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  3. Navigation Acts of Colonial America P1: Throughout the colonial period, after the middle of the seventeenth century, the one gre

Navigation Acts of Colonial America P1: Throughout the colonial period, after the middle of the seventeenth century, the one gre

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问题 Navigation Acts of Colonial America
P1: Throughout the colonial period, after the middle of the seventeenth century, the one great source of irritation between the mother country and her colonies was found in a number of laws, called the Navigation Acts. For example, the Navigation Acts of 1660 and 1663 forbade the importing into or the exporting from the British colonies of any goods except in English or colonial ships and it forbade certain enumerated articles— tobacco, sugar, cotton, wool, dyeing woods, etc.—to be shipped to any country, except to England or an English plantation. Similarly, the Molasses Act of 1733 placed a prohibitive duty—sixpence per gallon—on the importation of sugar from non-English colonies, forcing the American rum distillers to buy more costly sugar from the British West Indies. This act was intended less to raise revenue than to serve as a protective tariff that would benefit British West Indian sugar producers at the expense of their French rivals.
P2: The British Parliament enacted such mechanisms as protectionist trade barriers,governmental regulations, and subsidies to domestic industries for the purpose of augmenting British finances at the expense of colonial territories and other European imperial powers. But these policies ensured Great Britain’s rise as Europe’s foremost shipping nation, and in one respect greatly stimulated American industry, laying the foundations for an American shipbuilding industry and merchant marine. The shipbuilding industry in the colonies first came as an outgrowth of the British industry and then as its own entity. The swift expansion of colonial shipping in turn accelerated urbanization by creating a need for centralized docks, warehouses, and repair shops in the colonies. By 1770, Philadelphia and New York City had emerged as two of the British Empire’s busiest ports.
P3: In addition to restrictions on the trade between colonies and non-English parties, England also specified certain products that could be sold only to British merchants. Included in the list of enumerated goods were products most generally considered to England’s wealth and power: sugar, tobacco, rice, cotton, indigo, and later furs and iron. Parliament never restricted grain, livestock, fish, lumber, or rum, which altogether made up 60 percent of American colonial exports. The Act further reduced the burden on exporters of tobacco and rice—the chief mainland commodities affected—with two significant concessions. First, Parliament gave tobacco growers a monopoly over the British market by excluding foreign tobacco,even though this hurt British consumers as rice planters enjoyed a natural monopoly because they had no competitors. Second, by refunding the duties on all tobacco and rice that the colonists later shipped to other countries, Parliament minimized the added cost of land used for tobacco and rice in Britain, where customs officials collected duties on both.
P4: Another impact the navigation system had on the colonies was to encourage economic diversification. Parliament used British tax revenues to pay modest incentives to Anglo-Americans producing such items as silk, iron, dyes, hemp, and lumber, and it imposed protective tariffs on items from other commercial rivals. The trade laws did in large-scale prohibit Anglo-Americans from competing with British manufacturing for certain products, most notably clothing. However, colonial tailors, hatters, and other small clothes manufacturers could continue to make any item of dress in their households or small shops. Manufactured by low-paid labor, British clothing imports generally undersold whatever the colonists could have produced and exported.
P5: The Navigation Acts succeeded in making the colonies a protected market for low-priced exports from Britain. Steady overseas demand for colonial products spawned a prosperity that enabled colonists to consume ever larger amounts of goods—not only clothing, but dishware, home furnishings, tea, and a range of other items both produced in Britain and imported by British and colonial merchants from elsewhere. Consequently, the share of British exports sold to the colonies rapidly increased, which made Britain itself the wealthiest nation in Europe and the Atlantic world while resulting in a "consumer revolution" in British America.
P3: In addition to restrictions on the trade between colonies and non-English parties, England also specified certain products that could be sold only to British merchants. Included in the list of enumerated goods were products most generally considered to England’s wealth and power: sugar, tobacco, rice, cotton, indigo, and later furs and iron. ■ Parliament never restricted grain, livestock, fish, lumber, or rum, which altogether made up 60 percent of American colonial exports. ■ The Act further reduced the burden on exporters of tobacco and rice—the chief mainland commodities affected—with two significant concessions. ■ First, Parliament gave tobacco growers a monopoly over the British market by excluding foreign tobacco, even though this hurt British consumers as rice planters enjoyed a natural monopoly because they had no competitors. Second, by refunding the duties on all tobacco and rice that the colonists later shipped to other countries, Parliament minimized the added cost of land used for tobacco and rice in Britain, where customs officials collected duties on both. ■
According to paragraph 5, which of the following was one effect that the Navigation Acts had during the period from 1700 to 1760?
选项 A、They reduced the attractiveness of most locally produced commodities for the American colonists.
B、They protected colonial merchants from having to compete with low-priced imports.
C、They greatly increased the importance of the American colonies as purchasers of British exports.
D、They raised the production costs for many commodities manufactured in the American colonies.
答案C
解析 【事实信息题】末句提到“Consequently,the share of British exports sold to the colonies rapidly increased，…”，因此答案为C。
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