Commercial Organization of Smuggling

Of special importance is the organized, or, to express it better, the commercial, character of the smuggling. In Naples an economic writer, Galanti, spoke of it as 'a useful trade, inasmuch as it prevents the ruin of the state'; and in various places Napoleon's organs complain that it is regarded as a quite honourable occupation. Smuggling had also quite lost the character of managing by chance to break through the customs barrier on the chance of profit. It was based on definite business practices, with fixed commissions that varied with the degree of certainty surrounding a successful result or the difficulties in the way of getting through to different places or with different goods. In Strassburg there were 'insurers' of different grades, the chief of which charged a commission of from 40 to 50 per cent.; in 1809 it was considered that the expenses of passing the frontier of France were, as a rule, 30 per cent., while the above-mentioned new customs line between Rees and Bremen could be broken through for 6 or 8 per cent.; and at about the same rate it was possible to smuggle any commodity whatever from Holstein into Hamburg. A convincing impression of the business-like character of the smuggling is also given by Napoleon's Fontainebleau decree (October 18, 1810), where a careful distinction is drawn between leaders or undertakers—in Adam Smith's sense—(entrepreneurs), insurers (assureurs), shareholders (intéressés), managers of the practical work (chefs de bande, directeurs et conducteurs de réunions de fraudeurs), and finally 'ordinary bearers' (simples porteurs), in which we find a complete hierarchy ranging downwards from the directors of the smuggling enterprises through the capitalists and officials to the unskilled workers.

But there was a marked difference with regard to the ease with which the different kinds of goods could be smuggled. British industrial products, it is true, came in on a large scale, though, to judge by a statement from Leipzig, principally yarn; but their entrance was resisted by the different governments even in most of the vassal states of France, because they wished to exclude British manufactures on protectionist grounds. The situation was quite different with regard to colonial goods. In this respect all people, from the crowned ruler down to the day labourer, were of one mind and thought in their desire to break the iron band of the Continental System; and the smuggling of these goods accordingly met with nothing but assistance and support.