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British Trade and the Rise of Beirut, 1830–1860

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2009

Charles Issawi
Charles Issawi
Affiliation:
Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey
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Extract

In Turkey, foreign trade now confines its principal operations to the cities of Constantinople, Smyrna, and Alexandria … Aleppo, which was before the Middle of the last century the most considerable emporium in Turkey, is now a place of comparatively little commercial importance. The trade began to decline shortly after the above mentioned period, and in the year 1792 the Levant Company finally dissolved the respectable Establishment which they had previously supported there, the Consul in fact being then the only English resident in the city, whereas in former times there had been as many as twenty-eight British merchants attached to that factory. The towns in Syria have been of late supplied with British manufactures from the establishments at Alexandria, but the consumption dose not appear to have been sufficiently extensive to encourage any of the trading houses in that city to form branch establishments on the Syrian coasts.

Type
Articles
Information
International Journal of Middle East Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , January 1977 , pp. 91 - 101
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1977

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References

1 France, Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Correspondance Commerciale, Smyrne, Vol. 43, Memorandum “Etat du Commerce et de la Production de Syrie,” 09 1, 1839.Google Scholar

2 Chevallier, Dominique, La Société du Mont Liban (Paris, 1971), p. 196.Google Scholar This is by far the most authoritative study of this period. As pointed out on pp. 194–195, these figures are very rough. They exclude imports and exports of specie, which are given on p. 197.

3 One difficulty should be noted. Chevallier's table puts total imports in 1847 at the very low figure of 9.2 million francs, which is less than the figure given in table I for Britain's share alone (12.4 million francs) and in 1848 at 9.5 million, which also seems improbable in view of the fact that British imports amounted to 7.5 million francs.

4 For text and analysis see Issawi, Charles, The Economic History of the Middle East, 1800–1914 (Chicago, 1966), pp. 38–40Google Scholar; on the trade of Syria see ibid., Part IV, pp. 205–247.

5 Chevallier, , La Société du Mont Liban, p. 184.Google Scholar

6 Similarly, the Dahdah family opened a trading office in Marseilles (ibid., p. 206).

7 In 1826, the French consul had stated that out of 34 commercial firms dealing with Europe, 15 belonged to local Christians and 6 to Turks, i.e., Muslims (France, Ministère des Affairs Etrangeres, Correspondance Commerciale, Beirut, I, 398). The contrast with Damascus is striking. Around 1840, there were 66 Muslim commercial houses with a combined capital of £200,000 to £250,000; 29 Christian, with capital of £45,000 to £55,000; and 24 Jewish, with a capital of £160,000 to £180,000 (MacGregor, John, Commercial Statistics [London, 1847], Vol. 2Google Scholar, reproduced in Issawi, , Economic History of the Middle East, p. 223).Google Scholar As regards the total population of Beirut, in 1846 Guys put it at 19,000, of whom 9,000 were Christians; of the latter 4,500 were Greek Orthodox, 1,800 Maronites, and 1,700 Greek Catholics. There were 9,000 Sunni Muslims (Chevallier, , La Société du Mont Liban, p. 52).Google Scholar

8 For a good study of Zahle during this period see Naff, Alixa, “A Social Study of Zahle” (unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of California, Los Angeles, 1972).Google Scholar

9 For Syria see Issawi, , Economic History of the Middle East, pp. 204–247Google Scholar; for the Ottoman Empire, ibid., pp. 41–59; for Egypt, ibid., pp. 452–460; and for Iran, idem, Economic History of Iran, 1800–1014 (Chicago, 1971), pp. 258–292.Google Scholar

10 In 1845, the French consul stated that the number of looms in Aleppo had fallen to 1,500 and in Damascus to 1,000, from a combined total of 12,000 (Chevallier, , La Société du Liban, p. 200).Google Scholar

11 See Issawi, Charles “Lebanese Agriculture in the 1850's,” American Journal of Arabic Studies, 1, (1973), 66–80Google Scholar, and Chevallier, , La Société du Liban, chapter XIV.Google Scholar

12 Ibid., p. 220.

13 The company reserved 2,000 shares for local investors in Beirut, Aleppo and Damascus, which were immediately taken up.

14 Farley, J. L., The Resources of Turkey (London, 1862), p. 209.Google Scholar