Methuen Treaty

[SteveW]

IOTL, the Methuen Treaty between Portugal and Britain gave Portugal military assistance and preferential export rates on wine, but also set back its manufacturing base for decades, maybe even two centuries.

Now, I'm thinking of a TL where Portugal industrialises properly rather than be the economic basket case it was until twenty years ago. Has anybody got any thoughts on how we can create a Methuen Treaty where Portugal's industry is not restricted? Is there a POD we can work off?

[Guilherme Loureiro]

Hmm, it has been mentioned(Celso Furtado, Formação Econômica do Brasil) that Portugal regularly chose to concede economical advantages in order to gain political and security ones. Following this line of thinking, Methuen allowed Portugal a better position on the War of Spanish Succession peace table.

The way to get a better Methuen Treaty(or more likely, no treaty at all), is to reduce the threat Spain presented to Portugal. Eliminating Spain altogether gives us more consequences than the desired one, but perhaps Spain comes out even worse from the 30 Years War, so bad that they still haven't recovered by 1703?

[Gonzaga]

Originally Posted by Guilherme Loureiro

Hmm, it has been mentioned(Celso Furtado, Formação Econômica do Brasil) that Portugal regularly chose to concede economical advantages in order to gain political and security ones. Following this line of thinking, Methuen allowed Portugal a better position on the War of Spanish Succession peace table.

The way to get a better Methuen Treaty(or more likely, no treaty at all), is to reduce the threat Spain presented to Portugal. Eliminating Spain altogether gives us more consequences than the desired one, but perhaps Spain comes out even worse from the 30 Years War, so bad that they still haven't recovered by 1703?

What about no Spanish Succession War? Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria lives and there is no threat to Portugal, at least for some years.

But even this would not secure an industrialised Portugal. Why would the elites in Lisbon care about create industries when all the finnancial problems of the country could be dealt with the Brazilian gold that was flowing to Europe? Also, the manpower that could work in the industries was already migrating to Minas Gerais.

Maybe if Portugal had lost Brazil sometime before the 18th century, making the need of investing in industries the only chance of the country to economically survive?

[SteveW]

How about an increased naval threat by someone to Brazil-could this focus the nobility's mind on domestic industry?