ABSTRACT
That the making of a law and the enforcement of it are two different things is a commonplace which is nowhere more clearly exemplified than in the history of economic legislation. The point applied with especial force to the sixteenth century when the government attempted to control the economic life of the country, and particularly the export and import of goods, on a scale never before contemplated.1 The problem was twofold. In the first place the administration of the customs lagged badly behind the rest of the financial administration. It was not until 1536 that nationally uniform rates were imposed,2 and at no time could the central government be sure of effective control over the local officials, the customers and searchers and their deputies. While the royal lands were put under a modernized administration in the hands of such courts as those of General Surveyors and Augmentations, nothing was done either by Henry VII or by Thomas Cromwell to go to the root of the customs question. Cromwell admittedly produced a comprehensive code with a preamble which showed that at least he knew what the trouble was;3 but, somewhat in contrast to his usual practice, he did not touch the administrative problem itself. The customs were left in the Exchequer from whose palsied hands the royal lands had been removed; consequently, when in an age of rising prices the value of the customs began to outpace that of fixed land rents, the government of Elizabeth could do no better than farm a revenue which its own machinery was incapable of handling efficiently. Until the reign of Charles 11, the English customs administration was never thoroughly reformed, and governments fell back either on the inefficient Exchequer or on the dubious expedient of farming.4
