Chapter XIII
Scarcity of shipping at the commencement of the Crimean War—Repeal of the manning clause—Government refuses to issue letters of marque—Great increase of ship-building and high freights—Reaction—Transport service (notes)—Depression in the United States—The Great Republic—Disastrous years of 1857 and 1858—Many banks stop payment—Shipowners’ Society still attribute their disasters to the repeal of the Navigation Laws—Meeting of Shipowners, December 15th, 1858—Their proposal—Resolution moved by Mr. G. F. Young—Mr. Lindsay moves for Committee of Inquiry—Well-drawn petition of the Shipowners—Foreign governments and the amount of their reciprocity—French trade—Spanish trade—Portuguese trade—Belgian trade—British ships in French and Spanish ports—Coasting trade—Non-reciprocating countries—Presumed advantage of the Panama route—Question discussed—Was the depression due to the withdrawal of Protection?—Board of Trade report and returns—English and foreign tonnage—Sailing vessels and steamers in home and foreign trades—Shipping accounts, 1858—Foreign and Colonial trades—Probable causes of the depression in England and America—American jealousy and competition—Inconclusive reasoning of Board of Trade—Government proposes to remove burdens on British shipping—Compulsory reciprocity no longer obtainable—Real value of the Coasting trade of the United States—Magnanimity of England in throwing open her Coasting trade unconditionally not appreciated by the Americans.
[Sidenote: Scarcity of shipping at the commencement of the Crimean War.]
[Sidenote: Repeal of the manning clause.]
The spring of 1852 ushered in the dawn of brighter days for the disconsolate and “ruined” British shipowner: he could then, at least, obtain, with prudent management, a moderate remuneration on his capital, but there was no actual scarcity of tonnage until 1854. Freights, as we have seen, had no doubt materially risen in the interval, because we had hesitated to increase the number of our ships, while foreigners, with the exception of the Americans, had refrained from rushing into the trade we had opened for them to the alarming extent anticipated. Consequently, there was, hardly, tonnage enough to meet the requirements of commerce created by the abolition of our Navigation Laws, still less to satisfy the sudden demands which arose when, in March 1854, England and France declared war against Russia. Suitable vessels could not then be found in sufficient numbers to send forth, with the requisite despatch, the allied armies and their supplies to the scene of action; nor, I must add, could British seamen be obtained to man with expedition our ships of war. Government, therefore, threw open our Coasting trade, and repealed the once famous manning clause, which, however, neither increased, on the average, the number of foreigners we had hitherto been allowed to employ in our ships, nor deteriorated the number and quality of British seamen, though aiding, at the time, the more expeditious equipment of our fleets.
[Sidenote: Government refuses to issue letters of marque.]
But a much more important step affecting the interests of maritime commerce and the progress of mankind was taken in 1854. On the declaration of that unfortunate war, her Majesty in Council, in order to preserve the commerce of neutrals from unnecessary obstruction, waived the belligerent rights appertaining to the Crown by the law of nations, by declining to issue letters of marque or by confiscating neutral property on board of Russian ships, or neutral ships with Russian property on board, provided such goods were not contraband of war. She, however, reserved the right of blockade; a reservation by which I may remind my readers, her Majesty’s subjects were, commercially, by far the greatest sufferers.[170]
[Sidenote: Great increase of ship-building and high freights.]
The extraordinary demands for shipping on the outbreak of war led to their production with still more extraordinary rapidity, and furnished, at the same time, the most convincing proofs that we had within ourselves resources far beyond all other nations for meeting the emergency of war, without the necessity of keeping up a large and expensive standing navy, especially as such a navy must always be in a state of transition. The high rates of freight then offered for transports, ranging from 20_s._ to 30_s._ a register-ton per month for sailing vessels, and from 35_s._ to 65_s._ per gross register-ton for steamers,[171] produced not merely all the vessels required for our own transport service,[172] but, also, for the wants of France, whose armies without our aid could not have been conveyed to the Crimea.[173]
With such rapidity, indeed, were sailing ships produced, that the supply not merely soon overtook, but greatly exceeded the demand; the consequence, of course, being a great reaction in prices. Steam-vessels, in the construction of which there had been a large amount of speculation, likewise felt ere long the depression, and before the close of 1855 the rates for these had fallen to 40_s._ and 35_s._ per ton per month: the surplus steamers, however, found their way, in the end, to the advantage of all concerned, into trades formerly carried on by sailing vessels.
[Sidenote: Reaction.]
Although the Russian war had created at first an unusual demand for vessels of every description, and had given an extraordinary impulse to ship-building, prudent shipowners soon foresaw that so sudden a rush of prosperity could not long endure without as sudden a revulsion, and “that it was fallacious to suppose that the same demand would continue even while the war lasted.”[174]
[Sidenote: Transport service.]
Nor was it less apparent that the number of vessels engaged by Government exceeded what was actually required for the prosecution of the war, and that, if hostilities continued, the number would be materially reduced as soon as something like an organised system had been established.[175] Such, indeed, proved to be the case; for, when a temporary Transport Board was appointed, various vessels were discharged, and the rates of freight for sailing ships, which had averaged 1_l._ 7_s._ 7_d._ per ton, fell to 15_s._ 10_d._ per ton. Indeed, there can be no doubt that, had there been a well-organised board in operation when war was declared, the sea transport service, which cost this country 15,000,000_l._ sterling during that brief and unhappy war, would have been far more efficiently conducted for two-thirds that amount.[176]
Great and unusual depression naturally followed the cessation of hostilities. Although wars and famines, however unfortunate and disastrous to the nation, afford rich sources of emolument to shipowners, the adverse reaction is frequently sudden and severe. Before the close of 1857, our markets had become so overstocked with vessels of every kind, that it was hardly possible to obtain for them, in any branch of trade, remunerative freights.
[Sidenote: Depression in the United States.]
Nor were the Shipowners of the United States in any better position. They, too, had overbuilt themselves. Their exclusive Californian trade had offered so many inducements, and, in fact, such large fortunes had been realised out of it, that many more vessels than could be profitably employed were built in the Northern States between 1849 and 1854. Some of these were placed on the trade with Europe. A very large amount of capital had been invested in the famous ships thus employed; but even these, before the close of 1854, were becoming unremunerative, owing to the competition of British iron screw-steamers, which I shall very fully describe hereafter, as they were the main weapon, whereby we bade defiance to the competition of all other nations, in the general ocean race then just commenced. As these splendid iron ships soon commanded all the passenger traffic, and, at the same time, secured the preference by shippers of high-classed and valuable goods, which could afford to pay the heaviest rates of freight, many of the American clippers were obliged to seek employment elsewhere. As the Great Republic[177] was one of the finest, as well as the largest of these famous vessels—indeed, she was the largest sailing vessel in the world, I furnish an illustration of her at page 360. But though this vessel and a large number of the American liners found temporary employment in the French transport service, they on the cessation of hostilities were obliged to seek employment elsewhere; and, so great was the depression, that American shipowners, in 1857, suffered quite as much as did the generality of those persons who owned sailing vessels in Great Britain. Indeed, on the 1st January of the following year, there was not a single vessel building on the stocks of New York for the mercantile marine, and, for many months previously, the shipbuilders throughout the United States had been at a complete standstill.
[Sidenote: Disastrous years of 1857 and 1858.]
But all branches of trade throughout the world were now suffering to a greater or less extent, and 1857 and 1858 will long be remembered as gloomy years. The outbreak of the mutiny in India, the consequent suspension of remittances from the East, and the demand for specie, together with an uninterrupted outflow of the precious metals to the Continent, led to an alarming drain of the bullion in the Bank of England.
[Sidenote: Many banks stop payment.]
After a long struggle to maintain cash payments without pressing unduly on the mercantile classes, the rate of discount rose so high as to render necessary, for the second time, the temporary suspension of the Bank Charter Act of 1844. The effect of this twice-repeated measure was disastrous to many merchants engaged in the trade of the United States; not a few of whom were obliged to suspend payment. The stoppage of the Northumberland and Durham district Bank, with liabilities amounting to 3,000,000_l._ sterling; as well as those of the Western Bank of Scotland, which had been engaged in wild speculations in the United States and elsewhere, with liabilities to the extent of 8,911,000_l._, and that also of the City of Glasgow Bank for 6,000,000_l._, tended materially to increase the depression.
The Liverpool Borough Bank, which had been previously drained by the insolvency of various mushroom speculators in ships, failed for 5,000,000_l._, and the Wolverhampton Bank followed for 1,000,000_l._ Many private mercantile firms, also, whose liabilities alone were variously computed at a sum not far short of 20,000,000_l._, were, at the same period, obliged to suspend payment.
[Sidenote: Shipowners’ Society still attribute their failures to the repeal of the Navigation Laws.]
Through such overwhelming disasters, it was hardly to be expected that the Shipowners of Great Britain would pass unscathed, especially after the prosperity they had enjoyed during the Crimean War. Nevertheless, the General Shipowners’ Society of London, in the report of the annual meeting, held on the 25th June, 1858, does not appear to have attributed the cause of the depression under which Shipowners were suffering to the revulsion in commercial affairs. On the contrary, they still held the strange delusion, that, so far as they were concerned, the repeal of our Navigation Laws, together with the absence of reciprocity on the part of foreign nations, were the main causes of suffering: curiously enough, too, the report attributed some portion of their misfortunes to the Merchant Shipping Act of 1854, and the Passenger Act of the following year.
Having thus, as they conceived, ample grounds for an appeal to Government, they, like the frogs before Jupiter, made an effort to induce Lord Derby, their great friend and patron, and then Prime Minister, to relieve their depressed fortunes.
Nor was this agitation for relief confined to the Shipowners’ Society of London. Aberdeen, Dundee, Newcastle, Shields, and various other ports on the north-east coast, where, perhaps, foreign competition was most severely felt, sent in petitions to Parliament; while numerous pamphlets appeared in which the ostensible cause of the Shipowners’ suffering was duly set forth. We had the old stories retold of the huge Yankee ships eating up all their profits in the Indian trade, told, too, at a time when American shipowners were suffering quite as much as themselves. Nor did the authors of these pamphlets fail to remind us of our old hobgoblins, the Swedes and Norwegians, who, faring sumptuously on “black-bread,” were carrying all before them in the Northern Seas and in the Mediterranean, to the irretrievable ruin of the hapless British shipowners.
Such tales of sorrow from the outports, including Liverpool, Glasgow, and those on the west coast of Scotland, where not a few of these “ruined” men had realised handsome fortunes during the Crimean War, made a deep impression on the bosom of the General Shipowners’ Society of London, whose hearts had been softened by their own “losses.”[178] They, too, as we have seen, entirely coincided with their brethren of the outports as to the cause of the depression: and, while it was resolved to continue pouring in the petitions to Parliament expressive of their views and praying for relief, and, also, to stir up an agitation through the medium of pamphlets and that portion of the press which entertained similar opinions to their own, it was likewise considered desirable to make a combined effort by the means of a public meeting to be held in London, so that their sufferings and their wrongs might become generally known among all classes of the community.
[Sidenote: Meeting of Shipowners, December 15th, 1858.]
[Sidenote: Their proposal.]
This meeting was consequently held at the London Tavern on the 15th December, 1858. The chairman, however, Mr. Duncan Dunbar, then one of the greatest individual shipowners in the kingdom, in opening the proceedings, declared that no idea was entertained of asking for a reversal of recent legislation, the delegates from the outports having previously come to the resolution to limit their demands to the consideration of the question of reciprocity, praying the Crown at the same time to put in motion the clauses of the Navigation Repeal Act, which authorize the Queen to retaliate on such foreign Powers as should refuse reciprocity, and to place the ships of these countries on, as nearly as possible, the same footing as that in which British ships are placed in the ports of such country.
Volumes of statistics were brought forward by Mr. George Frederick Young, who appeared as chief spokesman, and, as heretofore, the undaunted champion of his party, to show that, though British shipping had increased since the repeal of the Navigation Laws, foreign vessels frequenting our ports had done so in a far greater proportion. Mr. Young repudiated the idea—the “delusion”—that consumers were benefited by the reduction of freight to the full extent of the difference which must exist between the sum paid to the English carrier and the rate of freight paid to his foreign competitor; and concluded his remarks by a resolution to the effect that the existing “most deplorable and ruinous depression” had been partly caused, and was greatly aggravated by the unequal competition to which British shipping was exposed by the repeal of the Navigation Laws. Other speakers from Liverpool, Glasgow, Hull, Shields, Montrose, Dundee, and Aberdeen described the state of affairs in their several localities; and, finally, a petition to the Queen was agreed on, recapitulating the progress of legislation on the Navigation Laws, and alleging that the apprehensions entertained when that measure passed were fully verified by the result.
Similar meetings were held in various other parts of the country, including Tynemouth and North Shields, which I then represented, and a wish was intimated to me from those places that I should bring the state of the shipping interest under the notice of the House of Commons.
Although I entertained very different views to those expressed at these meetings, I felt, nevertheless, that our Shipowners had many just causes for complaint; and that, though it was now alike beyond the power of the Legislature to control the rising destinies of other and rival nations, or even confine their mercantile marine within the narrow limits prescribed by our jealousy, so as to remove all dread of foreign competition, there were yet many burdens from which they ought to be relieved, and many restrictions, to which they would never have been subjected by the State, had it not been considered that they derived peculiar benefits from the laws so long enforced for their supposed advantage.
[Sidenote: Mr. Lindsay moves for a Committee of Inquiry.]
Accordingly I moved for a committee “to inquire into the operation of certain burdens specially affecting merchant shipping,” which after an interesting debate the House was pleased to grant.
But the committee had scarcely assembled when Parliament was dissolved, and it was not until a new Parliament had met, that the subject was again brought under the notice of the House of Commons. In the meantime the Shipowners’ Society of London had urged Government, in a letter of the 22nd February, 1859, for a reply to their petition praying the Queen to exercise the powers vested in her, and to put in force the retaliatory clause of the Repeal Act of 1849.
[Sidenote: Well-drawn petition of the Shipowners.]
This petition, I must state, was short and exceedingly well drawn. It gracefully avoided all matters of detail and controversy; the petitioners approached her Majesty, “animated by the most profound sentiments of loyalty,” for which, indeed, I must add the Shipowners of the United Kingdom have ever been conspicuous; they represented “the ruinous state of depression” into which their interest was “plunged,” and they “implored” her Majesty “to be pleased to extend to that important national interest such assistance and relief as her Majesty was enabled to afford to it through the exercise of those powers which were vested by law in the Crown.”[179]
The petition was signed by the chairman, Mr. Dunbar, as representative of the meeting; by Mr. George Marshall, as chairman of the General Shipowners’ Society; and by deputies from most of the leading seaports of the kingdom. From the weight and high character of the persons who had signed this petition, Government could not do otherwise than attach considerable importance to it, however much they may have differed from the mode of relief the memorialists prayed Her Majesty to adopt. Indeed, the time had arrived when it was desirable for Government to review the effects really produced by the repeal of the Navigation Laws, and to inquire into the burdens and restrictions to which British Shipowners were still subjected. Nor was it less necessary to direct attention to the state of foreign legislation with regard to British shipping, since the removal by us of all restrictions on the vessels of foreign nations engaged in the trade of the United Kingdom and her possessions. As the exposition of the bearing of these questions, necessarily, furnishes a complete insight into the Merchant Shipping of the country at that period, it is my duty to furnish the report of Government, if not in detail, at least at greater length than I might otherwise have done.
[Sidenote: Foreign Governments and the amount of their reciprocity.]
In this carefully considered document, it was, authoritatively, announced that France, Spain, and Portugal, where partial restrictions on the ships of other nations were still maintained, were the only foreign Governments which had not extended complete reciprocity to British ships so far as regards the foreign oversea carrying trade.
[Sidenote: French trade.]
In France, under the treaty of 1826, British and French ships were on a footing of equality in the direct trade between the two countries; but, in the indirect foreign trade, in the colonial, and in the coasting trades of that country, British ships still laboured under serious disabilities.
[Sidenote: Spanish trade.]
In Spain, British ships were placed on a footing of equality with Spanish ships as regards all port and navigation dues, by a Royal order of September, 1852, having been, previously, subjected to heavy differential charges. But an excess of 20 per cent. was still levied on goods imported in foreign ships in the indirect trade, and, to this extent, British navigation was still unfairly treated there.
[Sidenote: Portuguese trade.]
[Sidenote: Belgian trade.]
Restrictions were also maintained in Portugal on foreign ships in the indirect and colonial trades. In addition to the case of the above three countries, it must be also mentioned that, in Belgium, there was still charged a duty of 1_s._ 1¼_d._ per 100 kilogrammes on salt, when imported in British vessels, while in Belgian and Sardinian ships this article was free. But, in spite of this disability, the total tonnage of the two countries, respectively, entered and cleared, with cargoes or in ballast, in the direct trade, was, in 1857, only 143,341 tons, while the British shipping employed in it that year amounted to upwards of 364,000 tons.
[Sidenote: British ships in French and Spanish ports.]
It was admitted that the pursuance of this restrictive policy would fully justify retaliation, more especially in the case of France and Spain; but the results exhibited in the appended Return[180] show that the trade transferable, by any such measure, from foreign to British ships was comparatively so small, as neither to operate as an inducement to the countries in question to relax their present system, nor to afford any material addition to British shipping. Another Return,[181] also, showing the total amount of British tonnage which entered and cleared in French and Spanish ports respectively in the indirect trade in each year, from 1853 to 1857 inclusive, proves, to how small an extent, the shipping of these countries engaged in the indirect trade with the United Kingdom; the result being, that, in spite of the unequal restrictions, there was a larger amount of British tonnage employed in the indirect trade with those countries, than of the tonnage of such countries, respectively, in the indirect trade of the United Kingdom, to which they were admitted on equal terms with British ships. Further, the accounts accessible in Portugal, however imperfect, were sufficient to afford conclusive evidence that the British flag in no respect suffered from the competition of that country. Indeed, the total tonnage of Portuguese ships which entered and cleared in the direct and indirect trades of the United Kingdom in 1857 was only 56,606 tons, whereas the British tonnage employed in the direct trade alone with Portugal amounted in the same year to 234,423 tons.
If a comparison were made between the relative employment of British and French tonnage in the whole trade of France and the United Kingdom, respectively, direct as well as indirect, it would appear that, in 1857, the total amount of British tonnage in French ports was equal to two-thirds of the French tonnage in its own ports; while, in the same year, the total French tonnage in British ports was, of course, in a very small proportion, indeed, to the amount of British tonnage in British ports, and considerably less than one-half of the amount of British tonnage at French ports. Similar results were shown in the case of Spain.
[Sidenote: Coasting trade.]
Previously to the opening[182] of the coasting trade of the United Kingdom, British ships were admitted on equal terms with the National ships in the coasting trades of Hanover, Belgium, Oldenburg, Mecklenburg, Holland, Turkey (except foreign steamers for the Bosphorus), Monte Video, Paraguay, New Granada, and China. But, in consequence of that measure, the coasting trades of Norway and Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Sardinia, and Tuscany were, likewise, opened to British ships on the same footing as national vessels.
[Sidenote: Non-reciprocating countries.]
The coasting trade, however, of the following countries was still withheld from British ships, and reserved for the national flag, viz., France, Papal States, Two Sicilies, Russia, Austria, Spain, Portugal, Greece, United States of America (as regards goods), Mexico, Peru, Chili, Brazil, La Plata, Venezuela, and Hayti.
As in the case of foreign trade, the Queen, in the exercise of the powers vested in her, might, doubtless, with perfect justice, exclude the shipping of these countries from the coasting trade of the United Kingdom; but, in this branch of trade, even more than in that of foreign trade, such a measure would have proved almost wholly valueless to the shipping of the United Kingdom.
The tonnage of each foreign State, engaged in the coasting trade of the United Kingdom in the year 1857 was absolutely insignificant, and, for all practical purposes, is still virtually monopolised by British shipping.[183] It will be observed that, both in the foreign and in the coasting trades, the countries which have reciprocated the liberal policy of the United Kingdom are those which have most benefited by the repeal of our restrictions, while the countries which continue to maintain unequal restrictions on British ships, and against which, alone, any measure of retaliation could have been directed, are those which have derived little or no advantage from the opening of British trade.
There is one other case noticed in the Board of Trade Report to which it is desirable again to advert, in considering the question of reciprocity, as this case has been made the subject of frequent complaint, viz., the exclusion of British ships from the trade between the Atlantic and Pacific ports of the United States of America.
The Government of that country has reserved, as we have seen, this trade to the national flag. In this report it is stated that they have done so, on the ground of its being a Coasting trade; and that they are supported, by analogy, in several other countries under similar geographical conditions: for example, the trade between the Atlantic and the Mediterranean coasts of France and Spain.[184] And, further, that, with reference to the technical difficulty, it would not be competent for the Queen, under the retaliatory clauses alluded to, to exclude United States ships from any branch of British trade, except the coasting trade of the United Kingdom; and it had been shown that the share of this trade enjoyed by the United States was so small, that such a measure could neither injure the United States nor benefit British shipping.
[Sidenote: Presumed advantage of the Panama route.]
It was thought, moreover, that the value of this branch of trade on the American coast had been greatly overrated. In the first place, it was obvious that every year would diminish its importance if the surmise was correct that the bulk of the trade between the two sea-boards of the North American continent would shortly be carried across the Isthmus of Panama, and would thus, be placed at the disposal of British ships.[185]
[Sidenote: Question discussed.]
Whatever opinion may be formed concerning the validity of this comparison, the Board of Trade assured the Shipowners that the Queen’s Government had held on this question, that, although the inter-Oceanic trade of the United States might, in a strictly technical sense, be properly defined as a Coasting trade,[186] yet, on the broad ground of international equity, it should rather be regarded as analogous to the trade between the United Kingdom and her distant dependencies, and that British ships were, therefore, fairly entitled to participate in the former, in return for the complete assimilation of the United States to the British flag in the latter field of profitable employment.
It should, however, be remarked that, with reference to this question, the reservation of the coasting trade to national vessels does not appear to apply to the carriage of passengers; so that, as far as can be ascertained, foreign vessels lie under no disability in the transport of passengers coastwise from port to port of the United States of America.
[Sidenote: Was the depression due to the withdrawal of Protection?]
It remains now to inquire how far such depression can be, in truth, attributed to the withdrawal of protection from British shipping, and to the consequent unrestricted competition with the shipping of other countries; for it is, only, by an examination into general results, that any satisfactory conclusions upon this question can be arrived at.
Now it is inseparable from the nature of all great changes of system that particular interests must, occasionally, suffer from causes which contribute to the general good; it is, therefore, possible in this instance, that particular trades may have been injuriously affected, while the general interests of British shipping have been promoted.
The statistical accounts of British tonnage employed at any given time afford a very imperfect test of the actual condition of the shipping interest, the more so as shipping is often employed with very inadequate remuneration; but this remark does not apply to periods of time extending over several years; hence, the shipping returns of the nine years since the repeal of the Navigation Laws may be fairly held to supply sufficient evidence of the influence that measure has exercised on the permanent interests of British shipping.
[Sidenote: Board of Trade report and returns.]
Consequently a table was prepared by the Board of Trade to show the total aggregate tonnage of British and foreign vessels, respectively, entered and cleared, with cargoes and in ballast, at ports of the United Kingdom in each year from 1842 to 1857 inclusive, a period comprehending eight years before and eight years after the repeal of the Navigation Laws.[187]
[Sidenote: English and foreign tonnage.]
It will be seen from this table that during the first period British tonnage advanced from 6,699,995 tons in 1842 to 9,669,638 in 1849, being an increase of 2,969,643 tons.
In the second period it advanced from 9,442,544 tons in 1850 to 13,694,107 tons in 1857, being an increase of 4,251,563 tons.
In the same period the progress in the employment of foreign tonnage in the trade of the United Kingdom has been from 1842, 2,457,479 tons; to 1849, 4,334,750 tons; increase 1,877,271 tons. From 1850, 5,062,520 tons; to 1857, 9,484,685 tons; increase 4,422,165 tons.
It must be borne in mind, that these tables only show the state of the trades before the repeal was completely carried out for British and, partially so, to foreign ships, and that, in order to estimate the full effect of the measure on British shipping, it is necessary, also, to show the number of British ships built and registered during the respective periods.[188]
There are two features in these returns deserving special notice.
1st. According to the opinion of the Board of Trade this account shows a larger relative increase than that of the previous returns relating to the employment of tonnage, while it, at the same time, confirms the hypothesis that many British ships now find an employment in the indirect trade of foreign countries, which, of course, does not appear in the accounts rendered in England. Indeed, during the period of protection, there was an actual decrease in the amount of tonnage built and registered, while a large increase took place in the second period of open competition.
[Sidenote: Sailing vessels and steamers in home and foreign trades.]
The next account shows the number and tonnage of registered sailing and steam vessels of the United Kingdom employed in the home and foreign trades respectively (excluding repeated voyages).[189]
On this return it is to be observed that there has been a greater progress in the tonnage engaged in the foreign trade, where competition exists, than in the home trade, where, although that competition is also allowed by law, it is only carried out to a trifling extent in practice, the latter having only advanced from 719,815 to 860,406 tons, while the former has advanced from 2,089,037 to 3,168,105.
It now remains to consider the shipping accounts for 1858.[190] These exhibited a decline as compared with those of the preceding years, and to this extent gave indications of the depression of which Shipowners so much complained.
The accounts of December 1858 and January 1859,[191] if taken separately, showed that a favourable reaction had already commenced, and that British shipping was, in the spring of 1859, recovering from the depression it had suffered; and this fact was, naturally, much dwelt on by the champions of repeal, confirming, as it was supposed to do, the opinion expressed on the temporary and accidental character of this depression. This account, also, illustrates the state of the merchant shipping of England at a period preceding a continental war.
[Sidenote: Foreign and Colonial trades.]
It was pointed out with a certain degree of triumph, that these three accounts, when taken together, afforded satisfactory evidence that, down to the close of 1857, the progress of British shipping had suffered no check nor reverse, and that the great development of the foreign tonnage, employed in the trade of the United Kingdom during recent years, was only partly attributable to the repeal of the Navigation Laws in 1849, the progress of foreign shipping in British trade having been nearly as rapid in the period of eight years prior to 1850 in consequence of the increasing requirements of British commerce.
The reason of the decline exhibited in the accounts for 1858 must, therefore, be sought from other causes; and, probably, the commercial history of the previous few years is amply sufficient to afford the required explanation; moreover, any loss we might, thereby, have sustained was more than counterbalanced by the extraordinary development of the foreign and colonial trades of the United Kingdom during the ten years preceding 1859.[192]
[Sidenote: Probable causes of the depression in England and America.]
The commercial crisis, however, which occurred on both sides of the Atlantic, at the close of 1857, necessarily operated injuriously upon the progress of English trade, and consequently on English shipping. It must be also remembered that the Russian war, and, subsequently, the disturbances in British India, created a large and abnormal demand for tonnage, which ceased with the termination of those temporary causes; and, as tonnage employed exclusively in the Government transport service, does not appear in the preceding account, it is probable that, during 1858, there was a still greater check to the demand for tonnage than is therein expressed.
The temporary depression was, however, by no means confined to the shipping of the United Kingdom, as we have shown; similar symptoms had manifested themselves in other maritime countries.[193]
[Sidenote: American jealousy and competition.]
Although the competition of British shipping in steam navigation had been the subject of loud complaint in America, it will be found that the decline in the building and employment of British shipping in 1858 was not so great in proportion as that which was indicated by the annual accounts of the imports and exports of the United Kingdom for that year.[194]
[Sidenote: Inconclusive reasoning of Board of Trade.]
The Board of Trade argued, but very inconclusively, with reference to the free supply of foreign tonnage for the requirements of British trade, that if, during the exceptional circumstances of recent years, British commerce had been obliged to depend on British shipping alone to the extent which was necessary before 1850, an artificial stimulus would have been given to the demand for British ships, which could not have been sustained, and that, therefore, the whole weight of the reaction would have fallen upon British shipping, instead of being diffused, as was the case, among the whole tonnage employed in British trade.
Upon this preposterous conclusion no argument can be raised: as well might it be said that a man ought not to be individually prosperous, lest the revulsion of adversity should be too great for him, especially if not diffused among his rivals in trade. At last, Government arrived at this conclusion about the condition of merchant shipping, that they could not attribute the actual depression of British shipping to the effects of increased competition with foreign shipping consequent on the repeal of the Navigation Laws; but that, considering the importance of the shipping interest in a national point of view, it was desirable that all partial and unequal burdens to which the shipping interest was still subject should be removed as soon as practicable. In this spirit, the repeal of the differential duty on foreign timber as the raw material of shipbuilding, and the abolition of passing tolls and other local burdens, which were still maintained without any equivalent in the shape of services rendered to shipping, were questions which deserved immediate consideration.
[Sidenote: Compulsory reciprocity no longer obtainable.]
[Sidenote: Government proposes to remove burdens on British shipping.]
It cannot be denied that this very elaborate exposition of the state of merchant shipping completely cut the ground from under those Shipowners who still advocated Protection. They, however, went on cavilling “for a principle,” and contended that the Spanish and French trades for instance might become valuable to the British Shipowner if the Governments of France and Spain would adopt the liberal policy pursued by England towards them in this respect; whereas, under the existing restrictions, British Shipowners lost many valuable charters, and were prevented from completing voyages otherwise profitable. The Shipowners refused to allow the validity of the argument, that the British Shipowner carried on a greater business in the indirect trade with France and Spain than the French and Spanish Shipowners in the indirect trade with England, and that, therefore, retaliation would neither operate as an inducement to those countries to relax their system, nor afford material addition to the field of employment of British shipping. They contended that the commercial navy of this country was larger than that of France and Spain combined; that, therefore, the Shipowners of these countries had not the means of engaging in an oversea trade to the same extent as the Shipowners of England, and that, consequently, the superior energy of the British Shipowner ought not be pleaded as a barrier to an act of justice. Nor did it, in their opinion, follow that, because the engagement of the Spaniard and Frenchman in the indirect trade with England was not larger and more active than that of the British Shipowners in the indirect trade with France and Spain, there was no inducement to the Governments of those countries to relax the present restrictive system, and no prospect, in the event of such relaxation, of increased employment of British shipping in the direction indicated. In fact, the London Shipowners thought the argument was entirely the other way, and would not be convinced to the contrary, whatever relative prosperity they might enjoy.
[Sidenote: Real value of the Coasting trade of the United States.]
With regard to the Coasting trade, all parties were agreed that the Americans acted selfishly in denying to England the same reciprocity for the coasting trade, which she had unrestrictedly conceded to them. The Shipowners, however, by no means acquiesced in the opinion given by the Board of Trade, that “the value of the American Coasting trade had been greatly overestimated.” They said, and with reason, that it was an error to imagine that because San Francisco formed the limit of the United States’ coasting trade, the entrances and clearances at that port exhibited the entire amount of the trade along the American seaboard.
[Sidenote: Magnanimity of England in throwing open her Coasting trade unconditionally not appreciated by the Americans.]
It was, indeed, an evasion to say that the American coasting trade, meaning the western coast only, never afforded employment to more than 200,000 tons of American ships. The records of these pages afford proofs to the contrary. All mention of the trade between the ports of the Northern States and those of the Gulf of Mexico is, for some reason or other, suppressed. All the vast and lucrative carrying trade between New York and Boston, New Orleans and Mobile and Charleston, is studiously kept out of view; trades far more valuable than that of San Francisco and of the whole western coast, collectively. The argument, therefore, set up by the Board of Trade, “that the participation of the Californian trade, however desirable, cannot be regarded as a circumstance which could exercise any important influence on the shipping interests of Great Britain,” was altogether unsatisfactory. Magnanimous as it was of the English Legislature to throw open the foreign, as well as the colonial commerce and navigation of the Empire, and the coasting trade afterwards, without imposing any previous conditions, such a liberal policy has, evidently, been unappreciated by the Americans, who seem resolved to monopolise all advantages resulting from their geographical position.
FOOTNOTES:
[170] See ante, vol. ii. note, page 312.
[171] Timber freights from Quebec rose from 30_s._ per load, the ordinary rate, to 55_s._ Coal freights to Constantinople advanced from 20_l._ to 70_l._ per keel of twenty-one tons four cwt.; and freights from India, which had previously ranged from 50_s._ to 80_s._, ran up as high as 180_s._ per ton.
[172] The new law of admeasurement, which came into operation on the 1st of January, 1855, while it produced great improvement in the models of our ships, had the important advantage of creating very little difference in the gross tonnage of the Empire, on which so many dues are levied, and thus rendered unnecessary any change in the long-established scale of charges, which in many cases would have been altogether impracticable. For instance, 1100 vessels, large and small, which were taken promiscuously, measuring under the old law 248,842 tons, were found under the new law to measure 231,277 tons, showing a difference of only 7 per cent.
[173] My own firm had somewhere about 100,000 tons of shipping (a large proportion of which consisted of steam-vessels) under our management engaged as transports for the Government of France. It was then that I for the first time met the Emperor. I had occasion to visit Marseilles with regard to the fitting of some of these ships, and, on my return to Paris, I had an interview with Marshal Vaillant, the then Minister of War, which led to an audience with his Majesty. I daresay the Emperor had sent for me to confirm, or otherwise, certain calculations of his own which he had been making as to the number of ships requisite to transport a given number of men, and so forth; for, after a long audience, I remarked at parting, “Sire, you had no need to send for me, as you know more about ships and their capacity than I do.” The fact is, he was thoroughly master of the subject, and could tell me to a man the number of troops to be placed on a given ship, and to an animal the number of horses a ship of 1000 tons could or should carry from Marseilles to Kaemish; the space required for each, and for their fodder and water, the height of deck requisite to allow for the toss of the head; and the important, but not generally known fact, that though a horse must feel its own weight on its own legs at sea, it must also be slung, for if it lie down the chances are that it will not be able to get up again. At least, if the Emperor did not know all about these things when I entered the Tuileries, he was the most apt scholar I ever met, for he knew all about them before I left. I mention this circumstance because this audience, subsequently, enabled me to render some assistance in a matter of far greater importance to both France and England and to mankind, to which I shall hereafter refer, viz.: the change in the French navigation laws, which is more to the purpose of this work, than the transport of troops and horses to a field of slaughter.
[174] Annual circular of W. S. Lindsay & Co. for 1854, quoted in Tooke’s ‘History of Prices.’
[175] When war was declared, the greater portion of the work of engaging transports devolved upon the Civil Lord of the Admiralty; and though, perhaps, few men could have been found more competent for the duty than Captain (now Admiral Sir Alexander) Milne, who then filled that office, it was impossible for any one man to get through the work he was expected to do, especially with the system, or rather want of all system, which then prevailed. From my knowledge of what took place, I have no hesitation in saying that everything relating to the engagement of the requisite number of ships, and to the transport of troops and stores to the Crimea, was a huge chaos; and I fear some serious disaster would have ensued had the pluck and genius of the nation not come to the rescue in the mode of conducting affairs at home, as well as, so far as I could ascertain, in the field of action abroad. At home, there was certainly no organisation, so far as regards the transport service, or, at best, it was of the most imperfect description. Stores were shipped without bills of parcels, and, frequently, without bills of lading; and the current stories, at the time, of the shipload of boots and shoes which lay at anchor in Balaclava harbour unknown to our authorities, while the troops were bootless and shoeless; of the tops of mess tables sent to the Crimea without the legs, and of the guns without carriages, were no exaggerations. The Admiralty, it is true, were responsible for the transport of the troops; but the Civil Lord, by whom it was represented, had no control over shipments by either the Ordnance or by the Medical Departments. A case came under my own knowledge which would be ludicrous were it not melancholy. One day, when I had occasion to visit a transport which lay at Woolwich, two gentlemen, when I stepped on board, were wrangling over the main hatchway. One was from the Ordnance, the other was evidently in charge of certain medical stores which, with piles of shot and shell, lay on the wharf ready for shipment. The shot and shell representative insisted on having his goods in the centre compartment of the vessel because they were heavy; the other gentleman was as determined to have his physic stored in the same division of the ship because it was perishable. Each would have his own way; and, as neither would give way, after an hour’s altercation, they, to the amazement and horror of the mate of the ship, came to a compromise by ordering the stores of both departments to be stowed in this one favourite position! It is needless to state the result; I may just, however, say that when the ship arrived at the Crimea it was found that the shot and shell had played sad havoc with the medicine cases, and that the floor of her centre compartment was strewed with fragments of fragile cases, demolished physic bottles, and countless numbers of squashed pill-boxes.
[176] When the war ceased, the Transport Board was abolished, and the mode of conducting this important branch of the public service reverted pretty much to what it had been previously. The Admiralty found ships for the transport of troops at home and to our colonies abroad, but a board at the India Office engaged vessels for all the troops and stores to and from our possessions in the East, while other departments had their own separate shipping offices; all of which, when vessels were in demand, were bidding against each other, and also against another department of the government, the Emigration Office. The rates of freight were, of course, materially enhanced by this unnecessary competition; and there would have been the same sad story to tell as in the case of the Crimea, had we been unfortunately involved in another war. Unable to obtain the necessary reform by any other means, I, on the 5th of January, 1860, brought the existing state of affairs under the notice of the House of Commons (see ‘Hansard,’ vol. clviii. pp. 2051-2061), when a committee was unanimously appointed on my motion, “To inquire into the organisation and management of those branches of the Admiralty, War Office, India Office, and Emigration Board, by which the business of transporting, by means of shipping, troops, convicts, emigrants, materials of war, stores, and any other similar services, is now performed.” After a diligent inquiry which lasted the whole session, the Committee did me the honour to almost as unanimously adopt my report. But some time elapsed before a permanent Transport Board was established, so numerous were the obstacles, or rather prejudices, which had to be overcome. That board is now, or ought to be, responsible for the conveyance of all troops and Government stores from their embarkation until landed at their port of destination.
[177] The Great Republic belonged to the well-known mercantile firm of Messrs. A. A. Law & Co., of New York. When launched she registered 4000 tons; but, having unfortunately been partially destroyed by fire shortly after she was built, her upper deck was removed, thus reducing her size to 3400 tons. Her dimensions were 305 feet in length, fifty-three feet extreme breadth, and thirty feet depth of hold. She was fitted with double topsails, an American invention then rare in this country, but now very common; she had on board a steam-engine of eight horse-power for working ship, or loading and discharging cargo. She brought 3000 tons of guano as “ballast” from New York to London, and made the passage to the Scilly Islands in thirteen days, beating up the English Channel thence against an easterly gale in three days to the Downs. But, on her arrival in London, where she was consigned to the care of my firm, I found she was much too large to be employed, profitably, in any of the ordinary channels of commerce; and, had not the French Government, then in want of transports for the Crimean War, been induced, by the large space she afforded for the conveyance of their troops, to engage her for this purpose, she must have remained long after her arrival unemployed.
[178] When I was a member of the House of Commons, there was a great brewer, a most excellent man, who sat close to me on the cross benches, who frequently complained of the heavy “losses” he sustained in his trade. I was under the impression that the brewing trade was a very lucrative one, especially to persons like himself, who conducted it on a gigantic scale, and I was puzzled to understand how, in the face of such “losses,” he could continue adding vat to vat, and rearing fresh mountains of beer-barrels every year to his brewery yard. Turning one night to a mutual friend who knew him more intimately than I did, I asked, in the simplicity of my heart, if it really was the case that the great establishment of which our friend was the senior was a losing concern. “It is so,” he answered, “according to our friend’s way of calculating; for every pound less than 75,000_l._ per annum, which is estimated as his share of the net profits, is booked as loss!” Such must also have been the way in which some of our large shipowners calculated their “losses” after the repeal of the Navigation Laws.
[179] See ‘Copies of Address to the Queen from owners of British ships and others interested in the prosperity of British navigation, and of the subsequent correspondence relating thereto.’ Presented to both Houses of Parliament, by command, 1859.
[180] Table showing the total amount of French and Spanish tonnage which entered and cleared in the United Kingdom in the indirect trade, viz., trade with other countries than France and Spain respectively in each year, from 1853 to 1857 inclusive:—
---------------+----------+----------+-------- | Entered. | Cleared. | Total. ---------------+----------+----------+-------- France 1853 | 23,554 | 85,052 | 108,606 ” 1854 | 23,284 | 122,763 | 146,047 ” 1855 | 24,094 | 55,164 | 79,258 ” 1856 | 21,618 | 79,288 | 100,906 ” 1857 | 36,401 | 125,775 | 162,176 | | | Spain 1853 | 11,606 | 20,085 | 31,691 ” 1854 | 18,681 | 14,068 | 32,749 ” 1855 | 6,180 | 8,883 | 15,063 ” 1856 | 8,200 | 4,810 | 13,010 ” 1857 | 12,720 | 10,373 | 23,093 ---------------+----------+----------+--------
[181]
---------------+----------+----------+-------- | Entered. | Cleared. | Total. ---------------+----------+----------+-------- France 1853 | 35,160 | 23,367 | 58,527 ” 1854 | 33,955 | 47,709 | 81,664 ” 1855 | 104,147 | 127,630 | 231,777 ” 1856 | 198,842 | 152,919 | 351,761 ” 1857 | 66,845 | 46,383 | 113,228 | | | Spain 1853 | 24,967 | 109,591 | 134,558 ” 1854 | 67,051 | 123,373 | 190,424 ” 1855 | 91,416 | 105,166 | 196,582 ” 1856 | 52,030 | 102,663 | 154,693 ” 1857 | | | ---------------+----------+----------+--------
[182] Act 18 and 19 Vict., chap. vii.
[183]
COASTING TRADE OF THE UNITED KINGDOM, 1857.
-------------------------+----------------------------------+------------------------------------ | ENTERED. | CLEARED. +-----------------+----------------+-----------------+------------------ Nationality of |Sailing Vessels. | Steam Vessels. | Sailing Vessels.| Steam Vessels. Vessels. | | | | +--------+--------+---------+------+---------+-------+---------+-------- |Vessels.| Tons. | Vessels.| Tons.| Vessels.| Tons. | Vessels.| Tons. +--------+--------+---------+------+---------+-------+---------+-------- Russian | 4 | 1,603 | | | 5 | 1,729 | | Swedish | 22 | 3,755 | | | 22 | 3,630 | | Norwegian | 27 | 5,580 | | | 26 | 5,426 | | Danish | 85 | 9,633 | | | 85 | 9,692 | | Prussian | 50 | 9,953 | | | 44 | 9,043 | | Mecklenburg-Schwerin | 17 | 3,600 | | | 19 | 4,400 | | Hanoverian | 30 | 2,176 | | | 36 | 2,448 | | Oldenburg and Knyphausen | 4 | 330 | | | 4 | 451 | | Hamburg | 6 | 694 | | | 5 | 689 | 1 | 250 Bremen | | | | | | | | Lubeck | | | | | | | | Dutch | 47| 4,535 | 2| 336 | 40 | 4,143 | | Belgian | 4| 593 | | | 3 | 337 | 5 | 840 French | 4| 507 | | | 9 | 854 | | Spanish | 3| 572 | | | 2 | 401 | | Portuguese | | | | | 1 | 95 | | Sardinian | | | | | | | | Tuscan | | | | | | | | Papal | 2| 381 | | | | | | Two Sicilies | 3| 615 | | | 5 | 1,080 | | Austrian | 1| 387 | | | 4 | 1,002 | | Greek | 1| 312 | | | 2 | 532 | | America, U.S. | 7| 4,797 | | | 12 | 5,883 | | +--------+--------+---------+------+---------+-------+---------+-------- | 317 |50,023 | 2| 336 | 324| 51,835| 6 | 1090 | | | Vessels, 319. | Vessels, 330. | Tons, 50,359. | Tons, 52,925. -------------------------+----------------------------------+------------------------------------
The Entrances and Clearances of British ships in the same year amounted to upwards of 80,000,000 tons!!
[184] I have great doubt whether the Board of Trade was justified in making this statement. The Royal Decree of 10th December, 1852, refers to a Law 9th July, 1841, which I have before me; but, when the differential tonnage duty was abolished, the Gibraltar merchants presented addresses thanking the authorities for the restoration of the flag. The ports between the Garonne and the Bidassoa are, surely, not under similar geographical conditions as either the ports or voyage between the Hudson and the Columbia.
[185] I really do not see it in that light. British ships would, indeed, have a shorter voyage from England to California, but they would still be precluded from going from New York to California viâ the Canal or passage at the Isthmus. The restriction would continue and would prove even more vexatious, as might be shown in a variety of ways.
[186] I deny this altogether. I cannot admit that a ship taking a cargo from Cronstadt to Odessa, thus making almost the circumnavigation of Europe, could be justly deemed to be making a Coasting voyage, however much Russian municipal law might declare it to be so.
[187] Table showing the total amount of tonnage of British and Foreign Vessels respectively, with cargoes and in ballast, entered and cleared in the United Kingdom in each year, from 1842 to 1857 inclusive.
---------+-------------+-------------+------------- Years. | British. | Foreign. | Total. ---------+-------------+-------------+------------- | Tons. | Tons. | Tons. 1842 | 6,669,995 | 2,457,479 | 9,127,474 1843 | 7,181,179 | 2,643,383 | 9,824,562 1844 | 7,500,285 | 2,846,484 | 10,346,769 1845 | 8,546,090 | 3,531,215 | 12,077,305 1846 | 8,688,148 | 3,727,438 | 12,415,586 1847 | 9,712,464 | 4,566,732 | 14,279,196 1848 | 9,289,560 | 4,017,066 | 13,306,626 1849 | 9,669,638 | 4,334,750 | 14,004,388 1850 | 9,442,544 | 5,062,520 | 14,505,064 1851 | 9,820,876 | 6,159,322 | 15,980,198 1852 | 9,985,969 | 6,144,180 | 16,130,149 1853 | 10,268,323 | 8,121,887 | 18,390,210 1854 | 10,744,849 | 7,924,238 | 18,669,087 1855 | 10,919,732 | 7,569,738 | 18,489,470 1856 | 12,945,771 | 8,643,278 | 21,589,049 1857 | 13,694,107 | 9,484,685 | 23,178,792 ---------+-------------+-------------+--------------
[188] Table showing the total number and tonnage of Sailing and Steam Vessels built and registered in the United Kingdom in each year, from 1842 to 1857 inclusive.
-------+----------+---------+--------+----------+--------- Years. | Vessels. | Tons. | Years. | Vessels. | Tons. -------+----------+---------+--------+----------+--------- 1842 | 914 | 129,929 | 1850 | 689 | 133,695 1843 | 698 | 83,097 | 1851 | 672 | 149,637 1844 | 689 | 94,995 | 1852 | 712 | 167,491 1845 | 853 | 23,230 | 1853 | 798 | 203,171 1846 | 809 | 125,350 | 1854 | 802 | 196,942 1847 | 936 | 145,834 | 1855 | 1098 | 323,200 1848 | 847 | 122,552 | 1856 | 1150 | 244,578 1849 | 730 | 117,953 | 1857 | 1278 | 250,472 -------+----------+---------+--------+----------+---------
From this it will be seen that the total of such tonnage was in--
1842 129,929 1849 117,953 ------- Decrease 11,976
1850 133,695 1857 250,172 ------- Increase 116,777
[189] Table showing the number and tonnage of registered SAILING and STEAM VESSELS (exclusive of river steamers) of the United Kingdom employed in the Home and Foreign Trade respectively in each year, from 1849 to 1857 inclusive.
----------------------------------++---------------------------------- EMPLOYED IN THE HOME TRADE. || EMPLOYED IN THE FOREIGN TRADE. ----------+-----------+-----------++----------+-----------+----------- Years. | Vessels. | Tons. || Years. | Vessels. | Tons. ----------+-----------+-----------++----------+-----------+----------- 1849 | 9,610 | 719,815 || 1849 | 6,694 | 2,089,037 1850 | 9,150 | 721,153 || 1850 | 7,235 | 2,188,420 1851 | 9,266 | 764,461 || 1851 | 7,411 | 2,348,892 1852 | 9,134 | 768,409 || 1852 | 7,580 | 2,449,364 1853 | 8,851 | 774,813 || 1853 | 8,357 | 2,791,224 1854 | 8,778 | 748,714 || 1854 | 7,418 | 2,759,120 1855 | 8,590 | 748,543 || 1855 | 7,957 | 3,018,951 1856 | 9,707 | 787,476 || 1856 | 8,551 | 3,190,011 1857 | 10,064 | 860,406 || 1857 | 8,100 | 3,168,105 ----------+-----------+-----------++----------+-----------+----------- EMPLOYED PARTLY IN THE HOME AND || TOTAL NUMBER EMPLOYED. PARTLY IN THE FOREIGN TRADE. || ----------+-----------+-----------++----------+-----------+----------- 1849 | 1,917 | 287,490 || 1849 | 18,221 | 3,096,342 1850 | 1,507 | 227,639 || 1850 | 17,892 | 3,137,212 1851 | 1,507 | 247,582 || 1851 | 18,184 | 3,360,935 1852 | 1,105 | 163,111 || 1852 | 17,819 | 3,380,884 1853 | 998 | 164,050 || 1853 | 18,206 | 3,730,087 1854 | 1,211 | 221,259 || 1854 | 17,407 | 3,729,093 1855 | 1,281 | 222,676 || 1855 | 17,828 | 3,990,170 1856 | 1,012 | 178,590 || 1856 | 19,270 | 4,156,077 1857 | 1,164 | 182,971 || 1857 | 19,328 | 4,211,482 ----------+-----------+-----------++----------+-----------+-----------
[190] Tonnage entered and cleared with cargoes and in ballast at ports of the UNITED KINGDOM, in 1857 and 1858 respectively.
-------+------------+-----------+------------ | British. | Foreign. | Total. -------+------------+-----------+------------ 1857 | 13,691,107 | 9,484,685 | 23,178,792 1858 | 12,891,405 | 9,418,576 | 22,309,981 -------+------------+-----------+------------
Number and tonnage of SAILING and STEAM VESSELS built and registered in the United Kingdom, in 1857 and 1858.
+------+----------+----------+ | | Vessels. | Tonnage. | +------+----------+----------+ | 1857 | 1278 | 250,472 | | 1858 | 1000 | 208,080 | +------+----------+----------+
[191] Total tonnage of BRITISH VESSELS entered and cleared with cargoes (including repeated voyages) in the months of December 1858, and January 1859, as compared with corresponding months of 1856-7-8.
---------+---------+---------+---------+--------- | 1856. | 1857. | 1858. | 1859. ---------+---------+---------+---------+--------- December | 848,762 | 853,619 | 970,174 | January | | 678,705 | 603,393 | 700,445 ---------+---------+---------+---------+---------
[192] As an indication of this progress, it is enough to show how vastly the exports of British produce had advanced in value in that period. Thus the Foreign Trade rose from 39,163,407_l._ in 1847, to 85,039,991_l._ in 1857, and the Colonial Trade from 13,686,038_l._ in 1847, to 37,115,257_l._ in 1857.
[193] The shipping accounts of the United States of America for the year ended 30th June, 1858, showed a corresponding decline in the employment of United States tonnage.
The total tonnage entered and cleared of United States ships in the two years 1856-7, and 1857-8, having been
1856-7, 9,302,021 tons. 1857-8, 8,885,675 tons; Decrease 416,346 tons.
[194]
-------------------------------+-------------+-------------- | 1857. | 1858. -------------------------------+-------------+-------------- | £ | £ Imports | 135,051,444 | 115,218,811 Exports | 122,066,107 | 116,614,331 +-------------+-------------- | 257,117,551 | 231,833,142 | 231,833,012 | +-------------+ Decrease per | | cent. 9 4-5 Decrease, 1858 | 25,284,409 | -------------------------------+-------------+--------------
Shipping (total entered and cleared in Cargo and Ballast).
----------+------------+------------ Years. | Total. | British. ----------+------------+------------ | Tons. | Tons. 1857 | 23,178,792 | 13,694,107 1858 | 22,309,981 | 12,891,405 ----------+------------+------------
Chapter XIV
Further returns of the Board of Trade, and address of the Shipowners’ Society to the electors, 13th April, 1859—Shipowners’ meeting in London—Character of the speeches at it—Mr. Lindsay proposes an amendment—Effect of the war between France and Austria—Mr. Lindsay moves for an inquiry into the burdens on the Shipping Interest, 31st January, 1860—Report of the Committee thereon—Views with regard to foreign countries—The Netherlands—The United States—Generally unsatisfactory state of the intercourse with foreign nations—The present depression beyond the influence of Government—General results of Steamers versus Sailing Vessels—The Committee resists the plan of re-imposing restrictions on the Colonial Trade—Difficulty of enforcing reciprocity—Want of energy on the part of the English Foreign Office—Rights of belligerents—Privateering abolished in Europe; America, however, declining to accept this proposal—Views of the Committee thereon, and on the liability of Merchant Shipping—Burden of light dues—Pilotage Charges made by local authorities now, generally, abolished, as well as those of the Stade dues—The report of 1860, generally, accepted by the Mercantile Marine—Magnificent English Merchant Sailing vessels, 1859-1872—The Thermopylæ—Sir Lancelot and others—Americans completely outstripped—Equal increase in the number as well as the excellence of English shipping—Results of the Free-trade policy.
Besides the statistical returns supplied by the Board of Trade on their report on the memorial of the Shipowners to her Majesty, this Board, on the 25th February, 1859, published further returns which were seized upon by the Shipowners’ Association, and made the basis for an energetic manifesto addressed to the constituencies of the United Kingdom at the general election in the spring of 1859.[195]
[Sidenote: Further returns of the Board of Trade,]
[Sidenote: and address of the Shipowners’ Society to the electors, April 13, 1859.]
The returns in question consisted of five statements, including the period from 1834 to 1858. They are too voluminous to be given here, but it was clear from them that, if the increase of the entrances and clearances of British ships at the ports of the United Kingdom, since the repeal of the Navigation Laws, had been 3,221,767, the increase of foreign ships on the other hand amounted to 5,083,826 tons. To these leading facts, the Shipowners’ Association, triumphantly, referred the different constituencies, and, although British ships in the eight years over which these returns extended, had increased to a far greater extent than they had in any similar previous period, the Association pointed to the still greater increase of foreign shipping, and implored the electors of the leading maritime ports to send such representatives to the new Parliament, who would be exponents of the opinions they sought to perpetuate; and who would save British Shipowners from the certain ruin in their opinion awaiting them, as was so clearly demonstrated by the “appalling” number of foreign ships frequenting our ports. Pertinaciously adhering in this celebrated manifesto to their extreme Protectionist principles, they now reasserted with confidence, and with a brazen front the more astonishing, after what they had previously admitted, every doctrine that had proved to be fallacious, every “fact” which had long since been shown to have had its origin in the regions of fancy or fiction, every appeal to be saved from ruin as baseless as the shepherd’s wolf cry, and every theory as visionary as their own fears; by such means, hoping to revive a system, which the Legislature and every class of the community, except themselves, had pronounced to be neither wise, just, nor beneficial. But, with these principles patent to the whole world, fully confirmed, too, as they were, by the extraordinary success resulting from the repeal of the Navigation Laws, they kept harping on the one string, that foreign shipping entering and clearing from our ports had, since that period, increased in a greater ratio than our own, and this one fact produced to a large extent the desired effect on the maritime portions of the constituencies.
It was vain to tell them that, under the new policy, we had increased our shipping to an extent far beyond what had been hitherto accomplished; or that the nation at large, by obtaining all it required from foreign nations at materially reduced rates, was greatly and proportionately benefited by the change. Nor was it of any use to show that our exports and imports, and, consequently, the general wealth of the country, had already increased far beyond the most sanguine hopes of even the Free-traders. To attempt to prove to a maritime constituency that the more intercourse we had with other countries the better it would be for us, and that the impoverishment of our neighbours by restrictive laws was not the best means of enriching ourselves, was then a mere waste of time, and all such arguments were, at too many of our seaports, only received with scorn and ridicule. At all such places, the one fact I have named carried the day. Among various other seaport representatives who held Free-trade principles, I lost my seat for the Tynemouth boroughs; at least, I found such a phalanx of Shipowners arrayed against me, that I should have had a great struggle to retain it.[196] However, within a week, I found another seat at Sunderland, and, though the bulk of the Shipowners there, too, were opposed to my views, I was returned over my Conservative opponent (the late George Hudson) by a very large majority.[197] But it fared, otherwise, with many better men who lost their seats and did not find others.
The one fact in the Shipowners’ manifesto, apparently, strengthened their cause in Parliament. I say apparently, because though the new men were pledged to vote for the removal of all “grievances” in the shape of peculiar and special burdens and for “reciprocity,” whatever that might mean, I question if any one of them would have voted for a reversion of our policy. It was idle to talk about it. “Protection to native industry” was gone, and gone for ever! England had adopted a policy which can never be reversed. But the General Shipowners’ Society of London, elated with success, resolved to make one more determined effort to, at least, restore the Colonial trade to the vessels of Great Britain, and to induce Parliament to recommend her Majesty in Council to exclude from our carrying trade the vessels of those nations which did not reciprocate.
[Sidenote: Shipowners’ meeting in London.]
With these objects in view, they invited to their aid delegates from all the seaports in the kingdom, and every person of influence in and out of Parliament likely to aid their cause. Another public meeting was held in the London Tavern, at which Mr. R. W. Crawford, one of the members for the City, took the chair. I had, unexpectedly, received an invitation to attend, which I accepted, as the question to be discussed, apart from my duty to my constituents, was one in which I had a large personal interest. Knowing, however, that few persons in the vast assembly which had been got together agreed with the view I entertained, I took my seat, almost out of sight, in the rear of the platform. The meeting was, indeed, one of a most influential character. Many men were there whose cheque for 10,000_l._ would have passed as freely as a 5_l._ note, and whose hale and ruddy countenances did not at all betoken that they were on “the road to ruin.” Perhaps it was malicious on the part of the ‘Times’ to describe the meeting “as the largest collection of political and commercial fossils which could be got together in these adverse days for political antiquarianism;” but it is quite true that their views, generally, so far as they could be comprehended, were certainly of an antiquarian character.
[Sidenote: Character of the speeches at it.]
Mr. Frederick Somes, the member for Hull, who moved the first resolution, declared “that nothing but ruin could result to the shipping interest,” if the existing policy was pursued; and Mr. Bramley-Moore, who seconded it, stated that “the coasting trade was gradually drifting into the hands of foreigners” (a very extraordinary statement in the face of the official returns), while he argued that, “we should have the right of selling to, as well as purchasing from, the foreigner,” as if any person or any law prevented him from doing so if he pleased. Mr. George Marshall, one of our largest and most intelligent shipowners, spoke, from experience, of the depressed state of British shipping, owing to the “inability to compete with foreigners;” and Mr. Duncan Dunbar told the meeting, but not in a doleful tone, for he was the jolliest of men, with the happiest of countenances, “that the very property he had made by his industry and hard labour was melting away like snow before the sun.”[198]
It was hopeless to expect that the Legislature would attempt to do anything, even if they could, for a body of men who, representing a great national interest, delivered such sentiments as these, and had, evidently, assembled for the purpose of obliging other people to make good any losses they might have sustained, if any there were, during the two previous years, while pocketing in silence, for their own special benefit, the large profits they had secured during the Crimean war. What had Government to do with the profits and losses of Shipowners any more than it had to do with those of any other branch of trade? Invited, as I had been, to take part in these deliberations, I felt that I should do wrong were I not, regardless of any insults to myself, to step forward and attempt to expose the fallacy of the course pursued by the meeting, especially, as the Shipowners had grievances which really ought to be redressed, and to which the Legislature, I felt sure, would readily listen, if properly appealed to. Shipowners were then, unquestionably, subjected to various burdens which would never have been imposed upon them had they not been a protected class, and, as such, supposed to derive advantages from which other classes of the community were excluded; burdens, too, I am bound and willing to add, from which they ought to have been relieved when the Navigation Laws were repealed.
[Sidenote: Mr. Lindsay proposes an amendment.]
Feeling, therefore, that the time of this large and important meeting would be wasted in vain and useless resolutions, I stepped forward to the front of the platform, resolved, at all hazards, to endure every contumely, and, if I could not carry an amendment, which I saw was altogether hopeless, to at least enter my protest as a British Shipowner against such subservient and worthless appeals to the Legislature of our country. My appearance on the front row was the signal for a yell of derision; and my amendment, which I had hastily written in pencil, “that a petition be presented to both Houses of Parliament, praying for an inquiry into the actual condition of British navigation, and for relief from all peculiar burdens and restrictions that still fetter maritime enterprise,” was received with hisses and the loudest and rudest demonstrations of dissatisfaction.
Although these events are matters for history, they are of too personal a character to be pursued at length; however, that my readers may form some idea of the feelings of a very large number of the most influential Shipowners of the period, I furnish in a foot-note[199] extracts from the report which appeared in the ‘Times’ and of other journals of the proceedings of this great meeting.
[Sidenote: Effect of the war between France and Austria.]
But, even if the Legislature had been disposed to consider the wailings of the Shipowners, or to listen to their unreasonable demands, an event supervened which for a time changed the aspect of their affairs. Critical questions arose in Europe. Political relations between France and Austria had become most unsatisfactory. The Emperor of the French, having recently, by a member of his family, contracted an alliance with a Princess of the House of Savoy, welded another political link with the King of Sardinia, and, on the 1st January, 1860, announced an approaching rupture with Austria. “A cry of anguish” arose from the provinces of Lombardy; and all the miseries the Italians, during many years, had suffered from Austrian domination were suddenly and ostentatiously paraded before the world. Free Europe witnessed with astonishment the scene in which the despotic Emperor of the French complained of the tyranny exercised by another despot in Austria, over a portion of Austrian subjects, whilst the Emperor of Russia, more despotic than either, joined in the strange and mysterious confederacy, and affected sympathy for the down-trodden and oppressed Italians.
It was impossible for Great Britain to remain indifferent while events so momentous were happening in rapid succession on the continent of Europe; hence, when Austria summoned Sardinia to disarm, and the French troops were put in motion to cross the Alps, the English people, carried away by their sympathies for the oppressed Italians, and forgetting to inquire “Can grapes come from thorns, or figs from thistles?” were almost willing to join France and aid her in her real object, the advancement of the eastern portion of the Empire towards the Rhine. But, whatever the results of the short but great war then publicly proclaimed by France and Sardinia against Austria, its effect, by increasing the demand for shipping, combined with other causes, proved very salutary to the fortunes of British Shipowners.
[Sidenote: Mr. Lindsay moves for an inquiry into the burdens on the Shipping Interest, January 31, 1860.]
Though England had been startled by the proceedings on the Continent, and had made preparations for any emergency, she happily kept clear of “entanglement,” so that Parliament had time to direct its attention to other less exciting, but to her more important subjects. Under these circumstances, I consequently, on the 31st January, 1860, renewed my motion,[200] for an inquiry into the state of our merchant shipping, and the operations of the burdens and restrictions especially affecting that interest. After a long and interesting discussion, the House was pleased to adopt my motion, extending the inquiry into various Acts of Parliament then in force;[201] and, on the 16th February of that year, the Committee was appointed:[202] the whole of that session was devoted to the inquiry, and to the complaints and suggestions of the Shipowners and other persons interested, who were heard in detail: no less than 6813 questions were asked, and as many answers given in reply, and voluminous appendices swelled the Report.
[Sidenote: Report of the Committee thereon.]
No Committee ever commenced its duty with a more fixed determination to grant impartial justice and remedy any existing evils. I shall not venture to offer an opinion on the Report, as it was drawn up by myself, at the request of my colleagues. But I ought to state that the Committee examined most carefully and anxiously, in all its bearings, the great question with which it had to deal, and enabled me to prepare a report which was strictly just and thoroughly exhaustive, and which I hope has rendered unnecessary any further appeals, at least, on similar grounds, for relief to the Legislature. In prosecution of their inquiries the Committee examined numerous persons residing in London and the outports connected with the shipping interests, many of whom were extensively engaged in the home, colonial, and foreign trades. They also examined several officers in various departments of her Majesty’s Government, and others representing two of the corporations, which exercise trading powers affecting shipping, so as to more fully elucidate the subjects with which they were respectively acquainted. They then reviewed in detail the various measures which had been introduced during the previous quarter of a century affecting maritime commerce, directing attention to that part of the evidence which stated that the reason, why the Coasting trade was not thrown open until 1854, was the assertion on the part of the officers of Customs that there would be a difficulty in enforcing effectual regulations to guard the revenue.
[Sidenote: Views with reference to foreign countries.]
[Sidenote: The Netherlands.]
Referring to existing treaties, the Committee remarked that, though the Government of the Netherlands placed the ships of England, ostensibly, on the same footing as Dutch vessels, English vessels, however, in consequence of the regulations of the Dutch East India Company, were practically prevented from trading with the valuable settlements of the Dutch in the Eastern seas.
[Sidenote: The United States.]
When directing attention to the different nations who still withheld from British ships the advantages of their coasting trade, they could not fail to notice the often repeated fact, that the United States of North America not only shut out British vessels from the carrying of goods in the vast coasting trade of their Atlantic and Pacific sea-boards, but that British vessels running between New York and Aspinwall, and between Panama and San Francisco, were denied the ordinary privileges enjoyed by the American national flag; and that, thus, the indirect carrying trade between the eastern and western coast of the United States was, practically, confined to American shipping, as well as the coasting trade proper.
With regard to British colonial possessions the Committee stated that, while the coasting trade had been thrown open to foreign vessels in the British East Indies, Ceylon, the Cape of Good Hope, and Victoria, the coasting trade of our North American colonies was still confined to British vessels; foreign ships being, however, permitted to carry on the inter-colonial trade with our various possessions.
[Sidenote: Generally unsatisfactory]
[Sidenote: state of the intercourse with foreign nations.]
The Committee, especially, noticed the entire unanimity of the witnesses whom they had examined with regard to the unsatisfactory state of the laws then regulating international intercourse, not merely with the United States of America, but also with France, Spain, and Portugal; nor could they fail to perceive that every witness viewed with the greatest jealousy the restrictions still imposed by those nations on our shipping, and further, that we had not been met by them in that spirit of fairness and reciprocity we had a right to expect.
So far as regards the great question—the repeal of the Navigation Laws—into which the Committee inquired minutely and impartially, I may say that they were, unanimously, of opinion that it would be impossible to reverse the established policy of Free-trade, and that, in fact, it would not be to the interests of our Shipowners, if they had been able to do so. Indeed, the representatives of the then most conservative ports in the kingdom (Mr. Horsfall for Liverpool, and Mr. Liddell, now Lord Eslington, one of the members for Northumberland) were decidedly of opinion that any reversal of our policy would not merely be prejudicial to the great trading interests of this country, but, specially so, to those engaged in its maritime commerce; and, in fact, though they felt the advantages derivable by reciprocal advantages from foreign nations, they were not prepared to support an Order in Council against the admission to our ports of the ships of those nations which did not reciprocate.
[Sidenote: The present depression beyond the influence of Government.]
While admitting the depressed state of the shipping interest during the previous two or three years, the Committee pointed out that this depression had arisen in great measure from causes beyond the reach or province of legislation. They remarked, for instance, with great force, that as one-fourth part of the whole coasting trade was then carried on by means of steam-vessels, while one steamer could accomplish as much work as five sailing vessels, it must follow that the owners of the latter would suffer; the result clearly showing that the depression arose in the north of England ports to a great extent from causes no government could control. Instancing Sunderland, they remarked that while in 1852 there were no steamers whatever engaged in trade at that port, the number of such vessels built there since that period (between 1852 and 1860) had displaced the enormous number of 4000 sailing ships, each of 250 tons capacity. Hence, while the Committee could not but regret the heavy loss thus entailed on one industrious class of men, many of whom were, no doubt, totally ruined, it was impossible for them to remedy a state of things brought about mainly by the progress of science, and one, moreover, with which the change in our policy had nothing whatever to do. Indeed, not one of the witnesses examined, although many of them had been sufferers in this way, proposed to recur to the absolutely restrictive system in vogue previously to 1850.
[Sidenote: General results of Steamers versus Sailing vessels.]
When the figures brought forward by the opponents of repeal were closely examined, it appeared that, while the increase of all the sailing ships in the United Kingdom had for nine years previously to the change in our Navigation Laws been only 23½ per cent., the increase of steamers, during the same period, had been as much as 81 per cent.; but that since then to the end of 1859, while the increase of sailing ships had been 26½ per cent., steamers had increased no less than 184 per cent. These were transient evils against which no legislation could provide; and it was, therefore, obvious that, instead of attempting to render remunerative a class of vessels, now obsolete owing to the improvements of the age, Shipowners would have done better to direct their attention to the development of the new power, for which they possessed in vast abundance the requisite materials of iron and coal: in this way, there could be no doubt that they would be able to compete successfully with all other nations. In how remarkable a manner these words have been fulfilled I shall be able to show when I come to treat of the progress of steam navigation in the Transatlantic trades. Nor has our success been less remarkable in our competition with the Swedes and Norwegians, with whom it was repeatedly alleged we were unable to compete; for they, in 1859, had already become large buyers of ships in our markets, and, I may add, are still frequently to be found purchasers of British-built vessels.
[Sidenote: The Committee resists the plan of re-imposing restrictions on the Colonial Trade.]
The question having now been narrowed to that of re-imposing the monopoly of the carrying trade to and from our Colonial possessions, the Committee soon arrived at the conclusion that the extent, diversified interests, and increasing power of our possessions abroad, offered insuperable obstacles to the re-imposition of restrictions on that trade, while the daily increase of feelings of independence in our Colonies naturally tended to resist a system which would place the grower of British plantation sugar and coffee in the West Indies at a greater disadvantage than then existed, especially when compared with the producer of slave-grown sugar and coffee in Brazil and Cuba. The Committee, therefore, looking to our relations with Canada, our possessions in the East and West Indies, and, above all, in Australia, considered it their duty, unhesitatingly, to declare that any proposal having for its object the re-establishing an exclusive monopoly of the carrying trade to and from our colonial possessions must, both on political and commercial grounds, be rejected as altogether impracticable. Moreover, that, while such a step would be unjust to our fellow-subjects in the colonies, it would very likely embroil us with those foreign Powers to whom we were bound by existing treaties.
[Sidenote: Difficulty of enforcing reciprocity.]
The question, however, of the expediency of requiring foreign Powers, having colonial possessions, to reciprocate every advantage to us, which Great Britain had accorded unconditionally to them, though, commercially, when compared with other branches of commerce, unimportant, was one which demanded peculiar attention, as it was, and still is, a source of great annoyance, in that it creates a feeling that we have been very illiberally, if not unjustly, dealt with by these Powers. British Shipowners who, carried on the restricted and scarcely tolerated intercourse with the colonies of France, Spain, and Portugal, found their ships placed at an immense disadvantage, in the unequal competition they had to encounter, while they had the mortification to see foreign ships resort to our own colonies and secure much higher freights than our own ships when chartered to a port in Europe.[203]
For instance, it was given in evidence that Spanish vessels were chartered in English ports to Manilla at 3_l._ or 4_l._ per ton, while the British vessel could not obtain 30_s._ per ton. From the Mauritius to Europe a French ship, enjoying the option of both the British and French markets, obtained a freight for sugar of 3_l._ 10_s._ per ton at a time when English ships were obliged to accept 10_s._ per ton. Thus, in all our colonies and possessions, French, Spanish, and Portuguese vessels[204] could generally procure a freight greatly in excess of that obtained by British ships, as the foreign national flag secured for them, on arrival at a port of call in England, the advantage of our markets, with the option of sending on the cargo to the respective countries of Europe to which the national flag belonged, but from which markets such produce was excluded by heavy differential duties, if conveyed thither in British ships.
[Sidenote: Want of energy on the part of the English Foreign Office.]
The Committee naturally felt that a sense of justice demanded that our Shipowners should, as far as practicable and consistent with the interests of the community, be placed on equal terms in the race of competition, and that, whatever difficulties might stand in the way of having recourse to retaliatory measures, there had been, they regretted to state, an apparent apathy on the part of the executive government, in remonstrating with those nations which then excluded our vessels from their trade; in other words, that the Foreign Office had not employed the influence it might have exercised to secure, by diplomatic negotiation, the advantages of reciprocity.
[Sidenote: Rights of belligerents.]
As the question of belligerent rights at sea was one which deeply affected alike the British Shipowner in the prosecution of his business and the general interests of Great Britain, the Committee devoted their especial attention to the evidence advanced on this important question.
[Sidenote: Privateering abolished in Europe;]
In the recent war with Russia, England, as we have already incidentally noticed, when she formed an alliance with France, agreed with that country to waive her right to confiscate an enemy’s goods on board neutral ships as also neutral goods found on board an enemy’s, so long as they were not, in either case, contraband of war. This mutual but provisional waiver of belligerent rights placed the allies in harmonious action, and, practically, countenanced the principle that “free ships make free goods.” Upon the return of peace, as I have explained in a previous portion of this work, the declaration of Paris of April, 1856, signed by Austria, France, Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia, and Turkey gave a formal sanction to this principle. Privateering was also abolished.
[Sidenote: America, however, declining to accept this proposal.]
[Sidenote: Views of the Committee thereon,]
America was invited to be a party to this general international agreement, but demurred, and coupled at first her assent to the abolition of privateering, with the condition that private property at sea should no longer be subject to capture. Finally, she refused to be a party to a convention, whereby she would be precluded from resorting to her merchant marine for privateering purposes, in case she became a belligerent. But this, in the opinion of the Committee, was not surprising, as the United States had obtained the recognition of the rights of neutrals, for which she contended throughout a long period of hostilities, and Great Britain had surrendered those rights without any equivalent from her. The Committee were therefore of opinion that our Shipowners would thereby be placed at an immense disadvantage in the event of a war breaking out with any important European Power. Indeed, they went so far as to give it as their deliberate conviction that “the whole of our carrying trade in the event of a great European war would be inevitably transferred to American and other neutral bottoms.”
“We must therefore,” they continued, “either secure the general consent of all nations to establish the immunity of merchant ships and their cargoes from the depredations of both privateers and armed national cruisers during hostilities, or we must revert to the maintenance of our ancient rights, whereby, relying upon our maritime superiority, we may not merely hope to guard unmolested our merchant shipping in the prosecution of their business, but may capture enemy’s goods in neutral ships, and thus prevent other nations from seizing the carrying trade of this kingdom during a state of hostility.”
Looking at this important question in all its bearings, and considering that we have at all times a much larger amount of property afloat than any other nation, the Committee were of opinion, that, though grave objections had been urged by high authorities against any further step in advance, they could not close their remarks without expressing an earnest hope, and, at the same time, giving it as a deliberate opinion, that “in the progress of civilisation, and in the cause of humanity, the time had arrived when all private property (not contraband of war) should be exempt from capture at sea.”
[Sidenote: and on the liability of Merchant Shipping.]
Having reviewed the question of liability, of which many Shipowners had complained, the Committee were of opinion that it was not advisable to reduce that liability to any extent below the value of the ship and freight, taking the value of the former at 15_l._ per ton. For to confine it simply to the actual value of the ship “would,” they urged, “be an encouragement to unprincipled persons to employ inadequate and worn-out vessels in the conveyance of passengers, and that, on the other hand, to subject shipowners to unlimited liability might induce men of property and character to withdraw their fortunes from so great a hazard.” The Committee could not, however, overlook the additional liability to which Shipowners were exposed by the operation of the municipal laws of foreign states, for, as the law now stands, the liability of the foreign shipowner is not limited to our courts, and the liability of the English shipowner by the same rule, if it were applied in the United States, would not be limited in their courts.[205] Therefore, although the English law may have contemplated the limitation of the British shipowners’ liability, any damage sustained by collision on the high seas between a British ship and a foreign vessel, would not fall within the statutory limit, and, practically, the liability of the British shipowner, in the event of loss of life, would be unlimited, or at least co-extensive with the loss, which a jury might assess according to the rank of life and the injuries sustained by the relatives and families of the deceased. It was further recommended that the practicability and desirability of an international arrangement with maritime countries,[206] so as to arrive at some uniform reciprocal principles, should be seriously considered by Government.
[Sidenote: Burden of light dues.]
The incidence of the light dues paid by the Shipowners of the Empire, necessarily received consideration from the Committee, more especially as it was a serious burden on all merchant vessels. So far back as 1845, a Committee appointed specially to inquire into those dues, recommended, “That all expenses for the erection of lighthouses, floating-lights, buoys, and beacons, on the coast of the United Kingdom, be henceforth defrayed out of the public revenue.”
Entirely agreeing with this resolution, the Committee of 1860, while recommending Government to adopt that resolution, added: “That the lighting of our shores is a high imperial duty which we owe, not merely to ourselves, but to strangers, whom we invite to trade with us.”
They felt that the justice as well as the policy of such a course was strengthened by the fact that the large debt of 1,250,000_l._, the result of improvident grants, incurred under the authority of Parliament for buying up the lighthouses held by private individuals, had, since that period (1845), been paid out of light dues, raised out of a tax upon shipping, and they had less hesitation in recommending the adoption of this enlightened policy from the fact that the Congress of the United States of America appropriates an annual vote for lights throughout their whole territory, which is borne by the entire federation, and that no charge for light dues is levied on foreign vessels frequenting the ports of that country.
[Sidenote: Pilotage.]
The question of pilotage was also one which received every consideration, the evidence showing that when a voluntary system prevailed, even where the navigation was difficult and, at times, dangerous, no inconvenience arose from the absence of legal compulsion for the employment of a pilot. Many of the members of the committee were of opinion that the whole pilotage of the kingdom should be thrown open; but no decided recommendation was offered, as it had been pretty clearly demonstrated in evidence that the compulsory system of pilotage still exercised at London, Liverpool, and Bristol, had worked in a manner satisfactory to those persons who were most directly interested in this matter.
[Sidenote: Charges made by local authorities, now generally abolished;]
The charges levied by local authorities on ships and goods entering or clearing from their ports, had so frequently been under the consideration of Parliament, that the Committee could do little more than refer to the various reports on this subject, and especially to that of the Royal Commissions of 1854, with the expression of their regret that not one of the recommendations of that commission had been carried into effect.[207]
[Sidenote: as well as those of the Stade dues.]
The Committee, after inquiring into the management of the Trinity Houses of Newcastle and Hull, and the nature of the charges levied by the Russian Company and by the King of Hanover on shipping, under the name of Stade dues, both of which have since then been happily abolished, reviewed our mercantile marine legislation since 1835, and were of opinion that, though, in many respects the measures adopted had been judicious and beneficial, a few had been carried to excess in matters of detail (an opinion very different to that which at present prevails in the House of Commons); nor, indeed, could they have arrived at any other conclusion, as various witnesses clearly showed that, in some instances, a zealous wish to accomplish improvements, and to protect the interests of the public, had led to the adoption of legislative measures of a too minute and restrictive character, and, above all, that any unnecessary interference as to how a ship should be built, fitted, manned, and navigated, was frequently attended with prejudicial consequences, while it had as frequently retarded beneficial advance.
[Sidenote: The Report of 1860 generally accepted by the mercantile marine.]
Such were the leading points of the report of the Merchant Shipping Committee of 1860. It seems to have satisfied all parties as far as anything could satisfy men whose policy had been ignored; at least no further inquiry into the state of British shipping, or for relief from oppressive and unjust burdens has since been considered either expedient or necessary. Indeed, the great majority of the recommendations have since been carried out by successive Governments. The Local Charges Bill, which had been referred to a Select Committee in 1856, was dealt with by separate inquiries; the important case of Liverpool occupying the whole of the Session of 1857, ultimately resulting in a reform of the Dock management, and in the transfer of the Liverpool town dues to the Dock estate.
In 1861, Mr. Milner Gibson, then President of the Board of Trade, introduced a Bill[208] by which most of the other grievances were removed. All taxes on shipping, raised for the purpose of granting pensions and other, so-called, charitable objects, were abolished; local differential charges on foreign shipping were, to a large extent, prohibited;[209] the passing tolls levied for the support of such harbours as Ramsgate, Dover, and Bridlington were swept away, and power (on the recommendation originally of the Harbours of Refuge Commission of 1854) was given to the Public Works Loan Commissioners to lend money for the improvement of trading harbours at a low rate of interest.[210] France, to whose shipping laws I shall hereafter refer, abolished her local charges and differential dues; Italy, in 1863, admitted British ships to national treatment; and Austria also, by treaty, in 1868, has followed her example.
Unfortunately, Shipowners are still taxed for the maintenance of the National lights; but, although the recommendations of various Committees have not in this respect been adopted, reductions in the charges levied have been made to no less an extent than 75 per cent, since 1853.[211] Great improvements have also been made since Mr. (now Lord) Cardwell put in motion this scale of reduction, which has proved so valuable in its results; since then no less than fifty-seven new lighthouses have been built, and fifteen new light ships moored on the coast, whilst thirty-seven old lighthouses have been rebuilt and re-organised at an aggregate cost of more than one million pounds sterling.
From 1860 the Shipowners of Great Britain, though they have experienced in their trade, like all other branches of trade, periods of depression, and rarely more so than at the present moment, have never looked backwards. All special and peculiar burdens having now been removed, their only present desire is, and it is not an unreasonable one, that they should be interfered with as little as possible—certainly not more so than is necessary for the protection of the public—in the management of their own affairs, and that they should have a fair and free field: they seek no favours.
What they have done since they have had free scope to their industry and skill, and been relieved from all unfair taxation on the one hand, and the swaddling-clothes of protection on the other, is truly astonishing. Since then, no country has produced more magnificent steam and sailing ships, the former having all but monopolised the great Transatlantic carrying trade, to which I shall fully refer hereafter, and the latter having driven the American clippers entirely from the China trade.[212] Such are the effects of wholesome competition.
[Sidenote: Magnificent English Merchant sailing ships, 1860-72.]
Perhaps no merchant ocean-going ships of any country or of any age have equalled, certainly none have ever surpassed, the sailing clippers launched from the yards of Great Britain between 1860 and 1872, vessels far superior to those I have already named, including the Falcon, the Fiery Cross, Undine, Lahloo, Leander, the Isles of the South, Min, Kelso, Serica, Taeping, Ariel, Titania, Spindrift, Sir Lancelot, and Thermopylæ. As the Thermopylæ and the Sir Lancelot are the fastest sailing ships that ever traversed the ocean,[213] I have given a representation of the former under full sail at page 416, and the following drawing to scale of her midship section may interest my nautical readers.
[Sidenote: The Thermopylæ.]
[Sidenote: Sir Lancelot and others.]
[Sidenote: Americans completely outstripped.]
On her first voyage from London to Melbourne, starting in November 1868, the Thermopylæ made the quickest passage on record between those ports—viz. in sixty days from pilot to pilot. Nor was this a mere chance passage, for on the next voyage from London to Melbourne she accomplished the same distance in sixty-one days, still faster than any other known passage between these ports; and, so far as I can ascertain, these voyages have never since been equalled by any other sailing vessels. On her first voyage, after leaving Melbourne she took on board a cargo of coals at Newcastle (New South Wales) for Shanghai, and accomplished the passage thence in twenty-eight days—the quickest on record. Leaving Foo-chow-foo soon afterwards with a cargo of tea, she made the passage thence to London in ninety-one days.[214] This has never been surpassed, except by the Sir Lancelot, which in the same year made the passage to London in ninety days[216] (her owner states eighty-nine days). Indeed, so completely have we outstripped the United States and all other nations, that instead of American clippers bringing teas from China to supply the London market, English clippers are frequently engaged to load the early teas from China to New York.[217]
Nor have other trades than that of China been very far behind in this great ocean race. Many of the sailing vessels now engaged in the trade with Australia and India are remarkable for their swiftness and increased capacity, combined with greatly reduced sailing expenses. Superior in speed to any of the ships of the old East India Company, they have double the space for cargo in proportion to their register tonnage, and are manned and navigated by about one-third the number of men. Among them and the China clippers are to be found some of the handsomest vessels the world has ever seen. Marvellous specimens of grace and beauty, not surpassed even by the finest yachts, and much easier in their movements, when under full sail and at their greatest speed, than any “thing of beauty” yet produced in either Great Britain or the United States for the purposes of ocean navigation.
[Sidenote: Equal increase in the number as well as excellence of English shipping.]
[Sidenote: Results of the Free-trade policy.]
But however great have been the strides in the improvement of the merchant vessels of Great Britain, their rapid increase in number since the repeal of the Navigation Laws has been equally astonishing; while the freedom of our laws has given an impetus to maritime commerce far beyond the most sanguine hopes of those who, a quarter of a century ago, most strenuously advocated the policy of Free-trade. That my readers may see how we stand, so far as our ships are concerned, in comparison with other nations, I have had a table prepared, which will be found in the Appendix,[218] showing the progress they have made as compared with other countries, before and after the repeal of our Navigation Laws. The figures are remarkable; and, though it is not the province of this work to enter upon controversial questions, I cannot refrain from directing the attention of my readers to the fact that the nations which have adopted a liberal policy have made much the greatest advance; while the United States of America, to which I have so frequently referred, have, with all their natural advantages, materially retrograded as a maritime people. Nor have continental nations, like France, to which I shall presently refer, made any progress worthy of note under the ancient commercial policy, to which they still, in a large measure, and most unwisely, adhere.
FOOTNOTES:
[195] An Address of Shipowners to the Electors of the United Kingdom, 13th April, 1859.
[196] I had served my constituents, I thought, well and faithfully for two Parliaments. I had fought to obtain reciprocity from foreign nations, before we repealed our Navigation Laws, the only time when we could have had any hope of obtaining it unless the statesmen of other nations became as enlightened as our own; and, having been defeated, I was then doing my utmost to assist in obtaining for them from our own Legislature, relief from the unjust and oppressive burdens with which they had been saddled during a period of protection; consequently, I could not but feel keenly the determined opposition which they, the Shipowners—men of my own class—for whom I had worked so strenuously, had organised against my return to Parliament.
[197] The numbers were, Fenwick, 1527; Lindsay, 1292; Hudson, 790. The contest was between Mr. Hudson and myself; but, though Mr. Hudson, better known as the “Railway King” during the fleeting days of his transitory power, was a strong Conservative, he had done so much for Sunderland through the railways which he brought into the town, and the magnificent docks constructed entirely through his influence, that I felt regret, at having been the instrument of his political expulsion from the representation of a port, where he had rendered such marked and valuable services. But I fear it is too true, that popular constituencies are sometimes as inconsistent as they are fickle. Henry Fenwick, whom Sunderland on that occasion, and deservedly so, returned at the head of the poll, and who was one of the best of members and the manliest of men, soon afterwards lost his seat, because the Government of the day, appreciating his many good qualities, had appointed him the Civil Lord of the Admiralty.
[198] When Mr. Dunbar died four or six years afterwards, he left behind him somewhere close upon one million and a half pounds sterling, the larger portion of which was made since the Free-trade sun had been allowed to shine upon his ships!
[199] “Had I,” continued Mr. Lindsay, “remained a silent spectator at this meeting as I intended, I should have been an assenting party to a resolution which asks us to reverse our policy. (‘No, no!’) But such would have been the case, for the resolution says, ‘that the principal cause of the depression has been the impolicy of the existing system of maritime commerce.’ I hold that the establishment of a Free-trade policy has nothing whatever to do with the existing depression in the shipping interest (cries of ‘Oh, oh!’ and great disapprobation), and therefore I come forward and offer my dissent. This resolution, further, asks us to confirm a memorial which the Shipowners’ Society of London, this time last year, addressed to her Majesty. I, for one, cannot be a consenting party to that resolution or memorial, because I believe that the opinions therein expressed are fallacious, and I shall endeavour to show you how. What is the prayer of that memorial? It urgently entreats, indeed implores her Majesty to issue an Order in Council against those nations which have not reciprocated with us. (‘Bravo!’ and cheers.) I am in favour of reciprocity—it is Free-trade in its most extended sense—but I ask you to look at the difference between reciprocity and the enforcement of reciprocity by the Legislature. Enforced reciprocity, as prayed for by you in this memorial, is Protection in its worst and most pernicious form. (Cries of ‘Shame,’ and hisses.) It is a renewal of the old war of tariffs; therefore, it is the war of Protection. (Great uproar.) We must not retrograde, our course is onward.” (Hisses and uproar.)
Mr. G. F. YOUNG: I rise to order. (Cheers, and a few cries of “No, no!”) Sir, I will not so far depart from the usages of debate as to introduce a speech on rising to order, but will submit that the course of discussion is irregular and unfair. I have challenged the hon. member to discuss this particular point with me publicly. He has declined my challenge. (Great cheering.)
The CHAIRMAN: I think that my friend Mr. Young in calling my hon. friend Mr. Lindsay to order has rather himself travelled a little out of order. (“Hear, hear!” and a laugh.) I cannot think that Mr. Lindsay is out of order; but it will rest with the meeting to decide whether or not they will hear Mr. Lindsay in continuation. (“Hear, hear!” and disapprobation.)
Mr. LINDSAY: Gentlemen, remember that we are in the city of London, and that the eyes of England are upon us. We are assembled to discuss a question of deep interest to its maritime interests, viz., what is the best course for the nation to pursue in the first place.
Mr. YOUNG: No, no; to inquire what should be done. (“Hear, hear!”)
Mr. LINDSAY: Well, then, I suppose it is to discuss this, that we have come here. Now, I say, we have to inquire what is the best policy to be pursued for the nation at large (cheers); and, secondly, for ourselves as shipowners. (Cheers.) The question before us is this, whether the reversal of our Free-trade policy will be best for the interest of the country at large. (“Hear, hear!” hisses and confusion.)
Mr. G. F. YOUNG: The Legislature will inquire into that. (“Hear, hear!”)
Mr. LINDSAY: I say this resolution goes to the root of Free-trade, and confirms the memorial sent by you last year to the Queen. (Cheers.) Now, then, in reply to that memorial—and bear in mind that you received that reply from a Protectionist Government, my Lord Derby’s through whom you made this appeal. (“Hear,” cheers, hisses, and cries of “Question, question!”) I am speaking to the question. Now, the answer given to your memorial by the Board of Trade clearly and distinctly proved that under a Free-trade policy the British shipping had increased in a far greater ratio than it ever did under a Protectionist policy. (“Hear, hear!” and a cry, “Prove it!”) It has been proved, and let those deny it who can, that from 1842 to 1849 British shipping built and registered during the period of reciprocity increased 843,000 tons; but from 1850 to 1857 it had increased 1,670,000 tons, or more than double under Free-trade what it did under Protection. (Cries of “Bosh!”) It has been proved further, that the entries inwards and clearances outwards—(confusion, “Hear, hear!” and “No!”) It does not suit, you to hear the truth—you Protectionist shipowners! (Confusion.) I say it has been proved that the entries and clearances of British shipping have increased (cries of “Hear!” “No!” “Turn him out!”) in a ratio equally as great as the tonnage built and registered. (The hon. gentleman was here met by a storm of indignant and discordant cries, among which were heard: “Go to Sunderland!” “Rubbish!” “Bosh!” “Sit down!”) When order was restored the hon. member resumed as follows:—Mr. Bramley-Moore has referred to what he calls the advantages which Spain and France have gained by their protective system. (Uproar.) It is quite true that in the five years between 1853 and 1857 inclusive, no less than 600,000 tons of Spanish shipping entered and cleared our ports; but, on the other hand, it is equally true that, during the same period, no less than 1,700,000 tons of British shipping entered and cleared from Spanish ports. (“Hear, hear!”) What does Spain, therefore, gain by her system of protection? (Confusion, and a voice, “We can see all that in the ‘Times.’”) It is true that 3,900,000 tons of French shipping cleared for the ports of England during a similar period; but it is no less true that 10,000,000 tons of British shipping entered and cleared from the French ports. (“Hear, hear!” and “Question!”) I could go on with many more facts to prove my case. I can prove to you by undeniable facts that the British shipping interest, however much it may be distressed at the present time, has been a gainer by the policy of Free-trade (shouts of disapprobation), and that it is not for your interest as Shipowners to reverse that policy. (Uproar.) You, no doubt, wish to confine your trade to your own possessions (“No, no!”), but what, I ask, would England be if it were not for the vast magnitude of her trade with foreign countries? (Cries of “Oh, oh!” “Hear, hear!” and “No, no!”) On referring to the Customs’ entries and clearances, it will be found that out of the 5,000,000 tons of British shipping annually so entered, 2,000,000 came from our own colonies and dependencies, but that no less than 3,000,000 of British shipping are entered from foreign countries (“Hear, hear!” and confusion), thus proving that our trade with foreign countries is much more valuable to us than the trade with our own possessions (cries of “Question!”); and thus proving, further, that our trade with foreign countries is of greater advantage, even to the British Shipowner, than our trade with our own colonies and dependencies. (“Question, question!”) If instead of the resolution proposed you adopted such a resolution as I have sketched out since I have been in the room it would have been better for your interest. (Uproar, and cries of “Sit down!”) You may not think it for your interest, but the day will come when you will find it for your interest. (Disapprobation.) If instead of looking after the shadow, you would follow and grasp at the substance it would be better for you. (Uproar.) Have any of you looked at the existing burdens on British shipping? I have done so; but I will not occupy the time of the meeting by going into details. (Great cheering.) I must, however, tell you that these burdens are a serious hindrance to our onward progress; and I also tell you, and I tell you as a thinking man, that you are vainly attempting to get what you call reciprocity enforced. I say vainly, because you will never get it. (“Oh, oh!”) You are losing a chance, a favourable opportunity of obtaining relief from those burdens which still unjustly oppress the British shipowners. (A Voice:—“What is the amount?”) I am asked what is the amount? The amount of these burdens reaches nearly 1,000,000_l._ sterling. They are 2 per cent. upon the amount of the capital invested. Tax any interest 2 per cent., and what is the consequence? You will drive the capital employed in that interest elsewhere. (“Hear, hear!”) While that real grievance exists, you are following a shadow (“Oh, oh!”) How futile then are your attempts! (Confusion.) You are allowing the opportunity to pass of obtaining substantial relief while you are following this delusion of Protection. (Great uproar.) The policy I have recommended is the policy which is best for the interests of the British Shipowner, and it is as a British Shipowner that I advocate it. It is, as the representative of a large maritime constituency, that I have come forward regardless of your insults to state my opinions frankly on the subject, and to enter my solemn protest against the course of policy you vainly attempt to restore. (Great disapprobation.)
Mr. DUNCAN DUNBAR rose to order. He said that they had not met there to discuss what had brought the shipping interest to its present state; for he thought the fact would be universally admitted that the Shipowners were on the road to ruin. (“Hear, hear!”) The object of the meeting, therefore, was not to discuss figures and tonnage, but simply to agree to a petition to the Houses of Parliament, asking them to appoint committees to hear the evidence of witnesses on the subject. His friend Mr. Lindsay,—no, he would not call him his friend (cheers and laughter), but the gentleman who spoke last went beside the mark in talking about the increase or decrease of tonnage. All must admit that the Shipowners were on the road to ruin. (“Hear, hear!”) The very property he had made by his industry and hard labour was melting away like snow before the sun. (“Hear!”) The man who called himself a British Shipowner, and moved such an amendment as the present, was the worst enemy the British Shipowner could have. (Cheers.)
[200] See ‘Hansard,’ vol. clvi. pp. 332 to 347, and p. 347 et seq.
[201] An Act for compensating the families of persons killed by accident 9 & 10 Vict. c. 93; the Merchant Shipping Act 1854; the Merchant Shipping Amendment Act (1855); the Passenger Act (1855); and the Chinese Passenger Act (1855).
[202] The following were the Members of the Committee:—Mr. Milner Gibson (then President of the Board of Trade), Lord Lovaine (now the Duke of Northumberland), Mr. (now Lord) Cardwell, Mr. Thomas Baring, Mr. Crawford, Mr. Francis Baring, Mr. Somes, Mr. Gore Langton, Mr. George William Bentinck, Mr. Wilcox, Mr. Liddell (now Lord Eslington), Mr. Francis Russell, Mr. Hugh Taylor, Mr. Alderman Salomons, and Mr. Lindsay.
[203] Though the Foreign Office is admirably administered, and was brought into a state of high perfection in all its details by Mr. (now Lord) Hammond, there can be no doubt that it is very ineffective in its dealings with foreign nations on nearly all commercial matters. Perhaps, this would be remedied if the Diplomatic and Consular Service were amalgamated, or even if it was permitted for gentlemen in the Consular to rise to the Diplomatic Service. I was strongly impressed with this idea when serving as a member on the Consular Committee of 1856-57; but my colleagues on that Committee were generally of a different opinion. Unquestionably our diplomatists are gentlemen in every sense of that word, and, as a rule, distinguished scholars, but they lack that description of knowledge which is expected from the representatives of by far the greatest commercial and maritime nation in the world. The time is fast approaching when this may prove a serious obstacle to our further progress. As times now go, we are a workshop or we are nothing. I respect rank and envy learning; but these will not feed the rising and increasing generations, who are to fill our vacant places.
[204] That Portugal gained nothing by her restrictive policy those of my readers who care to know may see by referring to a letter which I addressed by request of its President to the Commercial Association of Lisbon, when there in 1863. See Appendix No. 6, p. 596.
[205] Since 1860 the law has been altered so far that the responsibility of foreign ships in our courts is limited on the same conditions, and to the same amount, as British ships, and these are now limited in the States, as well as in the Federal Court of the United States.
[206] When I visited the United States after Parliament rose that session (1860), the question of responsibility was one, to which, with others, I invited the attention of the Shipowners of that country at various meetings, with their chambers of Commerce and Boards of Trade, which were frequently held in public. As the whole of these questions refer directly to merchant shipping and seamen, I have given in the Appendix of this work, No. 2, p. 567, a copy of a letter I addressed to Lord Lyons on my arrival in Boston (U.S.), which embraces the whole of them, as also a subsequent correspondence which I had in 1866 with our Foreign Office (see Appendix No. 3, p. 571), on the subject of the then unsatisfactory state of our relations with America, with regard to the responsibility of British Shipowners when sued in their State Courts. I have the less hesitation in giving this correspondence as it has not hitherto been published, and as some of the questions in my letter to Lord Lyons still wait solution.
[207] Since 1860 all passing tolls have been abolished, while most of the local charges have either been modified or swept away, but not, however, without a hard struggle, or without the payment of a large grant of public money to compensate the persons, corporations, or companies who held “vested interests”—a grant much greater, I think, than they were entitled to receive.
I remember when Mr. Lowe, in his capacity as Vice-President of the Board of Trade first brought in this measure, in the Session of 1856, he exclaimed, in reply to demands of an exorbitant character which were made on the ground of certain clauses in some very ancient deeds, What care I for your musty charters! or words to that effect. You could almost see the hair raising the hats from the heads of a number of old members who held all their property under musty charters. But though Mr. Lowe was not very far wrong so far as regards some of the monstrous claims made under ancient charters, and would I daresay, if he had had his own way, not have paid the claimants one-half the amounts they received, the expression was so appalling as coming from a member of Government, that Lord Palmerston at once saw that, after what Mr. Lowe had said, it would be impossible then to pass the Bill, and with his usual tact referred it to a Select Committee, to which I shall presently refer.
[208] 24 & 25 Vict., cap. 47.
[209] This was one of the most difficult and intricate questions any minister ever had to deal with. And for that reason these charges, to which I shall again refer, were not finally dealt with until 1867.
[210] By Parliamentary Papers, 176, 1871, no less than 1,846,400_l._ had been advanced up to that date, on loan for the improvement of trade harbours, and since then, 350,000_l._, making in all about 2,200,000_l._
[211] The aggregate reductions since 1853 are estimated (see Parliamentary Paper, No. 27, 1875) at more than 750,000_l._, or at the rate of 237 per cent. on the present income of about 316,000_l._ per annum. Nor has economy been consulted at the cost of efficiency during the last twenty years, due in a great measure to the exertions of the late Sir Frederick Arrow, Deputy-Chairman of the Trinity House.
[212] Passages of clippers from China, 1868 to 1872 inclusive, see Appendix No. 8, p. 611.
[213] The log of this ship on her first voyage from London to Melbourne, thence to Newcastle (N.S.W.), thence to China, and thence home, will be found in the Appendix, No. 9, p. 613. She is a “composite” vessel, that is, constructed with iron frames and wood planking; she is 947 tons register, and her dimensions are 210 feet in length; 36 feet width of beam, and 21 feet depth of hold. She was designed by Mr. B. Waymouth, now Secretary to Lloyd’s Register. She was built in 1868 by Messrs. Walter Hood and Co., of Aberdeen, for her present owners, Messrs. George Thompson, Jun., and Co.
[214] This passage of the Thermopylæ, was eight days quicker than those of the Ariel, Taeping, and Serica, in the great race of 1866[215], and six days quicker than the Ariel and Spindrift in 1868; the nearest competitor was the Titania in 1871. By her log (see Appendix No. 9, pp. 613-17) the Thermopylæ, in one day of twenty-four hours, made a run of 330 nautical miles (about 380 statute miles), see log, 3rd January 1870; or at the average rate of close upon 16 statute miles per hour!!
[215] This race excited extraordinary interest at the time among all persons interested in maritime affairs, five ships started for it, the Ariel, Taeping, Serica, Fiery Cross, and Tartsing. The three first left Foo-chow-foo on the same day, but lost sight of each other for the whole voyage until they reached the English Channel, where they again met, arriving in the Thames within a few hours of each other!!
[216] The Sir Lancelot is also a composite vessel. She was built by Mr. Steele, of Greenock, for her owner, Mr. James MacCunn, of that place, and was commanded by Captain Richard Robinson, a native of Maryport, who was brought up in the service of Messrs. Broklebanks, of Liverpool, and who had, previously to being placed in command of the Sir Lancelot, made very fast passages in the Fiery Cross. She is 886 tons register; and her dimensions are—length, 197 feet 6 inches; breadth, 33 feet 7 inches, and depth, 21 feet. This celebrated sailing ship, in her racing days, spread, when under full sail, 45,500 square or superficial feet of canvas. She was manned by 30 hands all told, and delivered 1430 tons of tea (of 50 cubic feet to the ton), and her draught of water, when thus laden, was 18 feet 7 inches forward, and 18 feet 9 inches aft. In addition to about 200 tons shingle ballast, there was 100 tons of iron kentledge (specially cast for the purpose), stowed in the limbers—that is, between the ceiling and the outer skin. This was fitted to the vacant spaces and distributed along the keelson, tapering towards the foremast and mizen-mast. It gave the ship great stability, and compensated for the immense height of the masts, which, without the kentledge, would have made the ship too tender. In the opinion of her owner, it contributed greatly to the ship’s success. I may add that the bottom, which consists of teak, was carefully planed before the metal was put on, and was quite as smooth as the bottom of a yacht.
As everything relating to this famous sailing ship must prove interesting and instructive to my nautical readers, I do not hesitate to furnish the following details of her performances, courteously supplied to me (4th October, 1875) by Mr. MacCunn. “The log,” he says, “of the Sir Lancelot, I regret, is not by me, but I have pleasure in handing you exact leading particulars of the celebrated passage referred to (extracted by me at the time, with great minuteness, from the log on board the ship, 14th October 1869).
“The particulars speak for themselves, and there is no parallel on so distant a voyage in ocean clipper sailing:—
1869.
Up anchor at Foochow, and left the anchorage } 7 A.M. } 17th July.
White Dogs bore N.N.E. 15 miles 18th ”
Anjer Light bore E.S.E. 10 ” 7th August.
Land about Buffalo River (Cape) 28th ”
Signalled St. Helena 11th September.
Sighted Lizard 10th October.
Passed Deal 13th ”
Berthed in West India Dock 14th ”
ANALYSIS.
White Dogs to Lizard 84 days. Foochow anchorage to St. Helena 56 ” Foochow anchorage to Deal 88 ” Foochow anchorage to West India Dock 89 ”
“The greatest day’s work of the Sir Lancelot was crossing from Anjer to the Cape, when she made, by observation, 354 miles in 24 hours. For 7 days (consecutive) she averaged on the same track, with a beam wind, slightly over 300 miles per day; but I think the most remarkable feature in the sailing of this ship was the maintenance of a comparative high speed in light winds, and the great power she had to beat dead to windward against a strong breeze.
“I may mention that after the racing premium was abolished, and with it the sort of mania for China clipper sailing, I had 8 feet cut off all the lower masts, and reduced the masts aloft and the yards in proportion.
“Notwithstanding this the Sir Lancelot is now arrived in London after a voyage from London to Shanghai with general cargo, thence to New York with a tea cargo, thence to London with a general cargo—all in 9 months and 2 days.
“I am afraid I am troubling you with too many details, but I feel proud that this celebrated clipper, one of the very few China clippers left, proves herself in the tenth year of her life as swift as ever.”
Mr. MacCunn may well be proud of his ship, and such pride is one of the chief causes of our power and greatness as a maritime nation.
[217] Among those who took the lead in the production and improvement of clipper ships at that time may be mentioned Captain Maxton, of the Titania, who had formerly commanded the early iron clippers, Lord of the Isles and Falcon, and who has, with the assistance of Messrs. Robert Steele and Son, brought out in successive years the Ariel and Titania, vessels of great beauty. Nor must I overlook Captain Bullock, who navigated the Challenger through the most successful and exciting part of her career; and Captain Rodger, who commanded the Kate Carnie, and subsequently owned the Taeping, Ellen Rodger, Min, and other well-known clippers. Among the builders, the name of the late Mr. William Pile, of Sunderland, should not be overlooked: he designed, built, and launched many famous clipper ships, such as the Spray of the Ocean and the Crest of the Wave, two of the handsomest sailing vessels that ever floated. The latter vessel once left Shanghai for London with the American clipper ship, Sea Serpent, a well-known China trader, which was to receive 30s. per ton extra freight on her cargo of young teas (which obtain the highest price in their relative qualities), if she beat the Crest of the Wave. Both ships arrived off the Isle of Wight the same day, but the captain of the American, leaving his vessel in charge of the pilot, started by railway for London, and reported the Sea Serpent at the Custom House before his own ship or the Crest of the Wave had passed through the Downs.
[218] See Appendix No. 10, p. 618. See also No. 14, p. 637.
Chapter XV
First Navigation Law in France, A.D. 1560—Law of Louis XIV., 1643, revised by Colbert, 1661—Its chief conditions—Regulations for the French Colonial trade—Slightly modified by the Treaties of Utrecht, 1713, and of 1763, in favour of England—Provisions of 1791 and 1793—Amount of charges enforced—French and English Navigation Laws equally worthless—“Surtaxes de Pavillon” and “d’Entrepôt”—“Droits de Tonnage”—Special exemption of Marseilles—French Colonial system preserved under all its Governments, but greatly to the injury of her people—English Exhibition of 1851—Messrs. Cobden and Chevalier meet first there, and ultimately, in 1860, carry the Commercial Treaty—The French, heavy losers by maintaining their Navigation Laws—Decline of French shipping—Mr. Lindsay visits France, and has various interviews with the Emperor, Messrs. Rouher and Chevalier on this subject—Commission of Inquiry appointed, and Law ultimately passed May 1866—Its conditions—Repeal Act unsatisfactory to the French Shipowners—Another Commission of Inquiry appointed, 1870—Views of rival parties—M. de Coninck—M. Bergasse—M. Siegfried—M. Thiers and Protection carry the day, and reverse, in 1872, much of the law of 1866—Just views of the Duke Decazes—Abolition for the second time of the “Surtaxes de Pavillon,” July 1873.
[Sidenote: First Navigation Law in France, A.D. 1560.]
The first appearance of anything in the shape of a Navigation Law which can be traced in the history of the French nation is to be found about A.D. 1560, during the reign of Charles IX., or rather during that of his mother, Catherine of Medicis, when Regent. It is of the most absurdly stringent character, forbidding French subjects, under any circumstances, to freight foreign vessels in the ports of his realm. Nor would he allow such vessels to carry from his ports any kind of merchandise: but, like most other laws of a similarly rigorous character, they were very imperfectly carried out, and so seldom enforced that, by degrees, they fell into desuetude.
[Sidenote: Law of Louis XIV., 1643, revised by Colbert, 1661.]
It was not, however, until the reign of Louis XIV. (A.D. 1643) that anything like a regular system of Navigation Laws was adopted; and this would seem to have been copied from the laws of England of that period, inasmuch as it had for its object that which England had proposed with regard to her own ships—the protection and the development of the French mercantile marine. But Colbert, the celebrated finance minister, in 1661, appears to have devoted considerable attention to this question, and, though he framed a law, at first as protective in its character as any of the maritime laws promulgated in England, it was, soon afterwards, moderately relaxed by his wisdom, in favour of the ships of other nations.
[Sidenote: Its chief conditions,]
In the reign of Louis XIV., as also in that of Louis XV., various ordinances and regulations were likewise issued for the purpose of determining the conditions necessary to entitle a vessel to the privileges of a French ship. Thus in the regulation bearing date 24th October, 1681, and, in several letters as well as in various ordinances, it was provided that no vessel should be allowed the privilege of hoisting the French flag, unless she were entirely owned by the subjects of that country, and unless the names of all the owners were duly registered. For every offence, or any deviation from this law, a fine of 1000 livres was inflicted; and, in case of any repetition of the offence, corporal punishments were ordained against all captains who navigated, under the French flag, any vessel of alien ownership. There was, however, no prohibition against the acquisition of vessels of foreign build. French subjects were allowed to confer on such vessels the French character by certain declarations, such as dimensions, where and by whom constructed, and by registering the names of the owners, and the contract of sale. No alien was, however, permitted to command a French vessel; nor, by the ordinance of 27th October, 1727, could even a French subject do so who had married an alien.
Foreigners were also excluded from any functions of authority; and, as in the case of the English Navigation Laws, it was ordained that every vessel should be manned by a crew of which two-thirds, at least, were French subjects. Indeed, in 1710, French subjects were forbidden, agreeably with their most ancient Navigation Law, to import goods from England in any but French bottoms—a law, at that time, levelled exclusively against this country, as it did not embrace other nations. This law was, however, abolished, three years afterwards, by the treaty of Utrecht, though again enforced when war, subsequently, broke out between the two countries. Besides this, the duty known by the name of “Droit de tonnage” (tonnage dues), for the protection of the French mercantile marine, was levied on all foreign vessels; and, though England obtained a temporary exemption from it also by the treaty of Utrecht, this duty remained practically in force till replaced by another tonnage duty in 1793. Indeed, for a long time, absolute prohibition had existed against all foreign vessels engaging in the carrying trade between the ports of France, except those of Spain, which in 1768 (January 2nd), by a treaty, known by the name of “Pacte de famille,” signed by the Kings of France, Spain, the Two Sicilies, and the Duke of Parma, as members of the reigning Bourbon family, made the Spaniards free of the existing French trade, and placed them in all respects on a similar footing, so far as that treaty was concerned, with the subjects of France. This privilege, though suspended by the Revolution, was restored by the Convention of 20th July, 1814, and still remains in force, on the part of France.
[Sidenote: Regulations for the French Colonial trade.]
The most important element, however, of the ancient Navigation Laws of France was the system of regulations for the purpose of increasing the trade with the French colonies. In its main features, it has been preserved by all the Governments, Revolutionary and Constitutional, which have, successively, presided over the destinies of that country, continuing almost unaltered far into the present century, when it was materially modified, though not entirely abolished, by the economical reforms of Napoleon III.
[Sidenote: Slightly modified by the Treaties of Utrecht, 1713, and of 1763, in favour of England.]
That system, known among French economists and lawyers under the name of the “Pacte colonial,” from the implied contract supposed to have been entered into between each colony on its foundation and the mother-country was, so far as the rights of the latter were concerned, characterised by three principles, which dictated, as far as expediency allowed, all the laws and measures of the various Governments previously to the Second Empire.
These may be briefly stated as follows:—First, no goods, the growth, produce, or manufacture of the colonies, were to be carried to any but a French market. Secondly, the colonial market was to be reserved for the commodities and produce of the mother-country. Thirdly, the carrying of all goods between the colonies and the mother-country was to be reserved for the shipping of France.
These rules, which embodied the spirit and policy of France with regard to her maritime dealings with her colonies, though undergoing from time to time various modifications necessitated by circumstances, have, as far as possible, been upheld and enforced, and in many cases with considerable severity. Thus, while the exclusion of alien shippers was jealously secured by the most stringent measures, as, for instance, by the law of 1727, Article 3, in which it was further ordained that no foreigners should land with their ships or other vessels in the ports, bays, or harbours, of the French colonies and islands, nor navigate within one league round the said colonies and islands, under penalty of confiscation of their vessels and cargoes, and a fine of 4000 livres, jointly and severally, upon the master and his crew. These rigorous prohibitions concerning sailing near the coast were, however, relaxed in favour of England, after the cession to this country by France in 1763 under the Treaty of Paris of various islands on the American coast, but with reference only to such as were in the vicinity of British possessions.
But these stringent laws, ere long proved most disadvantageous to France herself, and became a very great hardship to some of her colonies; for, having lost Canada and Louisiana, which carried on a flourishing trade with the Antilles, the inhabitants of these islands were deprived of many essential commodities. Some of their ports were, consequently, opened to foreign shipping for the importation of certain enumerated articles, and the exportation of such of the goods produced by them as could not find a sufficient market within the French dominions.
Such, in a few words, were the ancient Navigation Laws of France; nor did the Revolution, which cast aside so many of the most venerated laws and customs of that country, discard the system of protection which those ancient laws were assumed to afford to their shipping. This system, on the contrary, seems to have suited the views of the chiefs of the revolutionary period, and, being, also, in accordance with the spirit of the stern legislators of that period, was rendered by them still more stringent by the addition of special prohibitions, which their predecessors had not considered expedient.
For instance, a decree of the 13th May, 1791, prohibited the acquisition from that date of all vessels of foreign build; and on the 21st September, 1793, another decree was issued, of a more comprehensive character.
But it must be remembered that France was then at war with all the Powers of Europe as well as with her own Rulers (the King having been beheaded 21st January, 1793), and, consequently, her commercial and naval laws were in accordance with the spirit of war, which has been ever opposed to the progress and well-being of the people. The laws, therefore, relating to trade and navigation, from 1792 to 1814 must not be considered such as the nation would have approved of if at peace, but rather as warlike measures, presumed to be necessary for the welfare, and, indeed, for the very existence of the nation. England being the nearest and most powerful enemy of France, as well as the financial supporter of all the other nations then leagued against her, it is not surprising that French statesmen should have passed such laws as had special reference to the injury of her maritime commerce and her power at sea; and that those laws should have been thought to display a spirit of revenge and hatred, though in reality they were merely counterparts of our own.
Consequently, Article 3 of the law of the 21st September, 1793, enacted that “No foreign commodities, productions, or merchandise, shall be imported into France, or into the possessions or colonies of France, except directly in French vessels, or in vessels belonging to the inhabitants of the countries in which the articles imported grew, were produced or manufactured, or from the ordinary ports of sale or exportation.” All officers and three-fourths of the crew were required to be natives of the country of which the foreign vessel bore the flag, under penalty of the confiscation of the ship and cargo, and a fine of 300 livres, enforceable under pain of imprisonment, jointly and severally, against owners, consignees, and agents of the vessel and cargo, as well as against the captain and mate. Article 4, copied from the most ancient laws of France, ordained that foreign vessels should not carry from one French port to another any commodities, productions, or merchandise, of the growth, production, or manufacture of France, or of its colonies or possessions, under penalties similar to those provided under Article 3. Another article stipulated that no vessel should be allowed the privileges of the French flag, unless built in that country, or in the colonies, or other possessions of France, or condemned as a prize, or for any infringement of the laws of the State, and, unless all the officers and three-fourths of the crew were French.
[Sidenote: Amount of charges enforced.]
The provisions of this Act were made more complete by those of the decree of the 18th of October of the same year (27 Vindémaire, year II. of the Republic), establishing, among others, various rules concerning the amount of repair to be done to a foreign vessel, sold after wreck in the waters of France, to entitle her to carry the French flag; the amount of repair which a French vessel might undergo in a foreign country without forfeiting its national character; and the conditions under which a French subject, resident abroad, might own a French vessel; together with several enactments for securing the French character of ships, and for the proper measurement of their tonnage. At the same time, there was created by the Act a system of taxes, for the purpose partly of revenue, and partly of protection, intended to supersede the previous system of marine taxation, abolished expressly by Article 29. Of these new taxes, some applied to the vessel and some to the cargo; but the most important of them was a duty, assessed according to tonnage, though in very different proportions, on all vessels, whether French or foreign, entering French ports; excepting French fishing vessels, or privateers, and French vessels returning from foreign countries. It amounted to three sous[219] per ton on French vessels of above thirty tons engaged in the coasting trade of the same French sea-board; to four sous per ton, where the trading was from the French ports of one sea to those of another; and to six sous, where the navigation was between France and her colonies or possessions beyond the limits of Europe. On foreign vessels, whencesoever they came, an uniform duty of fifty sous per ton was levied when they discharged their cargoes in French ports.
[Sidenote: French and English Navigation Laws equally worthless.]
Such were the most important provisions of these two stringent laws; they were, however, only similar, in nearly all respects, to those of England, so much so that they have, frequently, been called in France Les Actes de Navigation. Indeed, they were almost as famous, at the time, in that country as the so-called celebrated Acts of Cromwell were in Great Britain—notorious, rather than famous, not for any benefits they conferred on the people of either country, but because the object of each was to cripple the maritime and naval resources of the rival power without enhancing its own; for, in those days, the happiness and prosperity of one nation was supposed to be best promoted by increasing its power of summarily inflicting punishment for any wrongs attributed to its neighbour.
But the absolute rule introduced by the law of the 21st of September, 1793, against the importation into France of foreign produce by foreign vessels except those of the country from which the produce originally came, could, in the nature of things, be only partially enforced. Supremacy cannot be obtained merely by the will of a legislator, nor can a stroke of the pen conjure navies into existence.[220]
The mercantile marine of France, which had almost entirely disappeared during the wars of the Republic and Empire, progressed so slowly for some time after the Restoration, that the assistance of foreign vessels became absolutely necessary for the supply of the French market. Strange, however, to say, for the supposed encouragement of the national shipping, and, as the next best protection that could be given to it, the carrying marine of all other nations was heavily weighted, by means of duties levied on almost all the commodities imported in foreign bottoms. In the first tariff, published after the return of the Bourbons, on the 17th of December, 1814, with the object of providing for pressing requirements until a more matured system could be established, differential duties were imposed on certain goods, more or less heavy, according as they were imported under a foreign or under the French flag. The system was developed and perfected by the Finance Law of the 28th of April, 1816, which established a new order of things, brought about by the heavy expenses of the centjours, and of the fine imposed on the French nation by the treaties of November, 1815. Consequently, most of such articles as were admitted free under the French flag, were charged with duty under a foreign one. For goods liable to duty, when imported in French bottoms, the foreign carrying trade was generally mulcted with an additional charge through the instrumentality of a series of differential duties called, respectively, surtaxes de pavillon and surtaxes d’entrepôt.
[Sidenote: “Surtaxes de Pavillon,” and “d’Entrepôt.”]
The surtaxe de pavillon was the additional duty levied on such commodities when arriving under a foreign flag. The surtaxe d’entrepôt was an increase in the rate of duty on the same merchandise, though imported under the French flag, coming from the warehouses of intermediate countries. An example of both these taxes with reference to coffee may be drawn from the tariff of the Finance Law, Article 3, of the 28th of April, 1816;[221] and, by a further decree of the 26th June, 1841, it was laid down, as a general rule, that all goods under a foreign flag should pay the highest rate of duties.
[Sidenote: “Droits de Tonnage.”]
But, although this system of differential duties levied on goods conveyed from their place of production in foreign vessels, was somewhat modified by subsequent decrees and treaties of reciprocity, it remained, practically, in force, or to a considerable extent, up to a very recent period, while the droits de tonnage levied on foreign ships alone, were not abolished until 1867: these tonnage duties were of the most objectionable and purely protective character, all French vessels being exempted from this charge. Happily, however, for France, there was one port where they were not exacted, and hence this has ever been one of her most flourishing commercial entrepôts.
[Sidenote: Special exemption of Marseilles.]
By a strange anomaly, Marseilles had been, by the law of the 16th December, 1814, as well as by the ordinance of the 19th September, 1777, put out of the pale of the tonnage duty, and made substantially a free port. This exception, the revival of a still older privilege, had been conceded for the purpose of drawing again to Marseilles, as far as possible, the trade of the Mediterranean, which, during the long period of warfare through which France had passed, had been taken possession of by her rivals in that sea, principally, by the Genoese. The Marseillais considered it as a very great advantage; and Cette, besides other ports of the Mediterranean, solicited a like exemption from a duty they justly regarded much more as an evil than a protection; but in vain, till the time when, as will be explained hereafter, the whole of France was admitted to the freedom which had so long been the exclusive privilege of a single port.
[Sidenote: French Colonial system preserved under all its Governments,]
The policy of France with regard to her colonies under the first Republic was continued by subsequent Governments, subject, however, to many qualifications and exceptions, by which the system lost much of its uniformity and regularity. But with reference to the treatment of the foreign mercantile marine, the rule excluding alien vessels from the trade between France and the generality of her colonies and possessions was for the most part maintained.
The term Colonie, or Colonie à Culture, is equivalent to the English word Plantation. Possession or établissement applies to such settlements as were made more especially for the purpose of trading, some of the other colonies and settlements being of a mixed character. In the process of time the name of Colonies, in the vocabulary of the Fiscal and Navigation Laws, came to be applied in a stricter sense to the three coffee and sugar islands which had remained to France, La Guadaloupe, la Martinique, and Bourbon (or la Réunion as it is now styled). These three colonies had always been more jealously guarded than the rest from foreign intrusion, and had remained very much under the same system; a series of special regulations common to each of them, placing them, as it were, apart from the rest. The rule as to foreign vessels was still exclusion, and prohibition against approaching the coast (with an exception in favour of the English flag by the second Treaty of Paris in 1763 as already stated) was still, in principle, maintained under the same penalty of confiscation, a penalty, however, not unfrequently disregarded.
[Sidenote: but greatly to the injury of her people.]
These restrictive laws, as has been the case with all other countries, while most injurious to the mass of the people of France, are really of no benefit to the Shipowners of that country, in whose favour they had been passed and so long adhered to. A few individuals may now and again have been gainers, to the loss of the community at large, but a reference to the customs returns of that country too clearly demonstrates, that its shipping did not keep pace with the other branches of its commerce, and that, ever since the time of Charles IX., when the Navigation Laws were first imposed, France has had to depend, frequently, to its serious loss, on the ships of foreign nations for supplying its population with, not merely the luxuries, but the actual necessaries of life: the restrictive system, therefore, though remaining so long in force and apparent vigour, has ever exhibited a gradual tendency to decline, and, by slow degrees, has been worn away by the current of events flowing towards Free-trade.
[Sidenote: English Exhibition of 1851.]
It was not, however, until the year 1851 that the eyes of the people of France really began to be opened to the advantages to be derived from a policy of commercial freedom. In that year, the people of Great Britain had reared in one of the beautiful parks, by which their capital is adorned, an elegant structure. The idea, originating with the Society of Arts, was readily adopted by the Prince Consort of our beloved Queen.[222] Perhaps no grander and nobler idea ever emanated from the mind of man. It had for its object peace and good will among nations, and no structure, hitherto erected, ever conveyed a more striking impression of “the abodes of Peace” than did the Crystal Palace of 1851. To it, all nations were invited to send specimens of the natural and cultivated produce of their soil, and the manufactures and arts of their people.
[Sidenote: Messrs. Cobden and Chevalier meet first there,]
[Sidenote: and, ultimately in 1860, carry the Commercial Treaty.]
In that marvellous structure, two great and good men for the first time met—Richard Cobden of England and Michael Chevalier of France. Men of such great intelligence could not fail to see how numerous were the articles exhibited which were required by the people of both countries where they could not be economically produced, but which were heavily taxed, merely for the special benefit of the few who produced them, to the great loss of whole communities; and that, consequently, productions and manufactures were limited by a system of protection, alike iniquitous and unnecessary for the purposes of revenue. They, therefore, resolved to do what they could to modify the tariffs of both countries, especially France, and thus to secure a more free interchange of those articles each country produced more cheaply and more abundantly than the other. The result of their labours was the Commercial Treaty of 1860.
Although, by the great changes in the English tariff, carried into effect by Sir Robert Peel (1842-46), the duty on French goods had been much reduced in England, and on a great number of articles altogether abolished, France still maintained high duties on most manufactured articles, and, indeed, prohibited altogether the importation of various descriptions of cotton and woollen cloths; the Treaty of 1860 had, therefore, not only the effect of abolishing or reducing duties still levied on French goods or produce imported into England, but of abolishing prohibitions and reducing duties on British goods and manufactures imported into France; and, above all, it gave an impulse to Free-trade ideas throughout Europe. In fact, immediately after that Treaty was signed, other treaties were concluded, on liberal terms, with most of the European States, and their direct or indirect neighbours. Indeed there was then a general movement, to a greater or less extent, in favour of increased freedom of commercial intercourse between all nations.
Had it been possible, it would perhaps have been desirable that a Treaty of Navigation should have accompanied or been embraced in the Treaty of Commerce with France, but, as it was considered by Government advisable to keep the one distinct from the other, a resolution I submitted for the consideration of the House of Commons,[223] though unanimously adopted, was held in abeyance until the Commercial Treaty had been finally adjusted.
[Sidenote: The French, heavy losers by maintaining their Navigation Laws.]
The discussion on that motion, however, paved the way for the changes subsequently made in the ancient Navigation Laws of France. It was shown, in the most incontrovertible manner, that the people of that country were serious losers by the maintenance of these laws, and that, by being unable to send their produce and manufactures, on as favourable terms as other nations, to the markets of the world, they were competing, at a disadvantage to themselves, while they were likewise sufferers by not being able to import the raw materials they required from abroad at the lowest current rates of freight. Practically, thirty-five out of thirty-six millions of the nation (for I presume that not more than one million of the inhabitants of France depend for their living, directly or indirectly, upon its shipping) were paying for the support of the remaining thirty-sixth million.
[Sidenote: Decline of French shipping.]
Nor does this payment, which their Navigation Laws so long enforced, seem to have been of any advantage to the favoured class for whom it was made. The shipping of France did not increase. On the contrary, it actually decreased during the whole period when these laws were enforced with the utmost rigour. While, in the year 1787, France employed 164,000 tons of native shipping in her trade with foreign countries, she had, forty-three years afterwards, only 156,000 tons. In her colonial trade, which was confined entirely to her own ships, she employed 114,000 tons of French shipping at the former period, and only 102,000 tons in the year 1860. But the most complete answer to those persons who desired still to retain the Navigation Laws was the remarkable fact that, while the protected branches of her shipping trade decreased, there was a steady and not inconsiderable increase in those branches of it, where her ships had to enter into competition with the vessels of other nations.
[Sidenote: Mr. Lindsay visits France, and has various interviews with the Emperor, Messrs. Rouher and Chevalier, on this subject.]
Though the motion which the House of Commons had adopted was in favour of a Treaty, that mode of negotiation presented so many objections that, nine months after it had been passed, when Lord Russell furnished me with an introduction to Lord Cowley, it was arranged that we should endeavour to induce the French Government to consider this question as one entirely relating to France, and to urge that she would inquire for herself, and, having done so, to pass such measures as would be most conducive to the interests of her own people, irrespectively of other nations.[224] This was the course subsequently adopted.
There were many enlightened men in that country, as I shall hereafter show, who entertained opinions favourable to the desired change, though the prejudice in favour of the ancient laws and customs had become so strong in the minds of the mass of the people, that it would have been all but impossible to remove it, except through the powerful influence of the enlightened monarch then governing France, who readily saw the advantage the nation would derive from Free navigation. Consequently, he in due time appointed a council to inquire into the whole subject.[225]
In the meantime an important step was taken in Colonial Legislation, which paved the way for more important changes. La Martinique, la Guadaloupe, and la Réunion (or Bourbon), the only three of her old sugar plantations which France still possessed, had been long complaining that the benefits they derived from the Pacte Colonial had entirely ceased, since the protection which their sugar used to receive in the French market against foreign sugar, and against that manufactured in France, had been withdrawn; and that nothing remained of that system, except the hardships they had to endure from the exclusion of the foreign trade and flag, and the difficulty they had in getting rid of their produce, which the French shipping was not sufficiently numerous to export.
In consequence of these and other[226] representations, a law, passed on the 3rd July, 1861, enacted (Articles 1 and 2) that all the foreign commodities allowed to be imported into France were to be admitted into Guadaloupe, Martinique, and Bourbon, under the same conditions and duties. Article 3 broke down the barrier which had hitherto shut out foreign shipping from freedom of access to those islands. It allowed the importation of foreign goods under every flag, without distinction, subject, however, to the payment of special duties, which varied according to the ports from which the goods were brought, and those to which they were imported. Thus, goods carried under any foreign flag from Europe or the Mediterranean to the Antilles, had to pay a duty, per ton, of 20 francs; if to the Réunion, of 30 francs: and when from the ports of the Atlantic coast (except the Cape and its territory), to the Antilles, 10 francs; and to Réunion, 20 francs. The duties, however, imposed by this Article, were only applicable to such foreign commodities, admissible under the previous laws, as were not liable to a higher duty. Otherwise, that duty was to continue in force. Article 6 went further, and allowed French goods to be carried to the colonies in question, and their goods to France, in foreign bottoms, subject to a duty of 20 francs per ton of cargo between France and the Antilles, and of 30 francs per ton between France and La Réunion.
The seventh Article granted the like freedom for the exportation of the goods of the colonies, either to foreign countries or to any other colony, provided such colony were beyond the limits of the coasting trade. But the law still excluded the foreign mercantile marine from entering the Colonial coasting trade, and it was only applicable to the three colonies mentioned in the Act. Nor were its provisions applicable to the other French possessions, nor to its coasting trade; nevertheless, it was an important step towards the freedom of maritime commerce.
[Sidenote: Commission of Inquiry appointed, and law ultimately passed May 1866.]
Many difficulties, however, had still to be overcome, and though the Conseil, after a most minute inquiry, and the publication of three large volumes of evidence, reported that great changes were imperatively required in the laws, their recommendations did not receive the sanction of the French legislative chambers until 1866,[227] and then only after many prolonged discussions.
Among these difficulties may be mentioned the removal of certain local charges on shipping, which had long been maintained in our ports, and against the payment of which the French Government had frequently protested, though neither the vessels of France nor of other countries were called upon to pay more than those of our own, except in some special cases, such as the case of ships owned by freemen, and other locally privileged persons, who were exempt. These charges differed in every port, and sometimes within the limit of the same harbour. Some of them were levied by virtue of Acts of Parliament, but others of a vexatious character, though trifling in amount, were only claimed by a prescriptive right, through long use. Those which were levied by prescription were either in the nature of petty customs, or of duties charged on vessels for anchorage, keelage, or with respect to ballast or to fees levied on goods in the nature of cranage, metage, cartage, wharfage; and, in too many instances, they were extorted for the use of cranes which had no existence, or of wharves which for ages had tumbled into decay. No doubt, in ancient times, it was an unquestioned prerogative of the Crown to create petty customs for local purposes, and, though that power has long since ceased to exist, when once granted to corporations or individuals it became assignable, like other property. It was, therefore, no easy task to abolish them without conceding the exorbitant demands of their owners, as the Board of Trade found out when the Vice-President, Mr. Lowe, brought the subject before Parliament.[228] But France insisted on their abolition, and, since then, the great bulk of them have been removed, by purchase or otherwise.
By Article 1 of the law of the 19th May, 1866, all materials raw or manufactured, including marine engines, intended to form parts of the construction or equipment of iron or wooden vessels, were admitted into France duty free. Article 2 abolished the premium granted by the law of the 6th May, 1841, on all steam-engines manufactured in France intended for international navigation. Article 3 permitted, after the expiration of six months from the promulgation of the law, the admission of foreign-built and fully equipped vessels to registration on payment of two francs per ton admeasurement; while Article 4 abolished all tonnage duties upon foreign ships, except such as had been or might be levied for the improvement of certain commercial harbours.
[Sidenote: Its conditions.]
But other changes were more tardily made: Article 5 providing that, only after “three years from the promulgation of the present law, the surtaxes on the flag (surtaxes de pavillon), at present applicable to productions imported from the countries where they are produced, otherwise than under the French flag, shall be abolished;” while Article 6 provided for the ulterior establishment, by imperial decree, of such compensating duties as might be rendered desirable, in consequence of any other nation imposing on the French flag higher duties than were to be levied on its own vessels; thus copying the retaliatory clause of the English Navigation Repeal Act of 1849. By Clause 7 these various articles were made applicable to the islands of Martinique, Guadaloupe, and Réunion (or Bourbon); and by Clause 8, the conditions of Articles 1, 3, and 4 were extended to Algeria; while by Article 9 the trade between France and that colony and its Coasting trade (cabotage) was permitted to be carried on by foreign vessels under the authorisation of its governor.
The 10th, or last Article, of the law of 1866, abolished the differential duties (surtaxes de navigation) which had been imposed on goods imported under a foreign flag, and the lower rate of duty on certain commodities, imported from French warehouses, under the flag of that country.[229]
[Sidenote: Repeal Act unsatisfactory to the French Shipowners.]
But the law of the 19th May, 1866, was very far from giving general satisfaction in France. Many French Shipowners were as loud in their complaints against it as the most noted Protectionist had been in England against the repeal of her Navigation Laws, and with, perhaps, more valid reasons. The new law did not give to them that freedom in the purchase or construction of their ships they had a right to expect. And though the duty of two francs per ton levied on every ship they purchased from a foreign country was insignificant, the restrictions, imposed on all materials necessary for the construction and equipment of vessels in their own country, were of a harassing and vexatious character. The measure in itself was good, but various classes of Protectionists, fearing that numerous articles might be imported which could be used for other than shipbuilding purposes, and thus interfere with their own particular branches of trade, had influence enough with the Legislature to obtain the issue of another decree[230] on the 8th June following, which nullified in some important respects the operation of the law of May 1866, and rendered it less beneficial to the people of France.
Under such vexatious restrictions it was impossible for the shipbuilder of France to compete successfully with those of other countries, as they were nearly as prejudicial to his interests as they would have been by the maintenance of the duties on all the articles he required. Competition in every branch of commerce throughout the world is so close, that, wherever the Legislature imposes not merely taxes but conditions, which, from their nature, must necessarily interfere with the course of business, and occupy a considerable portion of the shipbuilder’s time, which is a part of his capital, he cannot successfully compete with those of other countries where no such conditions are imposed.
[Sidenote: Another Commission of Inquiry appointed, 1870.]
Such restrictions, though in themselves comparatively unimportant, afforded the Shipowners of France a lever which they worked incessantly, hoping with the aid of the other Protectionists, to overthrow in time, the wise and liberal Act of the 19th May, or at least to abrogate its leading principles. At last the complaints from the seaports, and some changes in the administration of affairs, led to the appointment of a Commission or Parliamentary Committee, with powers to inquire not merely into the effect of these restrictions, but into the state generally, of the Commercial Marine of France, and on the best means of affording it assistance, should any be deemed necessary or desirable.
Although this Committee, which sat early in the year 1870, never concluded its labours, its minutes are interesting and instructive, from the depositions and discussions they embodied, and, more especially, from the important fact, that not a few even of the Shipowners themselves, who had previously doubted the policy of Free-trade as applicable to their own interests, had, within the previous five years, become converts to the advantages to be derived from unfettered commerce. But the larger portion of them were, as, in fact, Shipowners have long been in all countries, Protectionist. They contended that the French commercial marine was both absolutely and comparatively in a state of decline, caused, as they argued, mainly, by the abolition of the protective duties, which they held were necessary to prevent them from being ruined by foreign competition. Among the various causes they alleged, as rendering them unable to compete successfully with the vessels of other nations, was the want of “bulky freights,” in consequence of which their ships had frequently to leave France in ballast, or with incomplete cargoes; and, moreover, that “France, being at the western border of Europe, English, German, and other northern vessels, called at her ports, when not fully laden, to complete their outward cargoes, and compete for French freight with French shipping.”
[Sidenote: Views of rival parties.]
On the other hand, the partisans of Free-trade denied that French shipping had declined either absolutely or in comparison with the commercial marine of other countries. While conceding the point that the rates of freight had diminished, they maintained that such was the case in all other parts of the world; that this, therefore, was not in any way peculiar to France, such diminution of freight being, in fact, the natural consequence of a competition which, in the interests of the community at large, it would be as impossible as it was undesirable to prevent. Moreover, they showed that, where their Shipowners had kept pace with the movements of the age, by substituting iron for wood, and steamers for sailing vessels, whenever the requirements of the trade necessitated a change, and in cases, where the masters of these vessels themselves were enterprising and disposed to seek for freight, wherever it could be most advantageously procured, they had increased. Thus proving that the French commercial marine was fully able, if relieved from needless restrictions, to hold its own against that of any other nation. What they required was to have the “system of liberty more completely and logically applied” by the alteration or abolition of certain oppressive burdens; and by the removal of all troublesome, onerous, and, frequently, frivolous duties imposed by the French laws, besides a few other reforms which they specified.
But those Shipowners who favoured the Free-trade movement were, as has been the case in other countries, assailed as traitors by the adverse party, who taxed them with having selfish views, at variance with the true interests of French shipping, owing to their position of commission agents or shipbrokers, as well as of Shipowners; and, no doubt, these two interests were conflicting, inasmuch as the profits on the vessels might be made subservient to other and more lucrative sources of gain. But this is an old story, which has been frequently told, and those persons who, in this instance, used it as an argument, did not perceive that it was double-edged. Nor was it, indeed, conclusive, as, whatever the motives which prompted the arguments of the partisans of Free-trade, these arguments were good and sound in themselves. Besides, there were many shipowners in France in favour of Free-trade who had no other interests to serve.
[Sidenote: M. de Coninck.]
For example, the late M. de Coninck,[231] who was a large shipowner, in his evidence states that he had given up every other branch of business except ship-owning—being at the time, as he remarked, “nothing but a carrier” (charretier). In other respects his evidence was equally frank and straightforward. The cause, he deliberately told the Commissioners, the real cause of the complaints of the Protectionist Shipowners was not loss, properly speaking, but a mere diminution in their profits;[232] this loss, certainly, had, he as frankly admitted, been reduced by competition to an average rate, inferior to that of the palmy days of Protection, during which, he added, the Shipowners obtained unreasonably large profits at the expense of the community. M. de Coninck then gave happy illustrations of the loss so called of which they so loudly complained. “Formerly, and in my time,” he said, “it was considered that a vessel should clear herself in three voyages! That was the golden age of shipowners; but there is no such thing now, and, when we can gain ten per cent. per annum on the cost of our vessel we should be well satisfied.”[233]
[Sidenote: M. Bergasse.]
In support of the opinions expressed by M. de Coninck we have the indirect testimony of a well-known Protectionist who gave his evidence before the Commission. M. Bergasse, himself a leading Shipowner of Marseilles, was deputed by the Shipowners of that important seaport to appear before the Commission and state the hardships of their case. He was a gentleman of high position and considerable experience and knowledge of the world. After attempting to show the advantages which the Shipowners of other nations had over those of France, he came to the old story which had been told a thousand times in England about the Shipowners and seamen of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark, “accustomed,” said he, “to live poorly, they equip their vessels in an entirely economical manner, and do not seek to make Shipowners fortunes,[234] but only to gain their livelihood.”
[Sidenote: M. Siegfried.]
M. Siegfried, a retired merchant, who followed, gave much valuable evidence, showing the fallacy of the system of protection as insisted on, in this instance, by its partizans. He contended that France, so gifted by nature, only required outlets for her oversea commerce, a better commercial training, and a more hardy and enterprising spirit in trade. In the course of this portion of his evidence he stated, as characteristic of the business deficiencies of French shipmasters, that French export houses frequently chartered English vessels in preference to those of their own country, because the English masters were more easy to deal with, and more accommodating in their way of doing business. Nor were they subject to the extreme anxieties about their responsibility which distinguished the French shipmasters. For instance, he said, the latter will constantly insist upon somebody coming to take note “that bale number so and so had been wetted in the corner,” and, by calling attention to reserves and protests on the bills of lading were, constantly, wearying exporters by their troublesome and minute precautions against responsibility.[235] With regard to the demands of the Protectionists, he strongly adjured the Commissioners on no account to be induced to advise the resumption of the differential duties, as any such protection to the commercial marine of France could have no other effect, in the end, but to increase the prosperity of the railways and to give a fresh impetus to the maritime prosperity of the Italian ports, on the one hand, and of Antwerp and other ports in the northern vicinity of France, on the other.
But this most excellent advice was given in vain; and, though the Commissioners do not appear to have made any regular report on the evidence, the evidence itself was so full of Protectionist views that it taught abundant Protectionist lessons to the legislators who had to draw conclusions from it. Many of these gentlemen are, indeed, imbued with strong Conservative principles, and are, naturally, prone to seize on any statement in favour of their own views without inquiring very minutely into its soundness.
[Sidenote: M Thiers and Protection carry the day,]
Although an impression prevails that the spirit of Protection took deeper root, than it had previously done in the French Legislative Assembly, after the terrible disasters of the war with Germany, the truth is that it only manifested itself owing to the pressure exerted by M. Thiers when he came into power on that memorable occasion. The spirit of the Assembly was still as much in favour of freedom of commerce as it had been in 1860, when it passed its famous commercial treaty with England. But the enormous drain on the resources of France, together with other causes, and the then all-powerful influence of M. Thiers, who, throughout his long life, has been an honest Protectionist in its most original form, inspired the Assembly with a financial policy intended to husband those resources and to make the most of them, but, being timorous and narrow-minded in its conception, it was by no means calculated to attain the object in view. That such was the case we see most clearly in the system adopted by the New Assembly with respect to foreign commerce, and even more especially, in its relations with the mercantile marine of other countries. That Assembly, in its wisdom, decided that the commercial treaties between England, on the one hand, and Belgium, on the other, should be revised from a Protectionist point of view, so as to return to the old system. Happily, however, a proviso was introduced into the new law which was only in conformity with the spirit of the Treaties of 1860, whereby it was decreed that timely notice should be given to England and to Belgium of any intention on the part of France to put an end to the Treaties of 1860.
[Sidenote: and reversed, in 1872, much of the law of 1866.]
But the Assembly had its own way with regard to foreign shipping, and, by the laws of the 30th January and 3rd February, 1872, it was enacted, almost entirely through the overwhelming influence of M. Thiers: That all goods imported in foreign ships, except from the French colonies, were to be charged with a surtaxe de pavillon per 100 kilogrammes, according to the following scale of rates: from the countries of Europe and the basin of the Mediterranean, 75 centimes; from countries out of Europe, on this side the Capes of Horn and Good Hope, 1 franc 50 centimes; and, from all countries beyond these Capes, 2 francs. Guano was, however, excepted from these duties because a French mercantile house had entered into a contract to purchase a large quantity of it from the Peruvian Government.
This law further provided that all goods produced, originally, by countries out of Europe were liable to a surtaxe d’entrepôt, when imported from the warehouses of Europe, of 3 francs per 100 kilogrammes, unless they were, by the laws then in force, liable to a higher duty, which, in such case, would be charged. But, perhaps, the most suicidal portion of this law, as affecting the French Shipowners, was the re-imposition of from 30 to 50 francs per ton measurement on all foreign vessels, purchased for registration in France, together with a duty on marine engines. Again, a tonnage duty was charged on vessels of every flag coming from any foreign country or from the French colonies, of from 50 centimes to 1 franc per ton measurement; while Articles 1, 3, and 5, of the law of the 19th May, 1866, were repealed.[236]
The object, however, of this new law seems to have been, more especially, directed against the vessels of those countries which were in some respect protected by commercial treaties, and would, otherwise, have been free from it. It was introduced by a report of M. Ancel, of a very discouraging character, who charged the law of 1866, which had abolished the surtaxes de pavillon, with the sufferings and depression of the French maritime interests. Among the injurious effects attributed to that law, M. Ancel’s report alleged the diminution of the imports under the French flag from India and the South Seas. Thus, he stated that, previously to 1860, the foreign flag carried only a small portion of these goods (they never carried any on account of the prohibitory differential duties then in force), whereas, in 1869, three-fourths of them had been imported into France in foreign vessels. Consequently, he demanded, forgetting altogether the interests of the consumer and manufacturer, the re-establishment of the surtaxes de pavillon upon all importations, except those under the flag of such producing countries as were protected against surtaxes by the treaties of navigation with France, at the same time, expressing a hope that these changes would afford to the French Mercantile marine “an encouragement and a strength that its situation imperatively required.”[237]
But it is difficult—indeed it is impossible, to understand how the abolition of the surtaxes de pavillon by the law of 1866 could have caused so much mischief in 1869 and previously, as it was only from the 11th of June of that year that the abolition came into operation; and as to the surtaxes d’entrepôt they had, in fact, never been set aside! It was on such grounds as these, that the chief provisions of the wise and liberal Merchant Shipping Act of Napoleon III. were swept away!
[Sidenote: Just views of the Duke Decazes.]
Happily, however, there are still many able and shrewd men in the Councils of France—men who were, from the first, well aware of the pernicious effects which this law had produced upon the commerce of their country. “It may be said,” remarks the Duke Decazes with great truth and wisdom, “that it is that law which has jeopardised the great trade in corn of the port of Marseilles, in the same way as it has directed towards Genoa the exports of ore from the island of Elba, so valuable for our foundries ... what has taken place in the south is equally brought under our notice from the north, with respect to the port of Antwerp, which has profited by the new law to the detriment of Havre and Dunkirk. In those seas, it is the German flag which has now obtained the advantage, and enjoys the freight which heretofore pertained to the shipping of France.”
[Sidenote: Abolition, for the second time, of the _Surtaxes de Pavillon_, July 1873.]
Unanswerable facts such as these, confirming as they did the lucid and strong opinion expressed by M. Siegfried, showed what a nation may suffer, if it disregard the clear teachings of political economy applicable to all nations, and adopt such ancient and exploded dogmas as those propounded by M. Thiers; hence the Assembly retraced its steps, and by the first article of the law of the 28th and 31st July, 1873, which is still in force, the surtaxes de pavillon were, for the second time, abolished.[238]
It is to be hoped that this practical measure will have more effect than the disregarded admonitions of experience and of knowledge, and that the surtaxes de pavillon will no more find a place in the statute book of France. For the present, vessels of all foreign countries are placed upon the same footing as those of France, except with respect to the Coasting trade between its ports, from which foreign vessels are, as a rule, excluded, except those of Spain. Richer in agricultural products than most other countries, and, with a population very largely engaged in the cultivation of the soil, the French people will, no doubt in time, see the many advantages that they themselves would derive, were this trade, also, thrown open to the competition of the ships of all nations; not, that any nation could manage it so well and profitably as themselves, resident as they are on the spot, but, the fear of competition from others would have a marvellous effect in rousing French Shipowners, as it did those of England, to greater efforts on behalf of their own interests, apart from the interests and well-being of their country.
It may thus be hoped that France will not again be found in the crooked road of retrogression, but that, having under innumerable difficulties and after long years of political discussion, often in the midst of civil wars and great changes in her constitution, achieved victory over the antiquated dogmas of a cumbrous and ruinous system of protection, she will continue in the clear path of progress, which so well becomes a nation endowed by nature with the richest soil and finest climate in Europe. Possessing a population, whose industrious and frugal habits will enable her to maintain for centuries yet to come the relatively high position she has always held among nations, her legislators would do well to teach the people that these great natural advantages, and not her armies, are the true sources of the lasting greatness and happiness of France.
FOOTNOTES:
[219] A sou is as nearly as possible one half-penny sterling.
[220] To the “celebrated decrees” which followed these laws, that of Berlin of the 21st of November, 1806, and that of Milan 17th of December, 1807, and to our “Orders in Council,” which were all mere acts of war, I have already referred at considerable length (see ante, vol. ii., Chaps. VIII., IX., and XI.). In regard to these Acts, nations would do well to refer to the saying of Napoleon himself, in 1816, at the commencement of his exile, “We must fall back for the future on the open navigation of the seas, and on the entire liberty of universal trade.”—Memorial of St. Helena, 12th June, 1816.
[221] Coffee in French ships paid 48 francs per 100 kilogrammes, and in English and other foreign ships 84 francs.
[222] This Exhibition was followed by a similar one in Paris in 1855, and, when the Emperor Napoleon came to visit the Queen just before it was opened the merchants of London presented him with an address. The late Mr. Samuel Gurney was one of the deputation. After shaking hands with those of its members whom he knew, the Emperor remarked to Mr. Gurney that it was a long time since they had met. “Yes, Sire,” said the fine old Quaker with one of his blandest smiles, “it is a long time, and there have been many changes since then;” having, evidently, in his mind at the time, the means, whereby his Majesty had risen to power, and the Crimean war. “I hope,” continued the Emperor, “you will visit our Exhibition next year, and that you will allow me the pleasure of seeing you there.” “It is my intention, Sire,” replied Mr. Gurney, “to visit thy great PEACE DEMONSTRATION, and, should I do so, I shall not fail as thou wishest to pay my respects to thee.” The Emperor was, doubtless, pleased with the ready manner in which his old Quaker friend had construed his Exhibition into a demonstration of peace, and, especially, peace with England, which, at that time, and, as I believe throughout the whole of his reign, he was most anxious to maintain.
[223] The motion was as follows:—“That an humble address be presented to her Majesty, praying that she will be graciously pleased to enter into negotiations with the Emperor of the French with the view of making a Treaty for the reciprocal abrogation of all discriminating duties levied upon the vessels and their cargoes of either of the two nations in the ports of the other; and for procuring such alterations in the Navigation Laws of France as may tend to facilitate the commercial intercourse, and strengthen the friendly relations between England and France.”—See ‘Hansard’s Reports’ (March 29, 1860), vol. clvii. pp. 1528 to 1553.
Having prepared and carried this resolution, I had frequently occasion to correspond and converse with Mr. Cobden on the subject, who said that the labour in connection with the Commercial Treaty was so immense, that it would have been impossible to embrace the question of navigation. Indeed, he observed that he, alone, never could have got through with its numerous details, had it not been for the valuable assistance rendered by Mr. (now Sir Lewis) Mallet, who, at that time attached to the Board of Trade, accompanied him on his mission. I can also state of my own knowledge that the services of Mr. Mallet during the subsequent inquiry into the French Navigation Laws were of the greatest importance. With regard to the Commercial Treaty itself, there can be no doubt that, if the Legislatures of England and France, of their own free will, had adopted measures to allow the people of the respective countries to exchange their produce and manufactures free from all duties, except such as were required for the revenue, it would have been much preferable to the system of “bargaining” which Treaties invariably entail; but, unfortunately, all nations do not yet see that, if a principle is sound, it must be beneficial wherever it is applied, and, as they are still prone to set up their own laws in opposition to the laws of nature, no step in advance could have been made at that time, so far as France was concerned, without a Treaty. On the other hand, I have frequently heard objections raised to the Treaty because France was the larger gainer; its opponents said, to use a homely phrase, that the French people got 9_d._, while we got only 3_d._ out of the shilling. I offer no opinion on this point, but even if such were the case, we are 3_d._ better off than we should have been had no Treaty been made, and why therefore should we cavil against it?
[224] I daresay many persons thought at the time that I was interfering, where I had no business, with the affairs of Diplomacy; but the truth was this, as I had taken upon myself the responsibility of the motion which the House of Commons adopted, Lord Russell felt, that I ought to go a step further, and do what I could to carry it into effect, more especially, as the whole question was one full of technical details. Indeed, Lord Cowley frankly stated that it was so technical in its character, that he did not feel competent to bring it under the notice of the French Government, and, in justice to his Lordship, I must state that, so far from feeling that I was interfering with his duties, he, not merely, rendered every assistance in his power, but was most anxious that I should succeed in the object of my self-imposed mission. The advantages I possessed were a practical knowledge of the subject in all its bearings and details—a slight personal knowledge of the Emperor which I had gained when I had an interview with him about his transport service during the Crimean war, and, more especially, the friendship of Michel Chevalier, through whom I became acquainted with M. Rouher, the then Minister of Commerce.
[225] Having consulted with Messrs. Rouher and Chevalier as to the most advisable course to pursue, and, seeing with them the difficulties which had to be overcome, I had resolved with their entire consent—indeed on their suggestion—to seek an audience with the Emperor himself, a course which so thoroughly met the approval of Lord Cowley, that he, at once, undertook to obtain it, and, himself, to accompany me to the Tuileries. I had learned from the “tossing of the horses’ heads” what an apt scholar I was about to meet, and that any imperfect arguments or inconclusive facts would be at once detected. Consequently, I had carefully rehearsed in my mind every point necessary to bring under his notice, and had taken all my figures from the French Official Returns. At first the subject, necessarily a dry one, did not seem to interest the Emperor, but, when I called his attention to the fact that, while the sailing-ships of Great Britain had been increased during the previous twenty years by 2,800,000 tons, and her steamers by 400,000 tons, those of France had only, in that time, been increased by 370,000 tons, and 50,000 tons respectively, though her general commerce, in every other branch, increased nearly as rapidly as our own, he asked me to repeat the figures and explain, why it was that there was such an enormous difference. The task was an easy one; but, perhaps, the facts which struck him most were, that, though the Shipowners of France were carefully protected at a loss to the community, as more than one-half of the whole of her oversea carrying trade was conducted by foreign vessels owing to the differential duties, her people were really paying greatly enhanced prices for everything they required from abroad, without adding one sixpence to his revenue.
The interview, which, altogether, lasted for nearly two hours, must, however, have made a considerable impression on the Emperor, for, on parting, he requested me to put in writing, and in a letter addressed to himself, the leading facts and figures I had brought under his notice, and to let him have it that evening, if convenient. I made it convenient, and by 6 P.M. of that day he received the letter, a copy of which will be found in the Appendix, No. 4, p. 582.
On the following morning, I received a note from his private secretary, M. Mocquard, saying that the Emperor wished to see me that forenoon alone. After communicating with Lord Cowley, I waited upon his Majesty, and his first expression was, “I have read your letter more than once, and I wish you to explain more fully the effect of the Navigation Laws.” That I might convey to his mind, effectually, the operation of all such laws, I asked for the use of a Mercator chart on a large scale, which was soon obtained, and, spreading it on the floor, I drew upon it, with a pencil, lines to explain, for instance, the usual course of commerce with India, by way of Egypt as well as by the Cape of Good Hope. I then showed him that, though our steamers and sailing-ships were constantly passing his chief ports of Havre and Marseilles laden with produce, of which his people might be in the greatest want, the differential duties imposed by his laws prevented us from landing these goods; and then, turning to his own official returns, I repeated the fact that not one franc of revenue was derived from these dues; so that, while his people were heavy losers on one hand, his exchequer was not benefited on the other. To obtain the sugar, coffee, indigo, and other articles with which, for instance, a Peninsular and Oriental steamer passing his port of Marseilles was laden, it was necessary that they should be carried through the Straits of Gibraltar (still tracing the lines on the chart), cross the Bay of Biscay, pass his other great port of Havre, and be carried on to Southampton, to be there landed, and, most likely, sent by railway to London, where they were bonded, and thence shipped again in either French or English vessels for Calais or Boulogne, and then conveyed across France to wherever they might be required by his people; possibly even to Marseilles or Havre. “Now, Sire,” I said, still kneeling on the chart and looking earnestly at the Emperor, “if your people prefer to have what Indian produce they need conveyed to them, in that very roundabout and expensive manner, instead of importing it direct in whatever vessels may be ready to carry the produce to them on the most favourable terms, it is a process to which I, as an Englishman, have no objections to offer, for we carry in our ships not merely the great bulk of the Indian produce, but have also much extra profit from it in the shape of landing, bonding, railway carriage, transhipment, commissions, and so forth; I do not, however, see how your manufacturers can compete successfully with those of other countries, if they are compelled by your Navigation Laws to import the raw material they require by such antiquated and expensive modes as these.”
As the room, in which we were was small and the light not very good, the Emperor had followed my example, and, that he might see the lines and ports more distinctly, had himself, before I concluded, knelt down also on the chart.
In the palaces of France are to be found many grand pictures descriptive of the wars of the Empire, but its artists may now add to the decoration of these walls a far grander and nobler scene, and represent their last Emperor performing a duty to his people of much greater importance as regards their future welfare and happiness, and far more worthy of record than the blood-stained fields of Magenta and Solferino. I had, subsequently, frequent occasion to see the Emperor on the subject of these laws; and I gave evidence, for the same purposes, before the Conseil Supérieur he appointed to inquire into them: in the report of these proceedings there will be found a copy of my letter to his Majesty, and also a copy of one addressed to M. Fleury on the same subject. (See Appendix to this volume, No. 5, p. 591.)
[226] The dates were:—Address of the House of Commons, and debate upon it, 29th March, 1860; brought under the notice of the Emperor, 10th January, 1861; Report of the Minister of Commerce of France to the Emperor relative to the state of the French Mercantile Marine, published in the Moniteur 2nd May, 1862; Conseil-Supérieur of Commerce commenced its inquiry, 10th July, 1862.
[227] See correspondence respecting the operation of the French Navigation Laws on British Shipping, Parl. Pap. 1867; also No. 11 Appendix, of this volume, pp. 620-3, where these dues, as they existed in 1852, will be found.
[228] See ante, p. 411.
[229] A proposal was made to abolish the Surtaxes d’Entrepôt, or taxes upon goods from the warehouses of Europe, but it was summarily rejected.
[230] The Articles of this Decree were as follows:—
Article 1. From the date of the promulgation of the present Decree shall be admitted, free of import duty, conformably to Article 1 of the Law of May 19, 1866, with respect to the Mercantile Marine, all raw or manufactured objects entering into the construction, rigging, equipment, and maintenance of steam or sailing-vessels, of wood or iron, destined for commerce.
Articles such as moveable furniture, bedding, linen, plates and dishes, cutlery, table glass, and, in general, all objects intended for personal use, shall not be considered as forming part of the equipment.
Art. 2. Shipbuilders, and manufacturers of articles destined for the construction, equipment, rigging, or the maintenance of vessels, can alone enjoy the benefit of the provisions of the present Decree as far as raw materials are concerned.
To these articles they will have to prove their title at the Custom-house.
Art. 3. Declarations made at the Custom-house for the admission of articles duty free must bear, with respect to every kind of produce, the particulars required by the Custom-house Regulations for the payment of the dues.
Art. 4. Importers must engage, by an undertaking guaranteed in due form, to prove, within a period not exceeding one year, that the raw material admitted free, or the products manufactured with such material, or, finally, the machines and machinery, detached portions of machines, and other articles completely finished and temporarily admitted free, have been applied to the use of vessels.
If, at the expiration of the term of one year, the before-mentioned proofs have not been produced, the Custom-house will collect the official fees, and take steps for their recovery, conformably to the third paragraph of Article 1 of the Law of May 19, 1866.
Art. 5. All declarations relative to machines and machinery, to detached parts of the same, and to other articles completely manufactured, should contain the description of the said articles, in order to ensure identification, and this, without prejudice to the stamp which may be applied to steam or other machinery, to detached portions of machines, to boilers, to sails, and to such other articles as the Custom-house officers may think fit to apply it.
Art. 6. The incorporation into vessels of the raw material, or the placing on board of manufactured articles destined for construction, rigging, or equipment, shall be preceded by a declaration specifying—
1st. The nature and weight of the raw material, as well as of the manufactured articles to be employed or put on board;
2nd. The date, number, and office of delivery of Custom-house discharge; and,
3rd. The vessel to the construction, repair, or use of which the said raw materials or the said manufactured articles shall have been applied.
When a manufactured article, which shall have required several metals in its construction is in question, the declaration shall indicate the weight of each kind of metal.
Art. 7. The Custom-house, in order to check the declarations set out of the employment, whether as to raw material or manufactured articles, shall make use of whatever mode of proceeding it may judge necessary.
Art. 8. There shall not be applied to vessels in substitution:—
1st. For iron in bars of irregular shape, any except articles manufactured with iron of a like irregular shape.
2nd. For iron plates and rolled copper of a millimètre and less in thickness, any objects unless manufactured with sheet iron or rolled copper not exceeding that thickness.
In no case shall articles be admitted in the auditing of the importation accounts, made up with materials of a degree of manufacture less advanced than that of the articles tendered for entry.
Art. 9. Products manufactured with raw materials introduced duty free must represent those same materials weight for weight, and without any allowance for waste.
Art. 10. All infractions of the provisions of the present Decree will be followed by the application of the penalties provided under the third paragraph of Article 1 of the Law of the 19th May, 1866.
Art. 11. All articles placed on board vessels, and all material incorporated into the construction of the said vessels under the provisions of the present Decree, shall, in case of landing, or in case of the dismantling, repairing, or breaking up of the ships, be subject to the provisions of general legislation in matters of Customs’ dues.
[231] This gentleman was an eminent merchant and shipowner of Havre; he was also one of the most able and consistent supporters of the freedom of navigation.
[232] See ante, p. 363, in regard to how some persons calculated their losses.
[233] See the Minutes and Evidence before the Commission, p. 877.
[234] “Ne cherchant pas à faire des fortunes d’armateur.”—See Minutes of Evidence, p. 166.
[235] See Minutes of Evidence, p. 632, note. Matters have materially changed in this respect during the last forty years. While French shipmasters have deteriorated, the English have been greatly improved by education and competition.
[236] It may be remembered that when the Assembly rejected certain important clauses of this foolish Bill, M. Thiers resigned. He, however, knew full well that at that moment the Assembly would submit to his wishes sooner than let itself be deprived of his services. It was only, therefore, in subserviency to him, that the retrogressive law of 1872 passed the Assembly. It may have been the case that, at this period of disorder and financial pressure, there was a rush of Protectionists to propound their schemes for raising revenues—schemes for making other people pay these debts—the cherished but delusive theories of bygone ages; but the main spring of action was the influence of M. Thiers. He was the Government of the day. He abhorred any opinions different from his own well-known principles in favour of Protection, which he urged with all his might, and, being then all-powerful, he carried the Assembly with him; and, that such was the case, is clearly evident from the fact that, immediately after his overthrow, the laws he had forced upon France were changed, and the limited liberties of its people, which he had removed, were again restored.
[237] The fact, as I learn from my friend M. Michel Chevalier, connected with this Committee of Inquiry—the evidence before which was made the basis of Thiers’ measure—was that Pouyer-quertier, though not a member of it, exercised so much influence with its chairman, M. Paulmier, a deputy of Calvados, that he, being constantly in attendance with witnesses of strong Protectionist views, prevailed on him to put such questions to them, as would make it appear that Free-trade was ruining France. Witnesses of Liberal views, as I have shown, could hardly be heard. Nevertheless, the Committee, as I have already observed, came to no conclusion, and no report was made beyond the informal one of M. Ancel.
[238] M. Thiers, it may be remembered, was thrown out of office May 24, 1873, and, as this Bill was passed on the 31st of July, or only two months after his fall, his political opinions cannot have left much impression on the Assembly which had so recently been under his dictatorship.