THE “OWLERS” OF ROMNEY MARSH, AND THE ANCIENT EXPORT SMUGGLING OF WOOL THE earliest conflicts of interests between smugglers and the Government were concerned with the export of goods, and not with imports. We are accustomed to think only of the import smuggler, who brought from across Channel, or from more distant shores, the spirits, wines, tea, coffee, silks, laces, and tobacco that had never yielded to the revenue of the country; but before him in point of time, if not also in importance, was the “owler” who, defying all prohibitions and penalties, even to those of bodily mutilation and death, sold wool out of England and secretly shipped it at night from the shores of Kent and Sussex. English wool had from a very early date been greatly in demand on the Continent. The England of those distant times was a purely agricultural country, innocent of arts, industries, and manufactures, except of the most primitive description. The manufacturers then exercised their skilled trades largely in France and the Low Countries; and, in especial, the cloth-weaving industries were practised in Flanders. [Picture: The Owlers] So early as the reign of Edward the First the illegal exportation of wool engaged the attention of the authorities, and an export duty of £3 a bag (in modern money) was imposed, soon after 1276. This was in 1298 increased to £6 a bag, then lowered, and then again raised. English wool was then worth 1_s._ 6_d._ a pound. In the reign of Edward the Third a strenuous attempt was made to introduce the weaving industries into England, and every inducement was offered the Flemish weavers to settle here and to bring their art with them. In support of this policy, the export of wool was, in various years, subjected to further restrictions, and at one time entirely forbidden. The royal solicitude for the newly cradled English weaving industries also in 1337 forbade the wearing of clothing made with cloth woven out of the country; but it is hardly necessary to add that edicts of this stringency were constantly broken; and in 1341 Winchelsea, Chichester, and thirteen other ports were named, whence wool might be exported, on payment of a duty of 50_s._ a sack of twenty-six stone—_i.e._ 364 lb.