The Crescent of the Sultan

In recent months, there have been quite a lot of changes in official positions in the empire.

The original Grand Vizier of the Empire, Yusuf Pasha, had resigned. After Haji Pasha resigned from the position of Governor of Egypt, he immediately went to Constantiniya and became the new Grand Vizier of the Empire.

Isaac Pasha went to Egypt to take over the governorship. As for Kuchuk Pasha, he was sent to Mesopotamia by Emperor Cyprus to prepare for the Great Expedition.

However, the Great Expedition has not yet begun, and Emperor Sai has already started practicing Tai Chi.

In fact, Emperor Sai was not a person who liked Tai Chi, but the British Empire had already put its face on the face of the Ottoman Empire government.

Recently, Dai Ying has notified the Ottoman Empire's ambassador in London.

In this note, Daiying made several requests to the Ottoman Empire.

According to the report sent back by the London ambassador, Dai Ying had three requests.

This is also the main content of Izet Muhammad's report to Emperor Serb today.

“Your Majesty, first of all, it’s about Egyptian cotton.

The British hope that we can export Egyptian cotton. Considering our needs, the British are willing to purchase Indian cotton at a premium of double the price.

At the same time, Britain expressed its willingness to stand with us on the issue of the protection rights of Orthodox Christians in the Empire and jointly attack Tsarist Russia. "

After hearing this request, Emperor Sai almost stopped.

Is William Pitt out of his mind? You must know that after losing the North American colonies, Britain is now in a serious shortage of cotton or raw materials for the textile industry. This is not something that the British mainland can provide. The wool of the British Empire and cotton combined are not enough for the development of the British textile industry.

As for the so-called enclosure movement, it was just a climax of enclosure launched by the British in the countryside during the last thirty years of the fifteenth century and the first decades of the sixteenth century.

At that time, it was mainly caused by the rapid development of the wool textile industry in Flanders and later the UK, which greatly increased the demand for wool and the price of wool continued to rise.

Affected by this, the income from sheep raising was more than double that of agriculture at that time, so the new aristocrats turned farmland into sheep pastures. They used violence, tenant withdrawal and other methods to drive farmers away from the land and use fences, ditches or fences to control the land. Enclosing large tracts of land for pasture, either running it yourself or leasing it to large ranchers, is the so-called enclosure movement.

It first started from the southern countryside that was closely connected to the market. Landowners initially started by enclosing forests, pastures, wasteland, swamps and other public lands, and then expanded to small farmers' rented land.

By the 1630s, the British religious reform and the subsequent confiscation and auction of religious property pushed the enclosure movement to a climax and accelerated the process of depriving farmers of their land.

In the second half of the 16th century, due to the development of industry and commerce, the non-agricultural population continued to increase, and the demand for grain, meat and other agricultural and sideline products in towns and industrial and mining enterprises greatly increased. This stimulated the development of large farms. In order to concentrate their operations, those farmers Drive farmers off the land and enclose large tracts of land as capitalist farms for capitalist management.

The enclosure movement was essentially a revolution in production relations. As a large number of farmers were forcibly deprived of their means of production and livelihood, they were put on the labor market and transformed into wage workers, thus creating a future for the development of capitalist production.

At the same time, the enclosure movement forcibly eliminated the system of peasant land ownership and began to transform feudal land ownership into capitalist land ownership.

The nobility rented most of the enclosed land to agricultural capitalists and levied capitalist land rent. At the end of the 16th century, a class of capitalist farmers emerged in England who specialized in renting land from landlords. At the same time, the small and medium-sized nobility also became bourgeois and became New aristocrats, and later wealthy farmers, urban tycoons, and officials, big and small, were also transformed into new aristocrats.

The new aristocracy expropriated the peasants' land and implemented capitalist management, thus gaining support from the emerging bourgeoisie, who formed an alliance. It is undeniable that he indeed supported the development of the early textile industry in Britain.

However, this could only support the development of the early textile industry in Britain. When Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny in 1765, there was no longer any possibility in the UK to provide enough raw materials to support the development of its textile industry.

But at this time, Dai Ying still had North America, so he was not in a hurry. However, Luo Ying Shen Ax led Diao Min to do a whole job for Dai Ying. Guess what, the Thirteen States, eh, were gone.

The supply of cotton during this period was in a state of sluggishness for Dai Ying. After all, India has not yet completely won the war. How can we talk about large-scale supply of Indian cotton to the local area?

As for the conditions offered by Dai Ying, Emperor Sai was too lazy to pay attention to this stupid condition.

You are still on the side of Emperor Cyprus on the issue of the protection rights of the Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. This is originally an internal affairs issue. It is your turn to lead the British in this case and not support it.

It's true that Dai Ying is awesome, isn't my good brother French Chicken awesome? French Chicken won't support it, right? What the hell, this can also be used to make conditions, Dai Ying is really not a good person.

If William Pitt said he was willing to send troops to help during the Russo-Turkish war, the navy would send the Ottomans into the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea to block the Russians, or directly kill the Russian fleet. The lobster soldiers were directly put on the battlefield to deal with the Russian army, and that was nothing else. Emperor Sai did not say anything and just followed along. The export of Egyptian cotton was not a problem.

What comes up is that you are willing to side with Emperor Cyprus on the issue of the protection rights of Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Why are you feeding this grown man a lollipop?

This is not the Ottoman Empire in the mid-19th century, nor is it the India you brought with the British. You still dare to interfere in internal affairs. I really think this is a semi-colony, right?

The Sultan did not speak, but motioned for Izet-Muhammad to continue.

He wanted to know if the British really felt that they didn't understand, or if this was a test by the British.

It has been some time since the last meeting, and it is difficult to guarantee whether the British have learned some information and came to test the empire.

This was what Emperor Cyprus was most worried about. With an overly powerful Ottoman Empire and a weak Persia, it was difficult for Daiying to worry that the Ottoman Empire would threaten India.

"Your Majesty, the next is the second request from the British. They are willing to provide the empire with manufacturing technologies such as steam engines and textile machines, and are willing to send experienced workers and engineers to guide the work. They hope to exchange this for the empire. Lower tariffs.”

"Tariffs?" Emperor Sai remembered that he had ordered the other party to adjust the tariff rates of the Ottoman Empire.

the Sultan then asked.

“What is the current tariff rate?”

Izet-Muhammad then picked up another document and replied.

"Your Majesty, based on your ideas and theories, I have made significant adjustments to the empire's tariff system.

Considering that the empire has a wide variety of foreign imports, I will not list the tax rates for each imported goods one by one.

Regarding import tariffs, I have adjusted the tax rate to an average of about 40%.

At the same time, I removed many products that were originally on the tax-free list.

This is just preliminary. The industrial development of the empire in the early stage hardly requires imported raw materials. Therefore, in the later stage, I will further adjust the policy to encourage the development of state enterprises and private enterprises. "

Emperor Sai nodded, and he remembered that he also used Lister's theory to adopt trade protection.

But in the end, the Americans succeeded in rising, and Latin America, where is the Latin America? This is my America’s back garden.

You asked who said this. Munro said it. If you don’t accept it, come and do it.

This is actually a very interesting phenomenon. Why did the United States succeed but Latin America failed?

In other words, why high tariffs in Latin America did not bring about industrial development, but high tariffs in the United States did.

Emperor Sai has seen several viewpoints, the most interesting of which are two.

One view is that high tariffs in Latin America have protected low-value handicraft workshops, causing long-term stagnation in industrial development. The explanation for high tariffs in the United States is that although the nominal tariffs in the United States are high, the tariff exemption rate is much higher than that in Latin America, resulting in substantial Tariff protection is not high.

Another point of view is that U.S. tariffs have led to differentiation due to exemptions, which is the driving force for its development.

These two ideas do not seem to be contradictory, but they are contradictory on specific issues. For example, since high tariffs are believed to protect backward handmade textile workshops, should high tariffs be adopted to develop the modern textile industry?

This gets to the core of the question. Yes or no cannot answer the economic question.

According to Emperor Sai, this problem can only be explained by looking at it from a broader framework.

The history of tariffs in the United States actually has very clear divisions.

One is bounded by 1790, followed by a period of high tariffs that lasted until around 1830. By 1840, tariffs had dropped to very low levels.

Around 1865, high tariffs were reinstated, and after 1910, tariffs began to fall again.

The other is 1750 as the limit. During the previous colonial period, the U.S. tariff rate was very low.

So, what was the economic level of the United States before 1750, 1790, and 1865?

In fact, as early as 1775, when the United States first became independent, it was already a top developed country, second only to the United Kingdom.

Earlier, as early as the end of the colonial period, that is, after 1720, the United States had already stood out from the entangled economic development curves of various countries, following the United Kingdom to become the first echelon. At this time, France, Germany, and Latin America were intertwined to become Second echelon.

After 1800, France and Germany left behind Latin America and became a separate second echelon, and Latin America became the third echelon. (For ease of explanation, the United States and Germany are used directly)

In 1790, the Americans claimed that "tariffs protected infant industries", which was actually not naive at all, because before tariff protection, the per capita output of the United States was already probably the second largest in the world.

In other words, the U.S. tariff protection was carried out on the premise that "a huge comparative advantage has been formed", while the high tariffs in Latin America after 1830 were carried out under relatively backward conditions, so the effects obtained are completely different. Very normal.

The United States did not have high tariff levels during its rapidly developing colonial period, while Latin America adopted high tariffs when it was in a backward state and did not bring about great industrial development.

Empirically speaking, high tariffs are not a good solution in a relatively weak position.

Logically speaking, the most important part of the development of latecomer markets is the introduction of foreign capital.

Whether it is a large Eastern country that introduced foreign investment from the Soviet Union in 1950 or foreign investment from the United States and Japan in 1980, logically it is the introduction of foreign investment that brings leading technology promotion and advanced management experience.

What is more important is the exchange of investment in advanced equipment through open markets without capital accumulation.

Therefore, high tariffs are often contradictory to the introduction of foreign investment, because the introduction of foreign investment means the tilt of the entire industrial chain, not just money coming and going. There is no doubt that high tariffs will establish higher cross-border commercial barriers.

Of course, even under such circumstances, Latin America still introduced a lot of foreign investment, mainly including British foreign investment and German foreign investment.

However, market barriers are too high, which may result in foreign capital having to enter monopoly and profiteering resource industries in order to obtain comfortable profit margins.

The reason why the United States dared to impose high tariffs in 1790 was that they were almost the most productive economy. The so-called "infant industry theory" succeeded in the relatively mature United States, but failed in the "really immature" Latin America.

Lister's theory worked nowhere else but in Argentina's flour industry.

The question arises, is the Ottoman Empire suitable? It must be suitable, because this is not a high tariff model dominated by a free market economy, but a high tariff model with state intervention.

In terms of the implementation of this policy, what was also superior to Latin America in what was the Ottoman Empire?

It is the output capacity of the Ottoman Empire that is better than that of Latin America, it is the size of the Ottoman Empire that is larger than any single Latin American country, and it is the rural purchasing power that was liberated by the Cyprus emperor after completing certain land reforms.

The most important of these are the benefits brought about by land reform.

What you need to understand is that the so-called low rural purchasing power and the lack of rural purchasing power are completely different things.

The reason why later powers used colonies as commodity dumping grounds was the low purchasing power of rural areas, not the non-existent purchasing power.

On this basis, the mother country broke through the colonial tariff barriers by signing unequal "trade agreements" with the colonies, and the colonies were forced to pursue free market policies.

The great powers first used opium dumping to complete the plunder of primitive wealth, and then used cheap daily necessities produced through industrialization to occupy the colonial market. The advantages of industrialized concentrated production were not comparable to those of small colonial workshops and guilds.

It was difficult for colonial governments to carry out industrial reforms and compete with foreign powers, and the widespread abject poverty of colonial people further exacerbated their lack of purchasing power and could only buy cheap industrial products.

Emperor Sai was very familiar with this method. Wasn't it this method that brought him to the end of the Qing Dynasty?

But if you look at the world, you will find that it is not just the Qing Dynasty. The great powers treat everyone this way, including the Ottoman Empire where Emperor Cyprus is located. They will also follow this path in the future, but in different ways and degrees.

Sultan shook his head and yawned.

"Does the British have a third request or condition?"