Chapter XIV (6)

Thou wert still the Lady Flora
In her morning garb of bloom;
Where thou wert was light and glory,
Where thou wert not, dearth and gloom.

So for many a day I follow'd
For a long and weary while,
Ere my heart rose up to bless thee
For the yielding of a smile,--

Ere thy words were few and broken
As they answer'd back to mine,
Ere my lips had power to thank thee
For the gift vouchsafed by thine.

Then a mighty gush of passion
Through my inmost being ran;
Then my older life was ended,
And a dearer course began.

Dearer!--O, I cannot tell thee
What a load was swept away,
What a world of doubt and darkness
Faded in the dawning day!

All my error, all my weakness,
All my vain delusions fled:
Hope again revived, and gladness
Waved its wings above my head.

Like the wanderer of the desert,
When, across the dreary sand,
Breathes the perfume from the thickets
Bordering on the promised land;

When afar he sees the palm-trees
Cresting o'er the lonely well,
When he hears the pleasant tinkle
Of the distant camel's bell:

So a fresh and glad emotion
Rose within my swelling breast,
And I hurried swiftly onwards
To the haven of my rest.

Thou wert there with word and welcome,
With thy smile so purely sweet;
And I laid my heart before thee,
Laid it, darling, at thy feet!--

O ye words that sound so hollow
As I now recall your tone!
What are ye but empty echoes
Of a passion crush'd and gone?

Wherefore should I seek to kindle
Light, when all around is gloom?
Wherefore should I raise a phantom
O'er the dark and silent tomb?

Early wert thou taken, Mary!
In thy fair and glorious prime,
Ere the bees had ceased to murmur
Through the umbrage of the lime.

Buds were blowing, waters flowing,
Birds were singing on the tree,
Every thing was bright and glowing,
When the angels came for thee.

Death had laid aside his terror,
And he found thee calm and mild,
Lying in thy robes of whiteness,
Like a pure and stainless child.

Hardly had the mountain violet
Spread its blossoms on the sod,
Ere they laid the turf above thee,
And thy spirit rose to God.

Early wert thou taken, Mary!
And I know 'tis vain to weep--
Tears of mine can never wake thee
From thy sad and silent sleep.

O away! my thoughts are earthward!
Not asleep, my love! art thou,
Dwelling in the land of glory
With the saints and angels now.

Brighter, fairer far than living,
With no trace of woe or pain,
Robed in everlasting beauty,
Shall I see thee once again,

By the light that never fadeth,
Underneath eternal skies,
When the dawn of resurrection
Breaks o'er deathless Paradise.

W. E. A.

HUZZA FOR THE RULE OF THE WHIGS!

AIR--"_Old Rosin the Beau._"

All ye who are true to the altar and throne,
Come join in this ditty with me;
And you who don't like it may let it alone,
Or listen a little and see.
How quietly now we may sleep in our beds,
And waken as merry as grigs;
Though fears of rebellion hang over our heads,
We're safe while we're ruled by the Whigs.

In the 'nineties we saw (I remember the day)
Revolution disguised as Reform;
But the country was saved in a different way,
By the Pilot that weather'd the storm.
Our vessel was steer'd by the bravest and best,
And, except a few quality sprigs,
The whole English nation had thought it a jest
To propose being ruled by the Whigs.

But as matters now stand in this ill-fated realm,
When old comrades will give us the slip,
We are strangely compell'd to put men at the helm.
To prevent them from scuttling the ship.
Only think, for a moment, if Russell were out,
How wild he'd be running his rigs!
About popular rights he would make such a rout--
'Tis lucky we're ruled by the Whigs.

The Church--can you doubt what her danger would be
Were Tories at present in power?
Lord John, or his friends, we should certainly see
Attacking her posts every hour.
But as long as the Bishops may help out his lease,
He won't injure a hair of their wigs;
Nay, he even proposes the list to increase--
So huzza for the rule of the Whigs!

If Grey were at large, how he'd lay down the law
On the cures he for Ireland had found;
And swear that he never would rest till he saw
Her Establishment razed to the ground.
But Grey, while in office, sits muffled and mum,
Like a small bird asleep in the twigs;
And Ward, in the Commons, is equally dumb--
So huzza for the rule of the Whigs!

If any of us had made war on Repeal
With the weapons that Clarendon tries,
What shrieks of indignant invective from Shiel
At the wrongs of Old Erin would rise.
By millions of noisy Milesians back'd,
From the peer to the peasant that digs--
How would Monaghan murmur that juries were pack'd!--
So huzza for the rule of the Whigs!

On Aliens or Chartists to hear them declaim,
You'd think Castlereagh come from the dead.
Though the mixture of metaphors isn't the same,
And the courage and coolness are fled.
But the Whigs are becoming respectable men
As any that ever kept gigs,
They are practising _now_ all they preach'd against _then_--
So huzza for the rule of the Whigs!

Go on, my good lads--never think of retreat,
Though annoy'd by a squib or a squirt;
You're fulfilling the fate such impostors should meet,
And eating your bushel of dirt
Then swallow it fast, for your hour may not last--
We shall soon, if it pleases the pigs,
Give your places to men of a different cast,
And get rid of the rule of the Whigs!

THE NAVIGATION LAWS.

"When the Act of Navigation," says Adam Smith, "was made, though England and Holland were not actually at war, the most violent animosity subsisted between the two nations. It is not impossible, therefore, that some of the regulations of this famous act may have proceeded from national animosity. They _are as wise, however, as if they had all been dictated by the most deliberate wisdom_. National animosity, at that particular time, aimed at the very object which the most deliberate wisdom would have recommended,--the diminution of the naval power of Holland, the only naval power which could endanger the security of England. The Act of Navigation is not favourable to foreign commerce, or to the growth of that opulence which can arise from it. As defence, however, is of much more value than opulence, the Act of Navigation is perhaps the wisest of all the commercial regulations of England."[8] Before these pages issue from the press, this, undoubtedly the wisest of all the commercial regulations of Great Britain, and under which the maritime strength and colonial empire of England have risen to a pitch of grandeur unknown in any other age or country, will be numbered among the things which have been. The House of Commons, by a majority, have voted for the repeal of the Navigation Laws.

[8] _Wealth of Nations_, iv. c. 2.

Free trade will soon have done its work, so far, at least, as the House of Commons is concerned. It is gradually but unceasingly advancing, and swallowing up successively all the great interests of the empire, save that of the capitalists, as it moves forward. The agricultural interests will find themselves deprived, in February next, of all protection; and the British cultivator exposed to the competition, without any shield save a nominal duty of 1s. a quarter, of states where wheat can be raised, with a fair profit in average years, at 18s. a quarter, and brought to this country for 10s. at the very utmost of freight. As soon as we have two fine harvests in succession, it will be seen to what state this system will reduce British rural production. The West India interests have been next assailed; and our colonies, upon whom free labour has been forced, upon a compensation being given to the proprietors on an average of a fourth of the value of their slaves, are speedily to be exposed, with no protection but a differential duty of 5s. 6d. a hundredweight, diminishing 1s. 6d. a-year, till, in 1854, it disappears, to the competition of slave colonies, where sugar can be raised for £4 a ton, while in the British colonies the measures of government have precluded its being raised for less than £10 a ton. As a natural consequence, cultivation is about to cease in those noble settlements; the forest and the jungle will speedily supplant the smiling plantations, and £100,000,000 worth of British property will be lost beyond redemption.

Domestic manufactures were at the same time assailed, though with a more gentle hand than rude produce. Protective duties on them were lowered, though not entirely removed; and the consequence is, that at this time there are 8000 hands wholly unemployed at Manchester, and above 10,000 at Glasgow, and distress to an unparalleled extent pervades the whole commercial and manufacturing classes. Nothing daunted by these calamitous results, so exactly what the opponents of free trade predicted would ensue, so diametrically the reverse of the unbounded prosperity which they promised the nation as the consequence of their changes, the Free-traders, in pursuance of their usual system of preferring their own opinions to the evidence of facts, are preparing to apply the same system to the commercial navy of the country, and, by the repeal of the Navigation Laws, against the opinion of Adam Smith, to depress our shipping interest as much as they encourage that of foreign states, and endanger our national existence, by crippling our own means of defence as much as they augment the means of attack in the hands of our enemies. Not content with rendering us dependent for a large part of our bread on foreign nations, they are determined on measures calculated to deprive us of the means of maintaining our naval superiority, or upholding the national independence. They are set upon saying the nation a few millions a-year in freight, though the consequence is, that we shall be alike unable to withstand a pacific blockade or hostile aggression.

Many estimable and thoughtful persons in the country, struck with astonishment at the adoption and determined adherence to such a suicidal policy--alike by our rulers and a powerful party in the country--in the face of the decisive evidence afforded by facts, and the universal distress of the nation, as to its ruinous tendency, have come to the opinion, that we have been struck with a judicial blindness, and that Providence, as a just punishment for our sins, and for the furtherance of its mysterious designs in the general government of mankind, has rendered our own infatuation the means of working out our destruction. They think it affords a marvellous proof of the weakness of the human mind, and the impotence of man against the arm of his Creator, that this vast empire, which has done such mighty things in the annals of history, and which has stood proof against the hostility of the combined world, directed by consummate ability, when its rule was that of justice, should thus crumble away and perish, not from external violence or foreign aggression, but solely from domestic infatuation, when that rule has passed away. And observing that this country has already suffered greater losses, and been more severely crippled in its resources by the effects of three years of free trade and fettered currency policy, than by the whole efforts of France during a war of twenty years--and still the same course is blindly persevered in--they draw the conclusion that the evil is irremediable by human means, and that the nation, if not absolutely shipwrecked, will approach as near the verge of ruin as the providence of God will permit human infatuation to effect.

Without denying that there is much truth in these observations, and humbly acknowledging a Divine superintendence alike in the rise and the decline, the prosperity and decay, of nations, it yet appears more reasonable to trace the extraordinary obstinacy of the ruling party in the nation to the causes which, humanly speaking, seem to have been mainly instrumental in producing it. The fanaticism of the political economists, who, like all other fanatics, are inaccessible to reason or experience, is, without doubt, a main cause of the disastrous policy to which the nation seems now irrevocably pledged. But a still more powerful agent in producing the determined adherence to this system, in the face of the most conclusive evidence of its pernicious tendency, is to be found in the _class_ government which it is now apparent the Reform Bill has imposed upon the nation. It is now unhappily proved that the _trading_ interest, in whom a decisive majority both in the constituency and the number of seats in parliament has been vested by the Reform Bill, are alive, like all other classes, mainly to the suggestions of their own advantage; and that advantage they think is, to buy cheap and sell dear. Whatever we were in the days when Napoleon said it, we are now, if not a nation of shopkeepers, at least a nation _ruled by shopkeepers_. The colonies are entirely unrepresented. Schedules A and B, sixteen years ago, cut off all their representatives. The landed interest is in a minority, from two-thirds of the seats in the Commons being for boroughs; and those boroughs, owing to the depression of the producing classes by the currency laws, and the vast increase of the trading interests from the same cause, being for the most part under the direction of the commercial part of the community. It is in these circumstances that we are to look for the real causes of the adoption of free-trade principles of late years by our statesmen, and the determined adherence to it, in spite of all experience, by a majority of the House of Commons. Such conduct is the inevitable result of every _uniform_ system of representation, because that lands the government in the class government of the majority, composed of a particular interest. The evil was not felt under the old constitution, because it was _not_ a class government, being based on a multifarious, not a uniform representation. Its _defects_, as they are now called, _i. e._ its nomination boroughs, combined with the extension of our colonial and shipping interests, had let in a most efficient representation of _all_ the interests in the empire, as well as that of the inhabitants of those islands, into the House of Commons. It is to this cause that the protection of _all_ interests by the old House of Commons is to be ascribed. Doubtless, under the old system the Corn Laws would have been upheld; but the West Indies would have been saved from ruin, domestic industry rescued from bankruptcy and the Navigation Laws, the palladium of our national independence, preserved from destruction.

That the Navigation Laws have been a great advantage to our shipowners and seafaring interests is self-evident. They afforded superior advantages in conducting the trade of the empire to British over foreign shipowners; and they nursed up, accordingly, the immense and hardy body of British seamen, who have founded and protected our colonial empire, and rendered Great Britain the terror and admiration of the world. What, then, is the great benefit which is anticipated from the repeal of laws, the practical operation of which has been attended with such uniform and unparalleled benefits? The benefit is, that it will save our merchants some millions a-year in the payment of freights. It is calculated by the Free-traders that £30,000,000 yearly is paid by Great Britain for freights; and of this sum, it is thought a fourth, or £7,500,000 yearly, may be saved by the employment of foreign instead of British sailors in the conducting of our commerce, or the reduction of freight and seamen's wages in these islands, which will result from their unrestrained competition. This is the benefit to attain which our Navigation Laws, the nursery of our seamen, are to be sacrificed. And the question to be considered is,--Is the gain real, or apparent only; and, supposing it is real, is it worth the risk with which it is attended?

Is the advantage real, or apparent only? Concede to the Free-traders all they contend for: call the saving to the nation annually in freights, to be effected by free trade in shipping, not £7,500,000 but £10,000,000 annually. The strength of the argument will admit of almost any concession. Admit this, and consider what it is worth, and on whom it is made. It is not worth a _fiftieth part_ of the revenue of the nation, which, in the produce of land and manufactures alone, is above £500,000,000 annually. A week of sunshine in autumn, a favourable set of Fall orders from America, the stoppage of a revolution in Europe, are each worth more to the nation. But, such as it is, from whom is it gained? Why, it is all _gained from our own people_: it is a saving effected to _one class of our inhabitants by impoverishing another class_. If our merchants and the purchasers from them pay £20,000,000 a-year for freight of goods sea-borne, instead of £30,000,000 as formerly, undoubtedly there is a saying of £10,000,000 _to them_, or the consumers who buy from them. But of whom is this saving made? From whom is it derived? Is it not from our shipbuilders, shipowners, and seamen, who get so much the less: either by being driven out of the market by foreign mercantile navies, or by getting their own profits or wages reduced by external competition to that amount? Ten millions now earned by shipowners and sailors in Great Britain, is, on the most favourable supposition for the Free-traders, _taken from them_, and given to the dealers in or consumers of the commodities which they transport. Is the nation, as a whole, any gainer by that transfer? If ten pounds are taken from John and given to James, are John and James, taken together, any gainers by the transfer? And is not the great family of the nation composed of all its members, not of John only, but of John and James taken together? Is not the repeal of the Navigation Laws, in this view robbing Peter to pay Paul? This is the mighty advantage, for the attainment of which we are going to crush by external competition our mercantile shipping; and endanger the national independence, by withering the nursery of the navy, by which it can alone be maintained! Can there be a stronger proof of how completely, by the operation of the Reform Bill, we have fallen under the influence of class government; and how entirely such class government blinds the vision even of the most clear-sighted, to any thing but the perception of its own immediate interests?

The evidence taken before the Commons' committee, on the comparative cost of building and navigating ships in the north of Europe and in this country, comes to this, that both are about _twice_ as expensive in this country as on the shores of the Baltic. A copper-sheathed vessel, which there costs £4500, cannot here be constructed for less than £9000: a master's wages there, which are £2, 11s. a month, are here £5 for the same period: seamen's, there 7d. a day, besides provisions, &c., are here 1s. 2d. Every thing else is in the same proportion. Shipbuilding and ship-navigating are twice as costly in Great Britain as they are in Norway and Denmark. How could it be otherwise, when they have the materials of ships and rigging at their doors, while we have to transport them to the British shores from Canada or the Baltic; and they are the poor nations, whose money being scarce goes far, and we are the rich one, whose money being comparatively plentiful goes but a little way. Compare the cost of living in London during the season, with what it is in Aberdeen or Inverness, and you will at once see the main cause of the extraordinary difference in the value of money, and consequently in the money-price of articles, in the two situations. The difference in the cost of shipbuilding and seamanship, viz. one half, is nearly the same as the difference in the cost of raising sugar in our free-labour colonies and the foreign slave ones, which is £10 a ton in the former situation, and £4 in the latter. And it is in the perfect knowledge of the entire ruin which the approach even to a free trade in sugar has brought, under these circumstances, upon the British West India islands, that government are prepared to force a similar disastrous competition upon the British shipowners, and through them on the palladium of British independence, the royal navy.

Mr Labouchere said, in the debate on this subject in the House of Commons, that the Protection Party seemed to consider every importation as in itself an evil, inasmuch as it displaced a corresponding amount of native industry; but that till he found that goods were brought by merchants into the country for nothing, he never could see how importation did not encourage domestic industry as much as home orders. This is manfully spoken: it comes home to the kernel of the question. It is pleasing to have to contend with such an antagonist. We will answer him equally briefly, and, as it seems to us, decisively. The difference between home orders and foreign orders is this, that the one encourages industry at _both ends_, viz., in the consumers and the producers; the other, at _one end only_, viz., in the consumer. This difference, however, may become vital to the national fortunes. If a London merchant pays £20,000 a-year to British shipowners and seamen, he keeps in motion at once the industry of the consumers, by whose produce the freights are ultimately paid, and the industry of the seafaring classes by whom they are earned. But if he pays the £20,000 a-year not to British but foreign shipowners, the only industry put in motion, so far as we are concerned, is that which raises the produce which is to pay the freight. The other end of the chain is placed in Norway or America, and any encouragement to industry there afforded is wholly lost to England. It is just the difference between rents spent in Great Britain, and rents spent in Paris or Naples.

Doubtless they are the same thing, so far as the whole world is concerned; but are they the same thing so far as that portion of the world in which we are interested, viz., the British Islands, is concerned? Unquestionably they are not. What the Protectionists say is, not that no British industry is encouraged when importation takes place: they know perfectly it is encouraged at _their end_ of the line; what they say is, that it is not encouraged at the _other end_, because that other end rests in foreign states; and that it is unwise to encourage industry at _one end_ only, when it is possible to do so at _both_. Adam Smith saw this perfectly when he so well explained the difference between the home trade and foreign trade, and said the former was "worth all foreign trade put together." But his observations on this head are as much forgotten by the majority of our legislators as those he made on the great wisdom of our Navigation Laws, as the only security for our national independence.

Mr M'Gregor said in debate on the same subject, that "he admitted our naval strength had co-existed with the Navigation Laws, but he denied that they were cause and effect. They had about as much to do with each other as the height of the Pyramids had with the floods of the Nile."[9] We agree with the honourable member for Glasgow in one part of this observation. The Navigation Laws have had as much to do with our maritime prosperity as the Pyramids had with the floods of the Nile; and we will tell the ex-secretary of the board of trade what the relation was--it was that of cause and effect. Mr M'Gregor is too well informed not to know that there exists in Cairo a _Nilometer_, and that, during the period of the inundation, the spirits of the people and the animation of commerce rise and fall with the rise or fall of the prolific stream. It is no wonder they do so, for it is the source of life and prosperity to the whole community. Raised by the power of the Pharaohs from the riches produced by the inundations of former times, the Pyramids are the Nilometer of antiquity, as much as the tower of Babel and the ruins of Babylon were the monument of the opulence of the plain of Shinar; or as Waterloo Bridge is of the wealth produced by the favourable maritime situation of London, or York Cathedral of the agricultural riches of the plains of Yorkshire. In all these causes there is a relation between the natural advantages which produce the riches and the durable monument to the construction of which they lead, and that relation is that of cause and effect. We entirely concur with the member for Glasgow in thinking that the same connexion, and no other, subsists between the Navigation Laws and the maritime greatness of England as existed formerly between the Pyramids of Egypt and the fertilising floods which encircle their base.

[9] _Times_, June 9, 1848.

To prove that these remarks are not made at random, but that the Navigation Laws really are the foundation of the maritime greatness of England, and that, when they are repealed, it must of necessity languish and ultimately expire, we subjoin three tables: one showing the progress of British as compared with foreign shipping, from 1801 to 1823, when the protection of the Navigation Laws was first infringed upon by the adoption of the reciprocity system with the Baltic powers; and another showing the comparative progress of our foreign and home shipping with Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Prussia, the countries with whom reciprocity treaties were first concluded, from 1823 to the end of 1847, when the reciprocity system had been a quarter of a century in operation.

TABLE showing the comparative progress of British and Foreign Tonnage inwards, from 1821 to 1847, both inclusive, with Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Prussia.

[Transcriber's note: Column headings: Y=Year. Bt=Brit. tons. Ft=For. tons.]

| | SWEDEN. | NORWAY. | DENMARK. | PRUSSIA. |
| | | | | |
| Y | Bt | Ft | Bt | Ft | Bt | Ft | Bt | Ft |
+------+-------+--------+-------+--------+-------+--------+--------+--------+
| 1821 | 23,005| 8,508| 13,855| 61,342| 5,312| 3,969| 79,590| 37,720|
| 1822 | 20,799| 13,692| 13,377| 87,974| 7,096| 3,910| 102,847| 58,270|
| 1823 | 20,986| 22,529| 13,122| 117,015| 4,413| 4,795| 81,202| 86,013|
| 1824 | 17,074| 40,092| 11,419| 135,272| 6,738| 23,689| 94,664| 151,621|
| 1825 | 15,906| 53,141| 14,825| 157,916| 15,158| 50,943| 189,214| 182,752|
| 1826 | 11,829| 16,939| 13,603| 90,726| 22,000| 56,544| 119,060| 120,589|
| 1827 | 11,719| 21,822| 13,945| 96,420| 10,825| 52,456| 150,718| 109,184|
| 1828 | 14,877| 24,700| 10,826| 85,771| 17,464| 49,293| 133,753| 99,195|
| 1829 | 16,536| 25,046| 9,985| 86,205| 24,576| 53,390| 125,918| 127,861|
| 1830 | 12,116| 23,158| 6,459| 84,585| 12,210| 51,420| 102,758| 139,646|
| 1831 | 11,450| 38,689| 4,518| 114,865| 6,552| 62,190| 83,908| 140,532|
| 1832 | 8,335| 25,755| 3,789| 82,155| 7,268| 35,772| 62,079| 89,187|
| 1833 | 10,009| 29,454| 5,901| 98,931| 6,840| 38,620| 41,735| 108,753|
| 1834 | 15,353| 35,911| 6,403| 98,303| 5,691| 53,282| 32,021| 118,711|
| 1835 | 12,036| 35,061| 2,592| 95,049| 6,007| 49,008| 25,514| 124,144|
| 1836 | 10,865| 42,439| 1,573| 125,875| 2,152| 51,907| 42,567| 174,439|
| 1837 | 7,608| 42,602| 1,035| 88,004| 5,357| 55,961| 67,566| 145,742|
| 1838 | 10,425| 38,991| 1,364| 110,817| 3,466| 57,554| 86,734| 175,643|
| 1839 | 8,359| 49,270| 2,582| 109,228| 5,535| 106,960| 111,470| 229,208|
| 1840 | 11,953| 53,337| 3,161| 114,241| 6,327| 103,067| 112,709| 237,984|
| 1841 | 13,170| 46,795| 977| 113,045| 3,368| 83,009| 88,198| 210,254|
| 1842 | 15,296| 37,218| 1,385| 98,979| 5,499| 59,837| 87,202| 145,499|
| 1843 | 6,435| 44,184| 1,814| 97,248| 4,148| 82,940| 70,164| 163,745|
| 1844 | 12,806| 59,835| 1,315| 125,011| 7,423| 123,674| 108,626| 220,202|
| 1845 | 15,157| 89,923| 1,215| 129,897| 4,528| 84,566| 49,334| 256,711|
| 1846 | 12,625| 80,649| 3,313| 113,738| 9,531| 105,973| 63,425| 270,801|
| 1847 | 7,037| 117,918| 2,318| 128,075| 20,462| 116,382| 88,390| 303,225|

--PORTER'S _Parliamentary Tables_; and _Parliamentary Report, 3d April 1848_.

Thus, while our shipping with the whole world _quadrupled_, as compared with the foreign employed in the same trade, under the protective system, from 1801 to 1823; it declined under the reciprocity system of equal duties, in the countries to which that system was applied in the next twenty years, till it had dwindled to a perfect fraction;--our tonnage with Sweden being, in 1847, not more than a _sixteenth_ part of the foreign; with Norway, a _fiftieth_ part; with Denmark somewhat above a _sixth_; with Prussia somewhat under a _fourth_.

But then it is said these are _selected_ states which do not give a fair average of the reciprocity system, or afford a correct criterion of its probable effects when applied, as it is about to be by a general repeal of the Navigation Laws, to the whole world. If they are "selected states," we can only say they were selected by Mr Huskisson and the Free-traders themselves as likely to afford the best specimen of the effect of their principles, and therefore as the first on which the experiment was to be made. But we are quite willing to take the general tonnage of the empire as the test; and we shall commence with a quotation from the tables of the great statistical apostle of free trade, Mr Porter, to show the effect of free trade in shipping on the comparative growth of our whole tonnage, as compared with that of foreign states, from 1801 to 1823, when the reciprocity system began; and again from thence lo 1847, when free trade in shipping was in full operation by the temporary suspension of the Navigation Laws, from the effect of the Orders in Council in March 1847 suspending the Navigation Laws under the pressure of the Irish famine:--

| | Tons inward, | Tons inward | |
| Year. | British. | Foreign. | TOTAL. |
+-------+--------------+-------------+------------+
| 1801 | 922,594 | 780,155 | 1,702,749 |
| 1802 | 1,333,005 | 480,251 | 1,813,256 |
| 1803 | 1,115,702 | 638,104 | 1,753,806 |
| 1804 | 904,932 | 607,299 | 1,512,231 |
| 1805 | 953,250 | 691,883 | 1,645,138 |
| 1806 | 904,367 | 612,904 | 1,517,271 |
| 1807 | Records lost | | |
| 1808 | Records lost | | |
| 1809 | 938,675 | 759,287 | 1,697,692 |
| 1810 | 896,001 | 1,176,243 | 2,072,244 |
| 1811 | | | |
| 1812 | Records destroyed by fire. |
| 1813 | | | |
| 1814 | 1,290,248 | 599,287 | 1,889,535 |
| 1815 | 1,372,108 | 746,985 | 2,119,093 |
| 1816 | 1,415,723 | 379,465 | 1,795,188 |
| 1817 | 1,625,121 | 445,011 | 2,070,132 |
| 1818 | 1,886,394 | 762,457 | 2,648,851 |
| 1819 | 1,809,128 | 542,684 | 2,351,812 |
| 1820 | 1,668,060 | 447,611 | 2,115,671 |
| 1821 | 1,599,274 | 396,256 | 1,995,530 |
| 1822 | 1,664,186 | 469,151 | 2,133,337 |

--PORTER'S _Progress of the Nation_, 407.

It appears from this most instructive table that, under the protection system, from 1801 to 1823, the British shipping employed in conducting our commerce had gained so decisively on the foreign employed in the same commerce, that it had increased, from having been on an average of five years, at the commencement of the second, about two British tons to one foreign, to be, on the last five years, about _four_ British tons to one foreign: in other words, during these twenty-two years, the proportion of British to foreign shipping had _doubled_.

Turn now to the contrast afforded by the comparative progress of British and foreign shipping from 1823, when the reciprocity system was introduced with certain states, to 1847, when it was made universal by the suspension of the Navigation Laws in March of that year:--

| Year. | Tons inward, | Tons inward, | TOTAL. |
| | British. | Foreign. | |
+-------+--------------+--------------+------------+
| 1823 | 1,740,859 | 582,996 | 2,323,855 |
| 1824 | 1,797,320 | 759,441 | 2,556,761 |
| 1825 | 2,144,598 | 958,132 | 3,102,730 |
| 1826 | 1,950,630 | 694,116 | 2,644,746 |
| 1827 | 2,086,898 | 751,864 | 2,839,762 |
| 1828 | 2,094,357 | 634,620 | 2,728,977 |
| 1829 | 2,184,525 | 710,303 | 2,894,828 |
| 1830 | 2,180,042 | 758,828 | 2,938,870 |
| 1831 | 2,367,322 | 874,605 | 3,241,927 |
| 1832 | 2,185,980 | 639,979 | 2,825,959 |
| 1833 | 2,183,814 | 762,085 | 2,945,899 |
| 1834 | 2,298,263 | 833,905 | 3,132,168 |
| 1835 | 2,442,734 | 866,990 | 3,309,724 |
| 1836 | 2,505,473 | 988,899 | 3,494,372 |
| 1837 | 2,617,166 | 1,005,940 | 3,623,106 |
| 1838 | 2,785,387 | 1,211,666 | 3,997,053 |
| 1839 | 3,101,650 | 1,331,365 | 4,433,015 |
| 1840 | 3,197,501 | 1,460,294 | 4,657,795 |
| 1841 | 3,361,211 | 1,291,165 | 4,652,376 |
| 1842 | 3,294,725 | 1,205,303 | 4,500,028 |
| 1843 | 3,545,346 | 1,301,950 | 4,847,296 |
| 1844 | 3,647,463 | 1,402,138 | 5,049,601 |
| 1845 | 4,310,639 | 1,735,079 | 6,045,718 |
| 1846 | 4,294,733 | 1,806,282 | 6,101,015 |
| 1847 | 4,942,094 | 2,253,939 | 7,196,033 |

--PORTER'S _Progress of the Nation_, 407, 2d edition;
and _Parliamentary Paper, 3d April 1848_.

Thus it appears that under the reciprocity system with some countries since 1823, and free trade in shipping with all in 1847, the foreign shipping employed in carrying on the British trade had so rapidly grown upon the British, that, while at the commencement of the period the British stood to the foreign as 174 to 58, or _3 to 1_ exactly, at the close they stood as 49 to 22, or _somewhat above 2 to 1 only_. And observe the vast start of foreign shipping as compared with British, since free trade was introduced by Sir R. Peel in 1846. For while the British tonnage was to the foreign in 1845 as 43 to 17, or as 2-1/2 to 1; in the year 1847 it was as 49 to 229, or 2-1/3 to 1 only. So rapid has been the growth of foreign shipping over British in eighteen months of general free trade. In ten years of such a system, it is easy to see that the foreign tonnage employed in carrying on our trade will be equal to the British; and then our national independence is gone for ever, for we have nursed up in our harbours a body of foreign seamen equal to our own.

But we have not yet done with the parliamentary returns. From the return 3d April 1848, it appears that the total tonnage, British and foreign, employed in carrying on our trade was--

British Islands. Foreign. Total.
4,942,094 2,253,939 7,196,033 tons.

Deduct British and foreign tons employed in the colonial trade, viz.--

Tons Brit. Tons For.
inward. inward.

Brit. N. Amer. colonies 953,466 3,274
West Indies 243,388
Channel islands 131,899 3,049
Gibraltar 11,623
Malta 33,554 3,789
Ionian islands 13,101
Africa 203,812 6,983
Asia and Australia 379,529 2,774

Total to colonies 1,970,372 19,847

Thus the British trade to our colonial settlements is about _a hundred times_ the foreign, and constitutes nearly a _third_ of the whole tonnage employed in carrying on our commerce, and about two-fifths of the total British tonnage,--(1,970,372 out of 4,942,094.)

But it is important to discover what proportion the British tonnage employed in conducting our trade with all the world, _except our colonies_, bears to the foreign tonnage employed in the same work. That is easily found:--

Tons Brit. Tons For.
1847. Total British Tonnage, 4,942,094 Total For. ton. 2,253,939
Deduct British
colonial tonnage, 1,970,372 Foreign do. 19,847
Remains in trade with all --------- ---------
the world except colonies, 2,971,722 2,233,092

So that, setting aside our colonial trade, the British tonnage is to the tonnage with all the rest of the world as 29 to 22, or as 4 to 3 only! Considering the rapid strides which, under the reciprocity system established only with a limited number of countries in 1823, the foreign shipping is making in encroachment upon the British, this fact affords room for the most serious reflections. It is clear, from the great advance of foreign over British shipping in the single year of temporary suspension of the Navigation Laws, under the pressure of famine in 1847--viz. from 1,735,679, to 2,253,979; while the British in the same period advanced only from 4,310,639, to 4,942,094,--that two or three years of free trade in shipping will bring the foreign vessels employed in conducting our trade, exclusive of those engaged in the colonial, to an _equality with the British_. The moment that period arrives, our maritime superiority, and with it our national independence, hang entirely on our colonial trade, which, and which alone, strikes the balance at present in our favour. And yet, the colonial trade is the precise thing which it is the object of the repeal of the Navigation Laws to throw open to foreign nations! In their anxiety to cheapen every thing, the Free-traders would gladly expose our shipping interest engaged in the colonial trade to the same competition, which has already proved so disastrous to that part of it which is engaged in the traffic with foreign nations.

Observe how one false step in policy by nations, like one deviation from virtue in private life, leads by natural consequences to a repetition of errors and crimes, till irreparable ruin ensues. The agricultural interest at home was first attacked; and by the cry of cheap bread, and the weight of class legislation, its protection was taken away. The West India islands were the next victims; because, if the farmer in England raises his wheat with nothing but a nominal protection, it was plausible to say the West India planter must raise his sugar on the same terms. The ruinous competition to which this exposed the West India planters naturally produced in them a desire to be liberated from any burdens to which they were subjected for the benefit of the mother country; and in this demand the Canadians, exposed to the competition of American grain, for a similar reason concurred. Thus the cry for cheap freights, originating in free-trade principles in England, came to be responded to from the British colonies on the other side of the Atlantic; and the Navigation Laws began to be repudiated by the colonies--the very thing which formerly it was their most anxious desire to uphold. The firm though unseen bond of mutual interest, founded on protective principles, which has hitherto held together the vast and widely separated dominions of the British empire, is dissolved. Being deprived of the benefit of protection, they very naturally wished to be relieved of its burdens. Such is the maze of error and danger into which we have been led by the sophistry of free trade; and such the way in which the greatest and best consolidated empires are first loosened, and then destroyed, by the delusions of those entrusted with their guidance.

The manner in which foreign shipping has encroached upon British, since the reciprocity system began in 1823, is clearly proved by the centesimal proportions of each, published by Mr Porter, from 1820 to 1844, both inclusive.

It will be seen from the following table, that, since 1820, the centesimal proportion of British shipping employed in conducting our trade has _declined_ from 78 to 72, while that of foreign nations has _increased_ from 21 to 27. But this proportion, such as it is, is solely upheld by our colonial trade, which, as already shown, employs nearly 2,000,000 tons of our shipping. But for it, the encroachment of foreign on British shipping would appear in such alarming colours as to strike the most inconsiderate. It is the rapid growth of our colonial trade under the protective system which has alone concealed the ravages effected on it by free trade under the reciprocity.

Centesimal Proportions of the British and Foreign Tonnage employed in the Import Trade of the United Kingdom from 1820 to 1844.

| Year. |Brit. inward.|For. inward.|Year.|Brit. inward.|For. inward.|
+--------+-------------+------------+-----+-------------+------------+
| 1820 | 78·84 | 21·16 | 1834| 73·37 | 26·63 |
| 1821 | 80·14 | 19·86 | 1835| 73·85 | 26·15 |
| 1822 | 78·00 | 22·00 | 1836| 71·41 | 28·59 |
| 1823[10] 74·91 | 25·09 | 1837| 72·23 | 27·77 |
| 1824 | 70·29 | 29·71 | 1838| 69·68 | 30·32 |
| 1825 | 69·12 | 30·88 | 1839| 69·96 | 30·04 |
| 1826 | 73·75 | 26·25 | 1840| 68·64 | 31·36 |
| 1827 | 73·51 | 26·49 | 1841| 72·24 | 27·76 |
| 1828 | 76·74 | 23·26 | 1842| 73·21 | 26·79 |
| 1829 | 75·46 | 25·54 | 1843| 73·14 | 26·86 |
| 1830 | 74·18 | 25·82 | 1844| 72·23 | 27·77 |
| 1831 | 73·02 | 26·98 | 1845| ... | ... |
| 1832 | 77·35 | 22·65 | 1846| ... | ... |
| 1833 | 74·13 | 25·87 | 1847| ... | ... |

--PORTER'S _Progress of the Nation_, 416, 2d edition.

[10] Reciprocity System introduced.

Mr Porter himself tells us that the centesimal proportion of our trade with the European powers has _declined_ (p. 410) from 65 to 52·38, while that of our colonies has increased thus,--

| | 1802. | 1814. | 1835. | 1844. |
| | Tons. |Cent.| Tons. |Cent.| Tons. |Cent.| Tons. |Cent.|
| | |prop.| |prop.| |prop.| |prop.|
| +-------+-----+-------+-----+---------+-----+---------+-----+
|America |336,344|18·54|343,658|19·32| 886,524|26·21| 984,850|19·50|
|Africa | 7,270| 0·40| 13,514| 0·76| 40,131| 1·21| 157,364| 3·12|
|India, &c.| 67,627| 3·72| 74,117| 4·16| 161,473| 4·88| 264,978| 5·25|
|Australia | ... | ... | 488| ·02| 16,019| 0·48| 36,454| 0·74|
| +-------+-----+-------+-----+---------+-----+---------+-----+
| |411,241|19·66|431,727|24·26|1,104,147|32·78|1,443,646|28·61|

Such has been the working of the reciprocity system, as compared with the protective and colonial--in other words, free trade in shipping with some particular nations--in twenty years. And it is from this experience of the effects of the partial adoption of these principles that the Free-traders now propose to make it universal!

America is the country to which, in comparison with Great Britain, the Free-traders constantly refer for a demonstration of the justice and beneficial operation of their principles. We accept the instance, and proceed to inquire into the comparative value of the American protected trade with our own colonies, and the American free trade with the United States, both at this time and in the respective progress of each for the last twenty-five years.

The foreign and British tonnage with the United States, Canada, and the West Indies, in the year 1847, stood thus, viz.:--

| |British tons.|Foreign tons.| Total. |
| +-------------+-------------+---------+
|British North American Colonies | 953,466 | 3,724 | 954,190|
|British West Indies | 243,388 | ... | 243,388|
| +-------------+-------------+---------+
| Total protected | 1,196,854 | ... |1,197,578|
|United States of America | | | |
| (unprotected) | 437,095 | 651,189 |1,088,284|

--_Parliamentary Paper, 3d April 1848._

So that, while our West India and North American colonies, under this Protective system, support 1,196,854 tons of British shipping against 3,724 of foreign, or 300 to 1 nearly; the American trade with the United States only maintains 437,095 of British against 651,189 of foreign; in other words, about 2 to 3 nearly! But the Free-traders think it better to adopt the system which makes the foreign shipping to the British as 3 to 2, than uphold the one which has brought the foreign shipping to the British, in the colonial trade, as 1 to 300!

Observe, too, the decisive proof which the same return affords of the vast superiority, in every point of view, of our colonial trade to our foreign, even in the hands of our best free-trade customers, the Americans. For while less than 3,000,000 of souls between the West India and North American colonies furnished employment to 1,197,000 tons of British and foreign shipping, of which 1,193,000 was British; twenty millions of Americans in the United States only furnished employment to 1,088,284 tons of shipping, in all of which no more than 437,095 were British! And this is the pet instance of the Free-traders--their favourite _cheval de bataille_--to demonstrate the great superiority of free and foreign over protected and colonial trade!

Again, if we take the comparative progress of British and American tonnage in conducting the trade of the United States, since the reciprocity system was begun in 1823, the same conclusion is forced upon the mind. Not only is the American shipping, throughout the whole period, superior to the British in the proportion generally of 3 to 1, but this superiority in their favour remains undiminished in any material degree. We take the following returns from Mr Porter:--

Year. British American
tons inwards. tons inwards.
1823 63,606 165,699
1826 47,711 151,765
1829 64,343 162,367
1832 95,203 167,359
1835 86,383 226,483
1838 83,203 357,467
1841 121,777 294,170
1844 206,183 338,737
1845 224,089 444,609
1846 205,123 435,399

It is easy to see how it has happened that, in competition with the shipowners of every country, the British shipowners have suffered so much under the partial operation of the free-trade principles which the reciprocity system has afforded. It is the inevitable fate of the old and the rich state, in shipbuilding and agriculture, to be undersold by the young and the poor one. The reason is, that the old state, by the very magnitude of its wealth, the amount of its transactions, the number of its inhabitants, the multitude of its fabrics, is obliged to pay much higher for labour and materials of all sorts than the young and the poor one. Machinery and the steam-engine compensate, and more than compensate, this superiority in regard to manufactured articles. England undersells Hindostan, where wages are a penny or twopence a day, by the work of steam-power looms working on cotton raised on the banks of the Ganges. But there is no steam-power loom in shipbuilding any more than in agriculture. Great things in nautical affairs, as in rural economy, can be effected only by the labour of man's hands and the sweat of his brow, in the last ages of civilisation, as in the first. It would appear to be a permanent law of nature, to which there is no exception in any age of the world, or any stage of human progress, that the chief branches of industry on which the subsistence and defence of nations rest--agriculture, and the naval and military arts--are pursued more cheaply, and with more success by young and rising than old and opulent states. History is full of examples in which the manufactures of rich and ancient nations have obtained an undisputed supremacy over the fabrics of poor and rising ones; but it presents still more examples of the encroachments made on the industry and power of old nations by the agricultural produce, or naval and military efforts, of young ones. It is this law of nature which provides for the decay and ruin of nations when they are approaching the limit of their allotted space of existence, and should give place to others entering on the career which they have terminated. No efforts of human energy or virtue can prolong, for any considerable period, this allotted space. But it is the peculiar reproach of free trade, whether applied to agriculture or nautical affairs, that it tends to shorten, instead of prolonging, the life of the nation to which it is applied, by oppressing instead of relieving those vital branches of industry on which its existence depends, and thus both aggravates the natural evils incident to old age, and accelerates the approach of the political society to the tomb.

When Mr Huskisson, in 1823, introduced the Reciprocity System, he did not dispute that it would injure our maritime interests; but he contended that it would open a new field for our manufactures,--that the time had now arrived when the Protective System could no longer be maintained, and it had become indispensable to sacrifice to a certain extent our maritime interests, in order to preserve the chief vents on Continental Europe for the industry of our artisans. The sacrifice was made, and the tables already given show with what fatal effect to our shipping interest. Has it extended the market for our manufactures, or diminished the jealousy with which they are regarded by the states of Continental Europe? Let the Zollverein league, at the head of which Prussia has placed herself, and which has imposed duties to an amount, in practical operation, of fifty per cent on our manufactures, give the answer. The exports which we send to the states of Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Prussia, are still, after a quarter of a century's experience of the immense impulse it has given to their maritime interests, and corresponding depression to ours, a perfect trifle.[11] Our exports to America are less than they were fifteen years ago, despite the boasted conciliatory effect of twenty years' reciprocity.[12] What can be more injudicious, therefore, than to persist in, and even extend, a system which, without diminishing in the slightest degree the jealousy of Continental nations at our manufacturing superiority, has inflicted a serious and gratuitous wound on the naval resources by which alone that superiority can be maintained?

[11]

Exports from Great Britain--to
1844 Sweden £108,475
Norway 152,824
Denmark 286,679
Prussia 505,384

PORTER'S _Progress of the Nation_, p. 366, 2d edition.

[12]

Exports to United States of America:--

1836 £12,425,605
1844 7,938,079

PORTER, _ibid._

We have recently made a very great stride in free-trade principles, by the sacrifice of our agricultural protection, and the throwing open the English markets to cultivators of all nations. In the three last months of 1846 and even of 1847, in consequence of the import duties being removed, above £30,000,000 sterling was sent out of the country to purchase foreign grain; and the moderate duty of eight shillings a quarter has since been reimposed on wheat,--yet it terminates in February next, and corn from all quarters will then be admitted for the nominal duty of one shilling a quarter. We have abandoned the protection of our colonies to conciliate the slave-growing states, and augment the market for Manchester goods in Cuba and Brazil. With what disastrous effects these changes have been attended, upon the best interests of the empire, need be told to none who are familiar with the total ruin which has in consequence overtaken our West India colonies, and the unprecedented distress which prevails in all the great seats of our manufacturing industry. The loss of half the realised wealth of Liverpool, Manchester, and Glasgow, and the creation of nearly a hundred thousand persons, including dependants, in a state of pauperism, in each of those once rich and prosperous cities, is the price which, in a year and a half, we have paid for the adoption by Sir R. Peel of Mr Cobden's principles of free trade, and Mr Jones Loyd's principles of a fettered currency. Have we, in consequence, reaped any countervailing advantage, or does the increase of our export and import trade show any benefit derived to the nation, to compensate such dreadful wounds inflicted on its internal prosperity, in the attempt to disarm the jealousy of foreign manufacturers? So far from it, our exports and imports have steadily _declined_ since free-trade principles were introduced. All the main sources of our strength have diminished since Sir R. Peel abandoned protection in July 1846.[13] In adopting these principles, we have gratuitously inflicted a grievous wound on our own people, without having obtained for them the shadow even of a benefit to compensate the evil.

[13]

| | EXPORTS. | | |
| |British Produce and| IMPORTS. | REVENUE. |
| | Manufactures. | | |
| | Declared Value. | | |
+------+ | | |
| 1845 | £53,227,451 | £85,281,958 | £52,009,324 |
| 1846 | 51,227,060 | 75,953,579 | 54,473,762 |
| 1847 | 50,897,790 |Not yet made up,| 52,082,757 |

--_Porter's Parl. Tables_; and _Parl. Paper, 3d April 1848_.