would accrue from the repeal of the Navigation Laws, either in the West India, or trade generally; and confessed that he had never in the course of his business transactions felt any inconvenience from the restrictions attaching to them.

Mr. Brooks, a merchant engaged in the Australian trade, described the Navigation Laws as upon the whole very beneficial. He explained the smallness of the sum now paid as freight upon wool, from which it was made apparent that no appreciable reduction in the price of the raw material, much less upon the manufactured article, could result from competition; on the contrary, he stated his belief that the occasional influx of shipping would tend to embarrass merchants. Mr. Brooks confirmed the observations made by Mr. Dunbar as to the groundlessness of the complaint of want of shipping to bring home wool and copper ore from Australia. Mr. Gore, a merchant engaged in the trade to New South Wales, briefly stated that he was wholly unaware of having been injured by the Navigation Laws; that they had never interfered with him; that he had never heard of Mr. Samuel Browning, who gave evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons upon this subject, and that that person was unknown as a partner in the house of Boyd, Brothers, and Company, with which he (Mr. Gore) was acquainted.

The evidence of Mr. Parbury and Mr. Charles Enderby contains some interesting particulars respecting the whale fisheries. The latter gentleman, in particular, whose father is considered to have been the originator of the South Sea whale fishery, described the decline and fall of that once lucrative trade, in which many of our bravest seamen and officers were taught to endure toil and meet danger. It is sad to reflect upon the evils which have followed upon legislative meddling on the part of statesmen unacquainted with the real merits of the question, and gleaning their information

from bigoted officials or interested schemers. The Messrs. Enderby have lately become the grantees of the Auckland Islands, upon which it is their intention to establish fishing stations, and from whence they expect to carry on a beneficial trade. But, pending the discussion upon the Navigation Laws, these gentlemen have very prudently deferred giving orders for building the ships they will require in England, under the impression that if foreign ships are admitted to the privileges of British register, they will find it more to their advantage to build the ships they require abroad, and also to navigate them wholly with foreigners. It is not to be expected that Messrs. Enderby, or any other merchants, can afford to be so extremely patriotic as to persist to their own ruin, in the employment of dear ships and expensive sailors, when by so doing they are to reap not the slightest return in the shape of protection.

Mr. Hunter's evidence is very important as regarding the Mauritius trade, and unless that gentleman is labouring under some extraordinary and unaccountable hallucination, the effects of the repeal of the Navigation Laws would be, if not fatal, at least very injurious, to the shipping arrangements of that productive colony. Mr. Gibb and Mr. Scott, merchants connected with China, explained the difficulties with which British shipping in China has now to contend, and demonstrated the feasibility of the Americans obtaining possession of a considerable share of our direct and intercolonial trade, should the proposed relaxation of the law be conceded to them. The uniform testimony borne by these gentlemen, and indeed by all others of every denomination, to the moderate sums paid for freight in British ships, and the sufficient supply of tonnage, forms an important item in favour of the laws as they now exist.

The evidence of Mr. Dowie, and of Mr. Gillespie, will be found rather conflicting. The former gentleman is a Quebec merchant, and is an advocate for protection; the latter

connected with Montreal, and in favour of free trade in shipping, but in very little else. He, in common with his connections in Montreal, has felt the effects of the repeal of the Corn Laws, and now seeks, what he believes can alone help him to carry on his mercantile operations successfully, the inducement of free navigation to Americans and others to ascend the St. Lawrence in greater numbers.

Mr. Gray, a London merchant, gave very clear evidence upon the question in all its bearings. His views and opinions are in entire accordance with those entertained by the conservative party generally. He explained away the fallacious supposition, that the repeal of the Navigation Laws would occasion the slightest benefit to the consumer by cheapening freights; and showed the extreme jeopardy in which our warehousing business would thereby be placed.

Mr. Whitwill and Mr. Richmond betray in their evidence a warmth of feeling which is certainly not unbecoming British seamen who have spent some of their best days in the maritime service. Mr. Richmond's evidence is enriched by a number of elaborate and important tables.

Mr. Mitchell, a merchant and shipowner of Leith, supplied a mass of important facts relative to cheap shipbuilding at the northern ports of the Continent; and also with reference to the relative expenses of sailing British and foreign ships of the same size and description. He objected strongly to the timber duties, and showed the injurious effects of the Reciprocity Treaties as exemplified in the Scotch ports, with which he is more particularly acquainted.

DEDUCTIONS.

UPON a careful review of the case, both for and against the Navigation Laws, and with particular reference to the Bill introduced by Mr. Labouchere for their amendment, I think that upon commercial grounds alone any such alteration would, to say the least of it, be most unwise. The further consideration-National Defence-I have reserved for the concluding division of this work; for I look upon the commercial bearing of the question to be paramount. Well supplied with the sinew of war-money-it might be possible to frame a more expensive but more cumbrous system to feed our Royal Navy, and to protect commerce and the country; but with our monetary resources crippled, it would not be within the bounds of possibility to sustain the increased pressure of war.

England had at one time the great bulk of the commerce of the whole world under her control. She relinquished, by seemingly unimportant instalments, many of those advantages obtained at an enormous cost, and now finds rivals in various quarters, waiting for further concessions, in order to enable them to beat her out of her own field. Bad legislation wrested from our hands the whale fishery; Reciprocity laws have deprived us of a lucrative trade in the Baltic; and our traffic with the United States of America, though great upon paper, in reality amounts to

the merest trifle. But to descend from generalities to particulars, let us see how Mr. Labouchere's Bill for the repeal of the Navigation Laws would operate upon our

TRADE WITH INDIA.

The direct trade with our Indian possessions forms the most valuable source of our foreign commerce. Since the termination of the East India Company's Charter, in 1834-5, the tonnage trading to Calcutta alone has increased from about 153,000 to 320,000 tons, while foreign shipping does not amount to more than 34,000 tons in all; and I think, although the restrictions of the double port duties levied upon foreign ships may have operated to prevent the spread of foreign trade to some extent, yet there cannot be a reasonable doubt that the third rule in the Navigation. Act has been the actual cause of the paucity of their trade with this important possession. England being the great consuming country of the produce of her Eastern territories, it has not been worth the while of foreigners to trade thither, because the goods they might have brought home would not have been admitted for consumption in this country; but if the restriction were to be withdrawn, abundant and most conclusive evidence has been adduced to show the probability, almost amounting to a certainty, of British ships being ultimately beaten out of the trade. There is also another most weighty consideration not attaching solely to the East India trade, but applying with equal force to our colonies generally. The constant presence of English ships and British officers and seamen at our colonial possessions, tends to keep in mind and to strengthen the tie by which our expatriated countrymen, the colonists, are bound to us. If, therefore, the colonial carrying trade were to be diverted from its present channels, those associations would be lessened in force; and proportionally as this reduction of British shipping took place, the feeling