France and

G. R. Porter, 7649, 7650.

entered the ports of the United States, eighty-three were English, so that in the chief neutral ports our ships exceed all others.

"In 1825, the amount of tonnage under the French flag that entered foreign tonnage. the ports of France, was 329,735 tons, and in 1844 it was 679,066 tons; whereas, the foreign tonnage that entered the ports of France in 1825, was 414,670 tons, and in 1844 it was 1,357,789 tons. Therefore the proportion which the French bears to the foreign tonnage, is not at all to be compared with our own trade. The French tonnage is far less than the foreign. Ours is far greater than the foreign. In 1844, the proportion was, as nearly as possible, one-third French, and two-thirds foreign."

G. R. Porter, 7635 and 7630.

What it is that has made our shipping.

France has a very strict Navigation Law, nevertheless foreigners beat her, and we, where no Navigation Law even makes pretence of protecting us, beat those same foreigners.

From all of which it is clear, that we stand at the head of the commercial marine of the world, far in advance of all our rivals, and that we have gained the best part of that position in competition with them, and not under protection. We do not owe the greatness of our shipping to the Navigation Laws, but

"To the great capital that there is in this country, the large amount of trade that we have carried on, the genius of the people which is favourable to enterprise of all kinds, and especially maritime enterprise, to the great skill we have acquired in carrying on our operations, to the number of ports which we have in all parts of the coast; and, in fact, to the natural and acquired advantages of this country, which are very great as compared with any foreign country. We owe the increase of our commercial marine to all those causes combined, in spite of Acts of Parliament.”

Navigation Laws do not man the navy.

THE STRONGHOLD.

But, say the shipowners, you blink the question. The grand point is the training up of seamen for the royal navy. Well, be it so. We say the Navigation Laws do not find seamen for the navy. Captain Sir James Stirling states, that "It is a great mistake to suppose that the navy, at the present moment, derives any considerable number of seamen from the merchant service; that there are not above a thou

sand men in the royal navy who have been brought up in the merchant service, the rest are trained in the navy itself; and that of able seamen who enter from the merchant service for the first time, one-half desert from their first ship, consequently they are not very anxious to have them." Very good, that is in a time of peace; but when war breaks out the men are ready in the merchant ships. Well, the figures already quoted show that our unprotected trade employs by far the largest portion of our shipping, and that it has increased at more than double the rate of the protected. It needs no reasoning to prove, that the trade which employs the most ships, rears the greatest number of sailors.

The royal preseamen.

serves of

The position of the protectionists, that the Navigation Laws find men for the royal navy, is therefore untenable, unless it can be shown that its preserves do not extend beyond the sixty or seventy thousand seamen employed in the Colonial trade, and that, in case of war, there would not be a grand battue amongst the hundred and fifty or sixty thousand sailors that man our ships in the foreign trade. And even then, to prove their case, they must show that, without Navigation Laws there would be no trade to the Colonies for our ships; which, with all their ingenuity, would be a puzzle out of which no mystification could help them, because of the simple fact, "That the G. R. Porter, British shipowner does compete successfully with the foreign shipowner, in trades where they meet upon an equal footing, and that it is not possible to see any way in which the Navigation Laws can increase trade,” though there is no difficulty in understanding how their restrictions, cramping and limiting the transactions of merchants, have prevented its increase.

7698.

We e are suc

cessful in competition.

THE COASTING TRADE.

It has been demonstrated that by much the greater number of our sailors are engaged in the unprotected foreign trade; that therefore, though the mercantile marine be the preserve of

E

Excellence of the north men.

are trained.

the Royal Navy, the game being most abundant outside the Navigation Law, and there increasing the fastest, the Royal Navy has no need for such law by way of game keeper. But the shipowners fighting for their monopoly inch by inch, and always under the colour of the national defences, take their final stand upon the coast, And ask, are foreigners to have our coasting trade, the greatest trade of all, the nursery of our ablest seamen?

The navy, say they, may for the most part be well enough manned by men whipped up at random from any ships, but the ablest of them-the men for the coldest climate the fiercest storm-the greatest danger-must come from our northern coasts. They are the hearts of oak. The Royal Navy would be nothing without them; and their fearless hardihood and firm endurance can be learned only on our bold and dangerous coast.

There is no need to say more; we grant every word of it. There are no such seamen as these North men-no such dangerous coasting as that in which they learn their seamanship; and they must be bred to it. Man and boy, winter How these men and summer, day and night, they must be before the mast, until they have learned to live almost without sleep, and in storm, in cold, and in mist, to brave an iron-bound coast as fearlessly as if it were an open sea. And now pray tell us how soon the foreigners who are to swarm such coasts, and to carry off all our trade, may be expected to have acquired all this power and knowledge, and to have learned English besides, and formed such connexion in our sea-port towns, as to persuade the very owners of English vessels with well-tried crews, to let their own ships lay up idle, and give their cargoes to inexperienced foreigners.

The case is almost too absurd to dwell upon; but for corroboration of what we have already said, we give the evidence of Sir James Stirling, a Post-captain in the Navy, of long experience, who has made the working of our Navigation Laws his study, he says:

R.N., 4583.

"I think there is very good reason to conclude that the foreigner Evidence of could not by any possibility compete with English seamen, or English Captain Sir James Stirling, ships, in that particular branch of trade. It is probably known to the Committee, that the men brought up in that branch of business enter into it very early in life; that it requires habits, the groundwork of which must be laid in very early youth. It requires local knowledge and skill in that particular line to enable them to make a living in it, so much so, that English seamen brought up in other lines would hardly be able to earn their salt in it. It requires great hardihood, great individual energy, and peculiar knowledge of the business itself; and on those grounds it appears to me that it would be very difficult for foreigners to enter into it. There may be here and there a foreigner who is fond of navigating in long, dark winter nights on the English coast, but I do not think that there are many foreigners who would undertake that branch of business. My acquaintance with that branch is merely of a general nature, and I have therefore endeavoured to ascertain what are the opinions of those who have been more conversant with that particular line of employment than I have, and I find that Mr. Straker, a person who has been very much engaged in that branch of business, in answer to Question 2960 of the evidence given before the British Shipping Committee in 1844, says, 'The coasting trade is one of those difficult trades to manage that there are very few foreigners that could manage it; they could not navigate the coast; we understand that better than they do, and that they cannot deprive us of.""

And further, Mr. Young has given it as his opinion, that— "It would in any case be purely visionary for the British shipowner to expect to man his ships with foreign sailors; it being opposed to all the principles of human nature, as well as experience, to imagine that men, except under the pressure of absolute necessity, will in any considerable number abandon their homes and country to enter into employment in another country."

From which it follows, as a matter of course, that foreigners would not in great numbers abandon their homes and country, and come, ships and all, to carry on our coasting trade.

Therefore, even if it be held that these best seamen who through such long years of hardship gain their skill, have only a right to dispose of it in the best market during peace, but that in war, their ships are a kind of Africa, from which we seize slaves to fight; still there is no case made out for the Navigation Laws, for we have it before us, that they in no way add to the numbers or seamanship of those best sailors, and

Evidence of

G. F. Young,

5297.

that the repeal of such laws could in no way take from their numbers or efficiency.

W. Richmond.

G. F. Young. 5217.

W. Richmond. 7978.

J. M'Queen,
Esq. 6238.

THE CREED OF THE OLD SCHOOL.

Your shipowners of the old school, however, "scarce ever move without the Navigation Act;" a well-worn 12th of Charles II. is their constant companion, carried about with such affection as the saints of old carried their precious relics; and never relic was believed to have worked more miracles than this same act. The following may be taken as their confession of faith.

"It appears, from historical records, that the immediate effect of the passing of the Navigation Act of Charles II., was that the shipping engaged in the mercantile navigation of the country was within twenty years, more than doubled. At the commencement of the last century, the mercantile tonnage of the country amounted to 216,000 tons. At the conclusion of the last war, it had reached 2,600,000 tons, and it has now attained the enormous magnitude of 3,800,000 tons, all during the continuance, and under the operation of the Navigation System; and it is to my humble perceptions, as clearly demonstrated, as the solution of any mathematical problem, that it has been chiefly in consequence of the practical operation of those laws, by which, through the immense mercantile tonnage which has been created, the genius of the people inhabiting our maritime districts has been directed toward maritime pursuits; the Royal Navy has been effectually manned, and our naval triumphs have been achieved.

“Rather would I go back to the old law, and be without an export trade, than let Prussia, Russia, France, and America, send their ships here. I am one of those old-fashioned people that think that the exports to foreign nations are a drain rather than a gain to this country, and that the less we send out of the country the better. And I deeply regret to say, that the only remaining thing connected with our whole important and magnificent Colonial system which enabled us to baffle the efforts of the world united against us, is that part of the system under which the produce of those Colonies is obliged to be brought to this country in British ships."

Such pretty nearly, word for word, is the creed of the little sect of protectionists who have taken their stand on British shipping. Divert it of all circumlocution, and here it is.