LVI. 1849. . CHAP. than half the wages to their seamen. British ships, it is now proved, do not last longer than foreign: how, then, can our shipowners, labouring under these disadvantages, compete with foreign? The result of the reciprocity treaties, which has been to seriously increase the proportion of foreign to home shipping in trade with all the countries with which they have been concluded, should make us pause before we apply the same system to our entire maritime interests. The proposed abolition of the seaman apprenticeship system is, if possible, still more hazardous; for it goes directly to diminish the skill, and lessen the efficiency, of the seamen who are employed in the mercantile marine, from whom alone our royal navy must be manned. 12. "It is in vain to say that, having taken protection from Continued. agriculture, we must remove it from shipping also. If that argument has any force, it amounts to this, that having done wrong once, we must do so on every future occasion, and shun as you would a pestilence any return to right principles. But in truth there is no indissoluble connection between free trade in grain and the removal of all protection from shipping. Each case must be judged of by its own circumstances, and by them alone, irrespective of past deeds, be they wise ones or errors. Reaction is indeed to be dreaded; but not because, like repentance, it is the first step to reformation, but because it can proceed only from the agony of a suffering people. The present bill is not called for by any great interest in the country, or any loud popular voice; it is the mere shift of a party to elude or conceal the consequences of their own measures, and forced by it upon a reluctant people and a hesitating parliament. Last year we were told that Free Trade had taken such root in the minds of the people, that reaction was impossible and already it has become so strong, that the main argument adduced in favour of the bill is the danger of a prolonged contest between that principle and the old protective system. LVI. 1849. 13. "The time is coming when the people of England will CHAP. no longer be satisfied with vague declamations about progress they will ask what they are progressing to? We are told we may look for rebellion in Ireland unless Continued. this bill is passed. Is this, then, the fruit of your boasted free-trade measures to threaten the dismemberment of the empire, to pluck the brightest jewel from the Crown, unless another great interest of the State is sacrificed? Probably we shall be told at this rate, next year, that the shipowners and sailors will revolt, unless a sacrifice to appease them is made of the royal navy, which now competes with their industry. Are the results of Free Trade, so far as they have gone, so very encouraging as to call for a prolongation and extension of the system? During the three years which have passed since Free Trade was established, the poor rates have increased 17 per cent, the capital of the country has decreased an hundred millions, and the deposits in the savings' banks have decreased one-half. Is that a reason for extending the same system to another great interest in the State, and that the one which is the foundation on which our maritime superiority and national independence rest? 14. "The present question is not one of Free Trade : it has nothing to do with that question any more than the man- Concluded. ning of the royal navy has. Adam Smith, Mr Huskisson, Mr Washington, Mr Madison, have all declared in favour of a protective system to encourage the breed of native seamen. The Navigation Laws did not create a monopoly in favour of our colonies: that has long ago been demonstrated. It is to no purpose in this question to refer to the statistical returns which show the growth of our shipping, irrespective of that of foreign states. The real question is, in what relative proportion have they advanced, and to what goal are they tending? Judging by this standard, the dangers of free trade in shipping are immense, and cannot be exaggerated. It may well make us pause when we recollect that the measures we are con LVI. 1849. CHAP. sidering may jeopardise 4,000,000 tons of shipping, navigated by 230,000 seamen, who now ride triumphant on every sea of the globe. Consider the effects of our false and meddling despicable foreign policy, and say, are we prepared for the maritime wars which, sooner or later, must be its inevitable consequence? That man is bold who entertains no apprehension for the peace of Europe, and can look across the Channel and see the character of the Republic there established without fear. Look at Italy, Germany, Hungary, all wrapt in flames, and can it be said that Europe is in a period of profound peace? Is this a period for making great and portentous changes in a navy by which victories have been nobly won, and immortal triumphs gained? Is this a time for reducing our thousand ships of war to an hundred? The slave 1 Parl. Deb. trade, which we have made such efforts to extirpate, will 1174; Ann. spring up afresh when the Americans, Danes, Swedes, and Norwegians are admitted by this bill into what has hitherto been our carrying trade.”1 * c. iii. 1170, Reg. 1849, 36, 41. 15. The bill is passed in both Houses. The amendment proposed by Mr Herries was rejected, and the bill passed in the Commons by a majority of 61; the numbers being 275 to 214. In the Lords, however, the division was more narrow, the majority being only 10. So close a division on a question vital to the Administration, awakened doubts as to its stability; and reports soon began to fly about of a change of Government. These reports, however, were premature; the bill became law without any further discussion, and ministers recovered their majority sufficiently on other questions to be enabled to carry on the Government; and this great change, extricated from the collision of party interests 1819,39,47. and passions, took its place as part of the settled institutions of the country.2 2 Ann. Reg. Perhaps there is none of the great questions which *The last paragraph but one is taken from Mr Disraeli's, the last from Lord Brougham's, admirable argument on the subject. LVI. 1849. 16. have been agitated in the country during the forty years CHAP. embraced in this History, which have been so quickly brought to the test of experience, as this of the abolition. of the Navigation Laws. The two most bulky articles of Its results. commerce, as Adam Smith calls them, Man and Corn, came, shortly after it was introduced, to be conveyed to an unprecedented extent, across the ocean, to and from the British empire. The gold discoveries in California and Australia raised prices 40 per cent over the whole world, and stimulated speculation to such an enormous extent, that the exports of Great Britain in 1857 had reached £122,000,000, and the imports £187,000,000, being more than double of what they had been when the Navigation Laws were repealed. Two terrible wars have broken out in the Crimea and India, each of which required the transportation of a hundred thousand men and horses, along with artillery in proportion, across the ocean. No circumstances could be conceived so favourable to a great experiment on the Navigation Laws; so favourable, indeed, that they might well have concealed its effects, and made them appear highly beneficial, when in fact they were the very reverse. From the effects which the change has produced, some idea may be formed of what they are likely to be under circumstances less propitious. 17. From the returns presented to Parliament it appears, that while under the protective system the British shipping Continued. had increased from 922,000 tons in 1801, to 1,599,274 tons in 1821, the foreign employed in the British trade had declined, during the same period, from 780,155 tons to 396,256. On the other hand, under the reciprocity, which was a semi-free-trade system applied to particular countries, the British tons had increased from 1,664,186 tons in 1822, to 4,884,210 in 1849, and the foreign had increased from 469,151 tous in the former period, to 2,035,690 in the same year. In other words, during LVI. 1849. CHAP. the twenty-seven years of peace, the British tonnage had tripled, but the foreign tonnage employed in carrying on our trade had increased nearly fivefold. But during the eight years which had elapsed from 1850 to 1857, both inclusive, subsequent to the repeal of the Navigation Laws, while the British shipping has increased, under all the favourable circumstances above mentioned, only from 4,700,000 tons to 4,915,712, the foreign, during the same period, has swelled from 2,400,000 tons to 4,470,296 tons. In other words, in eight years subsequent to the repeal of the Navigation Laws, the British shipping has increased 6 per cent, the foreign 90 per cent. The clearances of the United Kingdom from 1843 to 1848 exhibited an increase of 30 per cent; and from 1849 to 1858, of 65 per cent. During the first of these periods, the clearances of foreign vessels exhibited, in the first period, an increase of 46 per cent, and in the last, subsequent to the repeal, of 90 per cent. In other words, under the protective system, the annual increment of British shipping was three times that of the foreign: under the reciprocity system, the increase of foreign shipping has been a half more than the British; and since the abolition of the Navigation Laws, the increase of foreign shipping has been forty times that of British. The returns on which these results are founded are all given in the note below, taken from the Board of Trade returns; and it is evident from them, that in a few years the foreign shipping employed in carrying on our trade will come to exceed the British. The vital importance of this change will not be duly appreciated * * 1. BRITISH AND FOREIGN TONNAGE, 1801-1821-PROTECTION. British Tonnage increased as 9 to 15; Foreign declined as 7 to 3. 599,287 ... Total. 1,702,709 1,517,271 2,672,244 1,889,535 2,351,812 |