When Romania Fed England

The story

I · 1829–1837

The gate opens

A peace treaty abolishes the Turkish monopoly, and two Danube towns become free ports.

In the autumn of 1829, the ships moored at Brăila's quay were waiting on a paper signed far away, at Adrianople: on 14 September, the peace gave Wallachia and Moldavia full freedom of trade and navigation on the Danube, ended the Turkish monopoly and the duty to victual the Ottoman Empire, and returned Brăila to Wallachia after nearly three centuries.

Privileges followed: Brăila became a porto-franco in 1836, Galați a free port in 1837. Odessa had held the same regime since 1819, and now the two Danube mouths took ships from her: Austrian steamers already linked Vienna to Constantinople, calling at Brăila and Galați, while Greek and Italian houses — Argenti, Ralli, the Genoese Pedemonte brothers, settled in 1831 — took their place on the quay; among them, the Pedemontes built a fleet of their own.

Traders needed nobody's leave to sell to the highest bidder: Brăila's grain and salt went to whoever paid the best price. After 1834 the Principalities' trade had grown so suddenly that the House of Commons in London heard Galatz was driving Odessa out of the market.

In the source's own words

Galatz was becoming the great depot of all the grain of the Danube, and driving Odessa out of the market.

— Karl Marx, 1853, on Patrick Stewart's evidence before the Commons

Meanwhile: In November 1836 the schooner Vixen, laden with Wallachian salt for the Caucasus, is seized by a Russian warship at Sudzhuk-Kale: London and St. Petersburg quarrel over the Black Sea.

II · 1846–1852

London buys

Parliament cuts the duties on foreign wheat, and Danube grain enters the same market as English bread.

In 1828, a London corn merchant did his sums with the sliding scale on his desk: England taxed foreign wheat at 23 shillings when the price stood at 64, at 16 shillings and 8 pence at 69, and at a single shilling from 73 upward. Merchants gambled on its jumps, and bread stayed dear.

In 1846, Robert Peel — convinced by Richard Cobden and the Anti-Corn-Law League and hastened by the failure of the potato crop in Ireland — ended the history of the corn laws with the famous act of 1846: the maximum duty fell at once to 10 shillings under a price of 48, and from 1 February 1849 all foreign wheat entered at one shilling the quarter.

The effect reads in prices: the quarter of English wheat cost on average 54 shillings and 8 pence in 1846, 69 shillings and 9 pence in 1847, then 44 shillings and 3 pence in 1849 and 38 shillings and 6 pence in 1851. Meanwhile, Black Sea grain was finding its own place in the late-1840s frenzy.

In the source's own words

Put an effectual end to the history of the corn laws by the famous act of 1846.

— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1911, the Corn Laws article

Meanwhile: The failure of the potato crop in Ireland hastens the repeal vote.

III · 1836–1861

The Sulina bar

All the Danube's wealth passes through a single river mouth, guarded by Russia and only 9 feet deep at the 1856 survey.

A grain-laden brig sailing down for the sea in the first weeks of February 1836 found its way barred at the Danube mouths: on 7 February, a Russian ukase had set a quarantine — in fact a custom-house and a fort — on one of the mouths' islands, and vessels were stopped, searched and taxed, refractory ones taken to Odessa. London and Glasgow merchants filled the House of Commons with petitions.

On 20 April 1836, Patrick Stewart told the House that no less than 5,000 tons of British shipping would be seized. And the charge that Russia was wilfully leaving the Sulina bar — the only navigable route to the inland ports — uncleared poisoned relations with the western cabinets until after the Crimean War.

Only the European Commission of the Danube, authorized by the Treaty of Paris of 1856, seated at Galatz under chief engineer Charles Hartley, tamed the bar: from 9 feet in 1856 to 19 in 1871 and 24 in 1900. In 1861 the river's 3,084 vessels averaged only 146 tons register.

In the source's own words

British shipping, to the amount of not less than 5,000 tons, would be seized and marched off to Odessa.

— Patrick Stewart, House of Commons, 20 April 1836

Meanwhile: The Treaty of Paris of 1856: the Commission fixes its seat in the port of Galatz.

IV · 1831–1900

Who kept the money

The wheat sailed down the Danube; the money stayed in few hands: estates, trading houses, shipowners.

At harvest time, on the estate stubble, the sheaves were divided under the Organic Regulation: the peasant kept about 70% of the harvest of his leased plot, but revenues came from highly productive agriculture based on peasant labour. Others took the trade margin: the Pedemonte house turned over 14 million lei in the early 1840s on 2.4 million of capital.

After 1856, transport won most: freights from Galați and Brăila to North Sea ports fell from 50 shillings to about 12 shillings and 6 pence per ton, and sailing ships of at most 200 tons register gave way to steamers of up to 2,600 tons.

Between 1857 and 1867 an average of 450,000 tons a year entered the Danube, one-third of it British; by 1896 the total had reached 1,800,000 tons, three-fifths of it British. In thirty years the Danube trade grew fourfold, and British tonnage eightfold.

In the source's own words

Freights from Galatz and Braila to North Sea ports have fallen from 50s. to about 12s. 6d. per ton.

— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1902, the Danube article

Meanwhile: In 1882, Galați loses its free-port status.

✦

The flows: harvest by harvest

Ten years, two ends of the trade: the Danube and Odessa in thousands of quarters, London in shillings per quarter. Pick a year and read it.

Ten-year totals

• Danube wheat4,386
• Danube maize5,636
• Odessa wheat12,055
• Danube ships14,167

Totals are the sums of the cells above, recomputed from the same cells. The printed Odessa shipping average in the source (1,058) does not match its cells; the average recomputed from the cells is 1,051.

✦

Load the brig

Five harvests, 1848–1852. You sell at the real London prices, pay the 50-shilling-per-ton freight — the pre-Commission-works level (c. 1856), used here as a game assumption for 1848–1852 — and risk the Sulina bar. The full hold may be used only 3 times.

Game rules, not history: in low-water years (1848, 1850, 1852) the full hold pays 500 shillings lighterage; full-hold tokens are 3.

The ship: a 200-ton brig; the freight: 50 shillings per ton; the quarter of wheat: 480 lb. The Brăila end is unknown in the inspected sources: the game shows gross profit against freight, not the purchase price.

Figures

• 1,829the peace that opened trade
• 1,836Brăila becomes a porto-franco
• 1,837Galați becomes a free port
• 1,846the act that cut the duties
• 1,847the London price peak, 69 shillings and 9 pence
• 9feet of water over the Sulina bar in 1856
• 24feet after Hartley's works
• 1,856the European Commission of the Danube

Myths

Sources and method

• Every figure comes from the sources below; the totals, averages and game profits are recomputed from the same cells.
• The scene quotes are from public-domain sources, in the author's own Romanian translation on the Romanian page.
• What could not be proven is marked undocumented or unproven and stays out of the sums.

The gate opens

• Adrianople, 14 September 1829: free passage of the Straits; the Principalities shed the grain obligations to the Porte [→]
• Brăila returns to Wallachia in 1829; porto-franco status in 1836 [→]
• Galați, free port in 1837 (revoked in 1882); English vice-consulate since 1805 [→]
• The Pedemonte house, 1831; own fleet in 1839–1840; 14 million lei turnover in the early 1840s [→]

London buys

• The 1828 sliding scale: 23s. duty at 64s., 16s. 8d. at 69s., 1s. at 73s. and above [→]
• The 1846 act; one shilling from 1 February 1849; the 1869 abolition [→]
• English wheat per quarter, 1843–1852, chiefly after T. Smith of Melford [→]
• The quarter: 8 bushels; the quarter of wheat: 480 lb [→]

The Sulina bar

• The ukase of 7 February 1836; the Commons, 20 April 1836; Stewart's 5,000 tons [→]
• The alleged neglect of the Sulina bar, the only navigable route; the European Commission after the Crimean War [→]
• Sulina: 9 feet in 1856, 24 in 1900; Hartley directs the works from 1856 to 1872 [→]
• The Commission authorized by the Treaty of Paris (1856); seat fixed at Galatz [→]

Who kept the money

• Peasants keep about 70% of their plot's harvest; revenues from agriculture based on peasant labour [→]
• Galatz–Braila freights to the North Sea fall from 50s. to 12s. 6d. per ton [→]
• Sailing ships of at most 200 tons register replaced by steamers of up to 2,600 tons [→]
• 450,000 tons a year (one-third British) in 1857–1867; 1,800,000 (three-fifths) in 1896 [→]

The flows

• Wheat and maize exports, Danube and Odessa, in 1,000 quarters, 1843–1852 (Table 6) [→]
• The printed Odessa shipping average (1,058) does not match the cells; the site recomputes 1,051 [→]

The game

• The game sells at the real London prices; the Brăila end is unknown, the fee and tokens are rules [→]

Images

• galati — PD: Lithograph by Alois von Saar after Erminy, 1826, via Commons
• sulina — PD: Illustrated London News, 19 Oct 1861, via Commons
• exeter — PD: Anti-Corn Law League meeting, Exeter Hall 1846, unknown author, via Commons
• bric — PD: C. W. Eckersberg, A Brig under Sail in Fair Weather, 1845, via Commons