disadvantage. Most of them have greater freedom of carriage than we have, our own Navigation Law being adopted by the Americans against us. And looking at the evidence we have collected so far in this chapter, no other result could be expected than that we should be found to surpass all foreigners. We have the advantage of them in iron, copper, cordage, sails, and timber. In addition to all these advantages, our own colonies can produce the cheapest inferior class, and the longest lasting best-class ships in the world. There is no cheaper ship than the Canadian; no such ship for sea as that built at Calcutta or Bombay, from the teak of our own possessions. In Australia also, "In the Swan River they have one great advantage for shipbuilding, in regard to a wood that is very little known in this country, the Jarrah wood. The Admiralty know the wood, and have given an order for 200 loads to be delivered into the dockyard at Portsmouth. That wood has this extraordinary feature, that ships built of it do not require coppering. No marine insect, neither the white ant, the barnacle, nor the sea-worm will touch it. They can cut a plank of any size, and the trees grow quite down to the water's edge; I have seen them growing to within a foot of the beach; so that a shipbuilder here can give orders to get the wood there; and they have enough timber and knees of the best kind to supply our navy to the end of time.”—(913.) So that if the British shipowner fear the cheap Finland ship, he can set in competition with it the still cheaper Canadian. If Austria should set herself to raise up a commercial marine from Adriatic oak, the British shipowner can meet him with the almost everlasting teak-wood ship of East Indian build; or, if in France there should suddenly spring up a spirit of commercial and maritime enterprise, and the French oak should be floated in a thousand ships to struggle for the trade of the world, the British shipowner could meet them with the ships of Australian Jarrah-wood, cut at the very water's edge, close to the ship, as she was built. But, if still it be insisted that all these proved advantages are unreal; that practically it is no advantage to have English oak and elm for crooked timbers without importing it; that The Colonies of produce the England can cheapest inferior first-class ships. class and best Ships of Jarrah wood. Let our shipowners buy their ships get them cheapest. the English shipowner derives no benefit from England being the great importer and storehouse of all the other first-class where they can timbers; that it is no gain to have the iron at hand-the copper, cordage, sails; that there is no advantage in having the ship built where the chains are cast and the anchors forged for nearly all the world; still there is a remedy. If the ship can be built cheapest at a distance from timber, copper, iron, sails and cordage, our shipowners can buy them wherever they are built. Our proposition is, that they should have perfect liberty to go to the cheapest market for their ships, and buy them with those commodities which England can produce in most abundance and at the greatest advantage. But in fact, if our shipowners so dread competition they should have Parliament determine what class of ship shall be built in England and her colonies; some means should be taken to make every British ship that floats cost the same per ton. London should not be exposed to competition with the ships of Sunderland, nor those of Sunderland to competition with Canada. Nor is this all; Parliament should further determine how many ships shall trade in each direction; how many and of what tonnage along the coast; how many from colony to colony; what tonnage from England to each colony in the north and south and east and west; how many ships. shall sail in every direct and cross path of foreign trade; their rate of sailing too should be determined, or if one did arrive earlier it should be compelled to wait without discharging cargo until the slower sailer came. Moreover every one, before he laid a ship upon the stocks, should be required to come before Parliament, and prove that he could find traffic for his ship without taking anything from any other shipowner, or in the least degree lowering freights. ENGLISH SHIPS DO NOT CARRY A GREATER NUMBER OF Next in public currency to the assertion that foreign ships are built for less than ours, is the belief that we carry more men on board than they. The following table shows that we do not; and it should be borne in mind that the numbers No. 7.-STATEMENT of the SHIPPING employed in the Trade (Inwards) of the United Kingdom, with the different Countries of Northern Europe and the United States of America, in each of the Years 1844, 1845, and 1846; separating British from Foreign Vessels, and showing, with respect to each, the Tonnage and the Numbers of the Crews employed in navigating the Ships, with the proportionate Number of such Crews to each 100 Tons of Burthen. If you exclude the ships of the United States, the proportion of seamen on board to the tonnage of foreign vesssels, that is to say, the vessels belonging to Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Prussia, Germany, Holland, and Belgium, is 5.59 in every 100 tons burden, being somewhat greater than the number of men in British vessels. BRITISH SHIPS IN OPEN COMPETITION COMPETE SUCCESSFULLY WITH ALL THE WORLD. But the clearest of all proofs that we can compete with foreigners, is the fact, shown in the following table, that for a long series of years we have so competed, and on our part with complete success. A STATEMENT of the TONNAGE of British Ships that entered the Ports of the United Kingdom from different Foreign Countries and British Possessions, in each of the Years 1824 and 1846; distinguishing the Tonnage employed in the Trade with British Possessions, and which is protected by the Navigation Laws, from the Tonnage employed in the Trade with Foreign Countries, and which is unprotected from competition with Foreign Ships. *The duty on colonial timber was reduced to 1s. per load, 10th October, 1842. In that year the tonnage entered from the British North American Colonies was 541,451 tons; in 1843, 771,905 tons; in 1844, 789,410 tons; in 1845, 1,090,224 tons. If the tonnage entered from those colonies had remained as it was in 1842, the increase in the protected trades would have amounted, in 1846, as compared with 1824, to 308,116 tons, or 34 per cent. OUR SHIPS IN THE AUSTRIAN TRADE. If there be need of more particular proof that the ships of other countries are not so cheaply built and sailed as to drive us out of any trade, it is at hand. compete with all others at Trieste. "In trades where the British shipowners have no sort of protection British ships given them over foreign ships, namely, in the carrying trade between two foreign countries, British ships do successfully compete, and that to a large extent, with the ships of other countries. I have here a few memoranda, which I made hastily, showing, though very roughly, the number of British ships which arrived at Trieste in 1845. Here is a ship from Pernambuco, with sugar; a ship from Rio Janeiro, with coffee; another from Pernambuco with sugar; and there are ships from various other countries: and it appears that sugar and wood and general cargoes, saltpetre and pepper, were brought by British ships to a large extent, to the port of Trieste, from foreign countries, not from England nor from British possessions. [The Witness delivered in the same, which is as follows :] No. 5.-BRITISH SHIPPING arrived at TRIESTE, 1845. Royal Sovereign, Pernambuco, Kate, Venice, ballast. February: Charlotte, Rio Janeiro, coffee. Princess Victoria, Rio Janeiro, coffee. Lilias, Pernambuco, sugar. June: Neptune, Bahia, sugar. Tenedos, Paraiba, sugar. Gauntlet, Pernambuco, sugar. Jane and Esther, Pernambuco, Mary and Ann, Pernambuco, |