tively belong; forbidding them all carriage whatever to this country of goods the produce of Asia, Africa, or America. Our Navigation flag. "This non-reciprocity, or rather this defective reciprocity, or as we should call it on the Continent, one-sided reciprocity, is beginning to tell. The Zollverein has been for some years past endeavouring to establish what they call a Zollverein marine; and as soon as they can bring the twenty-eight or twenty-nine states which compose the Zollverein to agree upon particular points or conditions, that flag will assume a nationality; and it is the intention of Prussia to impose differential duties and looking at the fact, that Germany is decidedly the best market for England, as regards manufactured and other goods imported into England from her Mischief it colonies and elsewhere, and that in regard to English manufac- might do. tures, Germany alone takes more of English goods than the East Indies and all her colonies, such a duty if imposed by Hamburgh or the Zollverein, with Prussia at its head, would have a most serious effect on British shipping, if not on the quantity of goods exported. At present there is no restriction upon British shipping in regard to Hamburgh, Prussia, Austria, or Sardinia, with the two exceptions of wine and spirits."-(1648-50.) Another witness (Mr. Swaine), on the same subject says,—— How it would operate on us. "There has been a great deal said about what is called a 'union flag;' that is, uniting the ships of the various states in Germany under one flag. It is a subject which has created a great deal of interest in Germany during the last three or four years. The marine states of Germany are very much opposed to a junction with the Zollverein; but in consequence of the Navigation Laws, the subject of forming a union of all the maritime states under one common flag, has made very considerable progress, and I have very little doubt that something of the sort will take place eventually, the object of which will be to create differential duties; and in that case, if the British Navigation Laws are preserved, the British shipowner will be driven out of that trade altogether.-(3178.)—Their removal How to protect would operate as an impediment to that arrangement being carried ourselves. out; or if it did not operate as an impediment to the arrangement being carried out, it would operate by relieving Great Britain from the effect of it; that is to say, the differential duties would be levied only against those states which preserved their prohibitive laws.”—(3181.) To all the above restrictions there is a general exception. Warehousing. Why goods are most likely to be warehoused in England. GOODS MAY BE IMPORTED IN ANY SHIP TO BE WAREHOUSED FOR EXPORTATION. Foreign produce of all kinds, no matter whence imported or how carried, may be warehoused for exportation. Colonial produce is excepted, another affecting instance of the paternal solicitude of the mother-country. This warehousing system is one more anchor which has been thrown out, to enable the Navigation Laws to ride out the storm which has been so fatal to its kindred monopolies. It has been asserted that the repeal of the Navigation Laws would empty our warehouses, and the ports of the continent of Europe become the emporium of foreign productions. This is a bold assertion; the argument it is difficult to understand. It runs thus: Goods are warehoused in England because they can be taken thence to foreign markets. Goods will not be warehoused in England, because they can be taken thence to the home market as well as the foreign markets. Our belief is, that the object of warehousing goods is to watch an opportunity for their sale; and that, therefore, the merchant will always warehouse where he can command the largest market. If, in addition to those to which he now has access, the largest market in the world is brought close to him, it would scarcely be an inducement to him to abandon the English warehouses. As the law at present stands, a foreign ship labours under a disadvantage she can only warehouse produce of Asia, Africa and America for exportation, whereas an English ship can warehouse it for exportation and consumption too; the least probable effect of the removal of this inconvenience would be to drive her away to a distant foreign port. On this point, the following extract from the examination of Mr. Porter, is well worthy of attention : "Do you believe that the repeal of the Navigation Laws would increase or diminish the warehousing trade in this country, if it may be so called; would it develop the warehousing system of this coun+ try, or otherwise?—I think the tendency would be to increase it, rather than otherwise; there is a tendency, and has been for a long time past, in the commercial world in general, to do as little as possible in the way of warehousing their goods, because of the expense attending it. Warehousing must be carried on, under certain circumstances, to a very large extent; under those circumstances, I am of opinion that this country must always have a very large proportion of the trade; and for this reason, that we have here the largest capitals, we have here the greatest number of merchants, our concerns are far greater than those in any other country in the world, and our merchants would rather have their goods in their own possession than have them in a foreign country; and foreign merchants, who are overloaded in dull times with goods, will, as they frequently do, send them to this country, in order that they may obtain advances upon them: and anything, in my opinion, that tends to increase trade, must increase that branch of it. There is a circumstance which I happen to know has resulted from the recent alteration in our sugar duties, and as the case is somewhat analogous, I will mention it: Cuba sugar is very much used on the continent, and the custom has generally been, that the ships come here and call at Cowes for orders, and the agents of the parties owning the sugar have sold the sugar, or taken their measures for sending it to the market which offers the best promise, and then the whole cargo has gone there. Since, however, the relaxation of our system with regard to our sugar duties, that has not been so much the case as it used to be; for merchants at Hamburgh, for example, find that by coming to this market they can buy what they want, and not buy what they do not want, they can make their selection; and therefore it is better worth their while to pay the freight for taking that sugar from London to Hamburgh, which is only 12s. 6d. a ton ; and the insurance, which is per cent., the whole charge amounting to 9d. a hundred-weight on the sugar, it is much better for them to do that, and buy what they want, than to purchase a large quantity of what they do not want, but which, if they buy, the whole cargo they must buy. This country must always have facilities for carrying on a trade of that kind, by reason of its large capital. ? "Did I understand you to say that you thought the repeal of the Navigation Laws would extend to the warehousing trade here ?I think so. "But the Navigation Laws offer no impediment to goods being bonded in this country?—No; but it appears to me reasonable to suppose, that if you took off the restriction of not allowing goods to be brought in certain vessels except for the purpose of exportation, and extended it to all purposes, allowing the goods to enter for consumption here as well as exportation, you would have a much Repeal of Navigation Laws would extend warehousing larger quantity of goods brought than under other circumstances, and that the extent of warehousing be greater."-(7619—21.) "Is there not an advantage to the importer in getting advances upon the goods warehoused here ?-Certainly; and no English merchant, I should think, would make advances upon goods which he had not under his own control; for instance, goods warehoused in a foreign country. And do you consider the greatest advantage of all in the warehousing system here to be, that you have the largest market in the world at your back?-Unquestionably goods will always go to the largest market as a matter of natural preference." -7623, 7624. A bare profit. Half the capital lost in 25 years. THE ACCOUNT SHIPOWNERS GIVE OF THEIR OWN CONDITION. If, instead of making each its own carrier, forcing countries without ships to depend on us for the transport of their produce, and compelling countries without exchangeable commodities to seek away from us employment for their ships, we were to announce that our ports were open to all who chose to come, then, looking at her insular position, her harbours, her docks, her warehouses, her capital, her credit, and her trade, who can doubt that England would become the great fair where the commercial transactions of the world would be carried on. The trade of this empire is bounded only by its own restrictive laws. The result of all the curtailing of our commerce-of all the mighty sacrifice at the altar of the mercantile marine-we shall learn from the spokesmen of the Central Committee of Shipowners, for upholding the principles of the Navigation Laws. Mr. Dunbar says that "Shipowners generally have not had greater profit than persons in other trades, taking shipowners as a body. It requires great economy and care to get a bare profit out of the freights which they have." Mr. Richmond says "Experience, and dear-bought experience, has taught me, and from the daily and visible sight of what passes around me, I am sure that I do not exaggerate, when I say, that half the capital embarked in shipping for the last twenty-five years has been lost; and I say, more than that, that the other half remaining, to a very great extent, has been totally unproductive of profit to its unfortunate possessors; I do not mean to say that there are not occasionally people who in a chance and wind-governed trade, like that of the shipping of England, have not made those lucky hits that always must and always will occur, but I repeat again, that the great bulk of the money embarked in shipping has paid no profits for the last twentyfive years. It requires a good deal to ruin a man; the shipowners hobble on till they get into the Gazette. But for the last twentyfive years the rates have been unremunerative."—(7832.) And so being asked,— "In what worse position, then, would you be placed by the total repeal of the Navigation Laws ?" Pathetically replied,— "Hope is the last thing that leaves us."- -(7833.) The same story is told by Mr. Young, who said,— "He felt a perfect conviction that the capital actually embarked in shipping, during the whole period of his experience, had produced smaller returns than an equal amount of capital embarked in any other pursuit whatever." And so the whole matter, disguise it as they will, comes to this. The Navigation Laws, professing to set British shipping above all other interests, has deranged half the trade of the world to accomplish the purpose. And, after all, the shipowners are only, by some extraordinary monomania, by some unaccountable impulse, driven to build ships. One after another they take up the trade, and "hobble on into the Gazette." What worse fate could befall them if they had no Navigation Laws. Hope certainly does not seem to leave them. They devoutly believe in the power of protection still. Experience crowds lessons on them in other trades as well as their own, to no purpose. They refuse to see. They do not like the prospect of the effort, the improvement and revision, to which free navigation would force them. They prefer the lazy luxury of a protective system, and they come "whining Only hope to live upon. |