Purpose of the Navigation Act
In the early 17th Century, the British Government at that time published the Navigation Act. Before discussing about the particular act, an individual first must know what the act was about. At that time, the British Government was a strong one among the other Governments of the world. At time all types of trades form one country to another was done by the help of ships. Initially the British men were the sole merchants in the industry. Later the Dutch French and Portuguese were into this job. So the good competitions started prevailing between the nations. And, it was seen the British were loosing control over the industry. The other countries were overtaking the British in this particular field. So, they published this Navigation Act in order to maintain their importance in this particular field. They understood the only way to maintain their importance was to publish this act.
Before the early 17th Century, there were no such acts known as Navigation Act. In one word any ship can sail from one place to another in business purpose. The only motto lying behind the publication of this act was to seal the unwanted imports and exports form rest of the world and continue their monopoly business. Before this act, Greenland has launched an act which mentioned that no other country ships were allowed to sail with whale product. This particular act was published on 13th of September in the year 1660. The usurping power has published this act. In this act it was mentioned that the ship crews had to be three quarters English. The products which were not ever produced by the mother country had to be shipped from colonies which were under the English rule at that time. The common products which were included in this list were tobacco, sugar, rice, etc. the ships which were sailing for the American countries taking goods from other European States had to pay a good amount of duty to English government in order to sail through the country. Men were appointed in the ports ofEngland who would unload the materials and inspect the products. After inspecting was completed they would charge a good amount of tax on the particular products. This increase the sale price of the particular products and the price of the items increased during the time of sale in order to pay the English Tax.
In the year 1707, this act was applicable for Scotland. From now onwards Scotlandalso enjoyed the duty. 1673 and in the year 1696, two new Navigation Act were published. It was seen that smuggling started to increase in this particular region and it was going beyond the control. Special privileges were given to Dutch by the English Government. They were totally in the smuggling market that also in front of the English Government.
Moreover, it was seen the Navigation Act started to create lots of problems in the world history. Initially it kept the English Government in the dictatorship table. American Revolution was cause of this particular reason.
