传统智慧的寓言所误导。英国并不像它所声称的那样贸易自由，但这一事实并不证明贸易保护主义有足够的理由。英国人确实降低了本国的关税，而且在十九世纪最后1/3的时间里完全实现了贸易自由化，并从中受益。
But the interesting and unexamined story is France. Nineteenth-century France doesn’t fit our preconceptions. France was in fact, closer to the free trade ideal than the British for much of the century, and did in fact do well, raising the standard of living of the average worker from the 1850s onward.
但有关法国的有趣故事却经不起检验。十九世纪的法国并不符合我们的偏见。事实上，法国在十九世纪大部分时间都比英国更接近自由贸易的理想境界，而且确实做的不错，从1850年代起提高了普通工人的生活水平。
Footnotes
脚注
1.The Gin Age is often used to describe the early to middle years of the eighteenth century, when the consumption of hard liquor grew substantially, and the consumption of gin, especially among the poor, was seen to be a national problem.
1.“杜松子酒时代”经常被用来描述十八世纪早期到中期的时间，这段时期烈酒的消费量大增，而杜松子酒的消费，尤其是在穷人之中，被认为是全国性的问题。
2.Readers interested in a more technical discussion of the problem of tariff levels in the nineteenth century may consult Nye, 1991, “The Myth of Free Trade Britain and Fortress France,” Journal of Economic History and S. Dakhlia and J.V.C. Nye, “Tax Britannica: Nineteenth Century Tariffs and British National Income,” working paper available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=282114
2.对十九世纪关税水平问题的更多技术细节感兴趣的读者可以查阅Nye于1991年在《经济史杂志》上发表的论文“自由贸易英国和堡垒法国的神话”和S. Dakhlia与 J.V.C. Nye的论文“‘不列颠治税’：十九世纪关税和英国国家收入”，获取论文的网址为http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=282114。
* John Nye is Associate Professor of Economics and History at Washington University in St. Louis. This piece is adapted from a book in progress to be released under the title, War, Wine, and Taxes.
John Nye是华盛顿大学圣路易斯分校的经济学和历史学副教授。这篇文章摘编自《战争，葡萄酒和税收》，该书即将要出版。
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