Chapter 318: Liverpool, a Major Commercial Port

As an island country founded on commerce and trade, Britain has countless commercial ports across the country. However, during the Middle Ages, the most important ports in Britain were all from the southeast. The representative cities were Sandwich, the founding port of the Five Ports Alliance, and Dorado. Foer, Hayes, Romney and Hastings.

Because the Cinque Ports are across the sea from France, only one English Channel away. In addition, they are backed by the fertile southeastern plains of England, and the coastline is gentle and easy to dock. Therefore, in the Middle Ages when science and technology were not developed, This kind of port, which is easy to develop, has naturally become Britain's first choice for foreign trade.

During the Renaissance as the world progressed, with the development of the Americas, the rise of the slave trade, the merger of Ireland and the Kingdom of Great Britain, the unfolding of the first industrial revolution, and the expansion of transshipment trade in the Far East, the small fishing village of Liverpool in southwest Britain used to Finally ushered in the golden period of development.

Due to its close proximity to Lancashire, the center of the domestic cotton textile industry, and Yorkshire, the center of the cotton textile industry, the industrial area in northwest Liverpool developed rapidly in the late 18th century. The original small fishing village was no longer just the forward base for England's invasion of Ireland. Instead, it has transformed, surpassing Newcastle, which is centered on the coal industry, and Bristol, which is centered on import and export trade, and has become the second largest economic center in the country after London.

After the abolition of slavery in Britain, Liverpool quickly found its new position. Today it mainly operates commercial trade between Britain and the West Indies. The import volume of raw materials such as tobacco, sugar, cotton and textiles ranks first in the country. Ranked first.

Due to the excavation of inland canals such as the Mersey River and the Overwell River, as well as the successive construction of railway transportation with industrial areas such as Manchester, Liverpool's status as a domestic transportation hub has become increasingly prominent.

Today, there are more than 1,200 merchant ships registered in Liverpool, with a total tonnage of more than 160,000 tons, and the number of registered sailors exceeds 18,000.

Such prosperous trade naturally breeds large-scale illegal phenomena. Irritated sailors from all over the world have brought high crime rates, and prosperous commercial activities have brought about large-scale smuggling business.

In addition, many of the business families who started from scratch in Liverpool started out in the slave trade or privateering business. It is simply a fantasy and a dream to expect these people to obey the law.

In the conference room of the Liverpool Customs Department, Arthur stood up and read out the document in his hand.

That was an executive order issued by the cabinet just yesterday, requiring ports such as Liverpool to strictly enforce the quarantine system for merchant ships and severely crack down on smuggling trade during the cholera period.

The sun was shining brightly outside the glass window of the conference room, and the blue Irish Sea could be vaguely seen. However, there was no sunshine on the faces of the gentlemen in the conference room, and their expressions were uncertain.

Before arriving, Arthur had already collected the background information of the gentlemen who came to meet today.

Although he had guessed early on that in a large port like Liverpool, most of the people in power would have a background related to commerce and trade, but what Arthur did not expect was that the proportion of businessmen in the Liverpool City Council was still much higher. Exceeded his expectations.

The business class occupies more than 76% of the seats on Liverpool City Council, and among municipal officials, this proportion is as high as 77%.

In other words, today's meeting is not so much that Arthur is issuing administrative orders to Liverpool city officials, but that he is conducting business negotiations with Liverpool's multinational trade federation on behalf of the central government in Whitehall Street, London.

Sure enough, as soon as Arthur finished speaking, someone over there raised their hands and raised their doubts.

"I don't want to criticize the decision of the Privy Council and the Cabinet, but for Liverpool, commercial trade is the foundation of the city. We can understand the crackdown on smuggling trade to prevent the importation of cases, and we extremely support the decision of the Cabinet. However, we do not understand why we should be involved. The 40-day quarantine policy for ordinary merchant ships will have a devastating blow to the business prosperity of Liverpool, which will also further affect the normal production of the textile industry in Lancashire and Yorkshire, and will also affect the British people. Rising prices of daily consumer goods.”

At this point, the officer suddenly asked: "Superintendent Hastings, I would like to ask, do you smoke?"

Arthur nodded slightly: "Of course, sometimes I need a little tobacco to relieve stress. Doctors say smoking is good for the body, and they even invented an intestinal smoke treatment device for this purpose."

The official smiled and said: "Look, the implementation of the isolation policy in Liverpool will also affect you. Liverpool's tobacco imports can account for 40% of the entire England. According to statistics, the per capita tobacco consumption in Britain is At around 8 ounces, would you be okay with smoking half as much cigarettes a day?”

When Louis, who served as the secretary of the meeting, heard this, he picked up a pen and wrote a few sentences on the notebook in front of him, and then turned his eyes to Arthur.

He planned to see how his commander would deal with these difficult city officials.

Arthur just waved his hand gently and said: "Mr. Will, I fully understand your concerns. But I must emphasize that I am here today to announce the latest resolutions of the Chancery Hall, the Ministry of Interior, the General Administration of Customs, and the Central Health Commission, and I am not here to negotiate with you. As we all know, in the field of public health, the Royal Chancellor has the highest decision-making power, and this resolution has been approved by His Majesty the King at the Royal Council and voted by the Privy Council members to form a Privy Council Order. "We are not councilors, we are stewards, so all we can do is implement the final decisions from higher levels."

As soon as Arthur finished speaking, another official from the Liverpool Customs Department asked again: "But we estimate that it will be difficult for us to convince the city council to accept such an administrative order."

Arthur raised his hand and interrupted him: "If the municipal committee has objections to the cabinet's order, it can send people to London to communicate with the Chancery Hall and the Central Health Commission. That is not the scope of my responsibility. I have just emphasized it. , I only came to Liverpool to do one thing, and that is to ensure that during the cholera outbreak, we do our best to reduce the number of cases imported into Britain due to smuggling. You may not know how determined the cabinet is to combat smuggling this time.

More than half a month ago, the Admiralty ordered the two fast battleships that were combating slave trading in the Ivory Coast of West Africa, the Black Clown and the Rosamund Beauty, to immediately return to the British mainland and officially incorporate them into the anti-smuggling operations in Liverpool. Be on the move and be at your disposal. You may have learned from newspapers in recent years how much contribution these two battleships made to the abolition movement.

If you don’t know, I can introduce it to you here. In recent years, the Black Clown and the Rosamund Beauty have captured a total of 9 slave ships and liberated nearly 3,000 slaves during their anti-slave trade activities. Although Liverpool started out as a slave trade, when the abolition movement began in Britain, Liverpool was also a pioneer in this area. I believe you gentlemen will be happy to know this information. "

The faces of the officials present changed when they heard this. Some of them looked slightly worried, some had a fun attitude, and some showed excitement.

The officers of the Royal Navy were all rejoicing: "Both the Black Clown and the Rosamond are back? So, the Admiralty is serious about taking action? Mr. Hastings, can I ask, what is the Admiralty's attitude towards the high seas this time? Was there a firing ban issued during the stop?”

Arthur looked at the group of sharks that had smelled the smell of blood, and knew that the group of candidate officers on land had already gone out of their way.

He said: "You cannot open fire on merchant ships flying the flag of other countries without verifying smuggling."

"Uh..." When the officers heard this, they were immediately discouraged.

Upon seeing this, Arthur added: "However, when the Royal Navy has conveyed the boarding inspection requirements, but the merchant ship still refuses to comply after three warnings, the Admiralty will allow the anti-smuggling fleet to use a certain degree of force. If Just use the ramming angle of the bow to make a hole in their cabin, I think this should be reasonable. "

The officers' moods went up and down, and the corners of their mouths that had just dropped suddenly turned up again: "Mr. Hastings, what you said is too loud. But we understand what you mean."

Officials from the Customs Service and Liverpool City Hall heard this and finally understood the cabinet's determination.

They originally thought that this time the cholera quarantine could be dealt with as carelessly as before, but now it seems that the cabinet is really angry because of the emergencies that have broken out across the country.

Especially the dock riots that just occurred in Liverpool some time ago. At this stage, they do not have enough reasons to refute the cabinet's resolution.

The officials stood up one after another and said: "Since the cabinet's will is so firm, we have nothing more to say. But Mr. Hastings, on the side of the municipal committee, I'm afraid you have to use your brain."

Arthur nodded slightly and said: "Thank you for your hard work, everyone. But before the meeting ends, I hope to get the list of all import and export trading companies in Liverpool before tonight. If the Customs Department can attach all their "Import and Export Goods Declaration Forms" this year That’s even better.”

"Customs declaration form?" the Customs Department official said in surprise: "You brought the auditor here this time?"

Arthur took out his pocket watch and glanced down: "Because it was a short notice, he did not travel with me. He will probably arrive later this afternoon."

The official in charge of customs asked cautiously: "If he hadn't worked in the customs for a period of time, he probably wouldn't be able to read the customs declaration. If you hired someone from the accounting office, I think you can provide a commercial The list is enough. Liverpool’s annual import and export trade volume is huge, and this is probably not something you can do in a short time.”

Arthur smiled and said: "Thank you very much for your enthusiastic advice. But don't think about it for me in this regard. The auditor this time is a professional, Mr. John Mill from the London headquarters of the British East India Company. And he will bring a small team over. ”

"People from the East India Company?"

When the officials heard this, they immediately understood the seriousness of the problem.

As the largest commercial trading company in Britain, the East India Company has often had frictions with Liverpool in terms of Far Eastern trade in recent years.

When the East India Company renewed its royal charter in 1813, they spent a lot of money lobbying in Parliament in order to retain their exclusive rights in the Far East. But even so, they were still deprived of their exclusive rights in India by Parliament in the end, and only retained the monopoly rights in the tea trade.

In this regard, the major Liverpool companies that have been trying to expand their Far East trade in recent years have made great efforts.

The above-mentioned things alone are enough to confirm the deep hatred between the East India Company and Liverpool.

The sudden suicide of a director and shareholder of the East India Company the night before the parliamentary vote has cast a layer of conspiracy theory on this story. Many people speculate that this is actually the work of those who are jealous of the East India Company's huge profits.

As stakeholders, the major companies in Liverpool are naturally within the scope of suspicion.

The officials who realized the seriousness of the situation said goodbye to Arthur and left the meeting room in a hurry. Judging from their behavior, they seemed to be unable to wait to go to the major companies to remind them that winter is coming.

Looking at the empty conference room, Arthur picked up his teacup and walked to the window. Outside the window was the old Liverpool dock built in 1715.

On both sides of the dock were rows of red brick buildings, as well as a constant stream of freight carriages and dock workers carrying large bags.

Suddenly, Arthur heard the sound of a door opening behind him. He turned his head and saw that it was Dumas who had changed into a standard police officer uniform.

Although Arthur had picked an extra large size for him, Dumas's belly was obviously far beyond the worst estimate when the uniform was designed.

In this situation, Arthur could only say against his conscience: "Alexander, it fits you well!"

Dumas just rolled his eyes when he heard this: "I never thought in my life that I would be able to wear such clothes one day."

Heine also appeared from behind him. He lifted his hat with his civilized stick and said: "Who would have thought that wearing a police uniform would feel like this."

Louis asked with a smile: "So... did you two come here just to insult this uniform?"

"That's not the case. We are still doing business." Dumas hooked his finger at Arthur and said: "Arthur, a middle-aged man came to the door of the Customs Office. He said he was a businessman doing import and export trade, and he also had a company called Shi Huaiya Sons. He seems to know something about smuggling. Do you want to meet him?"