ABSTRACT
This chapter outlines main fluctuations of Scottish trade and considers the growth or decay of some notable branches of enterprise. Scotland becomes more interdependent, as regards trade and finance, with England and also with the world at large. Effort is more and more concentrated on those constructional or instrumental heavy industries—steel manufacture, engineering, shipbuilding—together with the older textiles, which cater largely for foreign markets, and draw much of their supplies from overseas. Scottish conditions are increasingly affected by the environment of world economy, notably by the recurrence of the trade cycle, and Scottish industrial prosperity comes to depend essentially on the retention of Victorian principles of economic internationalism. The growth of the joint-stock system may be interpreted partly in terms of technical change in certain industries. The increase of fixed capital was hardly compatible with such frequent withdrawals as were common on the expiry of the normal short-term co-partnerv.
