Israel, The Dutch Republic, p. 850. Like the Japanese, who also prefer to see the
history of their country in terms of divine intervention through favorable winds
(kamikaze), the Dutch and English have attributed the success of the invasion to a
"Protestant wind"—strong easterlies that sped the Armada across the North Sea and
locked the English fleet in the Thames, where all it could do was watch the enemy go
by—ibid., p. 851.
Wealth of Nations, Book I, ch. ix: "Of the Profits of Stock."
Ibid., Book I, ch. viii: "Of the Wages of Labour."
Cited in Wallerstein, "Dutch Hegemony," p. 98. Such apparent precision must be
taken with a grain of salt, but the overall trend is unmistakable.
Vandenbroeke, "Regional Economy," p. 170, argues that these low-wage indus
tries posed a terrible challenge to Britain, which found a riposte in mechanization; but
the same argument can be used to account for Dutch failure: they did not mechanize.
Most of the above is from Israel, The Dutch Republic, pp. 998-1003. See also
Wallerstein, "Dutch Hegemony."
Israel, Dutch Republic, p. 1011.
On the decline of Venetian wool output, see Rapp, Industry and Economic Decline,
pp. 140-41, 148, and n. 24; and Sella, "Rise and Fall." Trade policy seems to have
been appallingly counterproductive. On migration of capital to the mainland, see
Woolf, "Venice and the Terraferma." Also Ciriacono, "Venetian Economy" and
"Venise et la Vénétie."
Cf. van Zanden, "The Dutch Economy in the Very Long Run."
Cf. Mokyr, Industrialization in the Low Countries, who makes the wage compar
ison with Belgium. But Dutch wages, if higher than Belgian along the coast, were just
as low in the interior and lower overall than those in England, for example. Griffiths,
Industrial Retardation, pp. 3, 62-65, argues that the causes of Dutch lateness have to
be sought elsewhere; that Belgium then had a strong industrial base and could mod
ernize more easily. It had good coal resources, a precociously mechanized cotton and
wool manufacture, an old yet vigorous tradition of metallurgy, and the beginnings of
machine building in the Liégeois. The Netherlands had once been strong in industry,
but after a century of decline, it had trouble starting up.
Mokyr, Lever of Riches, p. 260, notes the persistence of Luddite opposition to
cotton-spinning machinery in the Netherlands.
H. J. Koenen, Voorlezingen over degeschiedenis der nijverheid in Nederland (Haar
lem, 1956), p. 140, cited in Griffiths, Industrial Retardation, p. 41.
Peter W. Klein, Traditionele ondernemers en economische groei in Nederland,
1850-1914 (Haarlem, 1966), p. 3, cited in Griffiths, Industrial Retardation, p. 42.
Griffiths, Industrial Retardation, p. 121.
On this later period, cf. Pollard, Peaceful Conquest, pp. 237-38. The quiet entry
of the Netherlands into the world of modern industry is reflected in the general in
difference of economic histories. The country barely gets on stage.
Cited from a 1693 edition in Chaudhuri, Trading World of Asia, p. 5.
On French sensibilities, cf. Ratcliffe, "Great Britain and Tariff Reform," p. 102.
On clocks and American manufacture, see Landes, Revolution in Time, pp.
310-13. On firearms, Smith, Harpers Ferry Armory and the New Technology; Uselding,
"Technical Progress at the Springfield Armory."
On this wake-up call, see Rosenberg, American System of Manufactures.
Supple, "Fear of Failing." The address is in large part a reprise of Clapham's
thoughts and tone on the subject, as expressed in his Economic History of Modern
Britain, III (1938), ch. 3: "The Course of Industrial Change."
