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whole range of human affairs, a more striking example of the coincidence of theory and experience of history with speculation, than is exhibited by this opinion, quoted from Adam Smith, with these documents and results, thus obtained from unquestionable authority.

What is it, then, which has led to the abandonment of this admirable policy? which has dissolved a system so obviously and intimately blended, not only with our naval power, but our national existence? which has transferred the growth of shipping from British to continental dockyards, and threatens, at no distant period, to reduce us to the necessity of fighting at a disadvantage for our very existence, on the seas immortalized in the archives of English glory? What is it which has induced able, powerful, and enlightened men, to give up a protection to British nautical interests, so strongly recommended by theory, so amply confirmed by experience, and abandon a patriotic policy, under which the British navy had become the terror and envy of the civilized world, and the British Colonial Empire had encircled the earth by its arms?

The grounds of this woful change -the disastrous effects of which we shall immediately demonstrate by irrefragable evidence-are to be found in a mistaken view of national policy, and the growing influence of those manufacturing and urban interests which we have elsewhere in this series demonstrated to have been so baneful in their operation. It is the exclusive pursuit of NATIONAL WEALTH, to the exclusion or injury of National Security or National Independence-the increasing, and at length usurping influence of manufacturing industry, which has led to the change, and made our statesmen literally barter the national independence, and sell their country, for gold-not indeed gold enriching themselves, or corrupting their individual conduct-but gold flowing into the pockets of their constituents, and governing the views of the clamorous urban democracies who have so long coveted, and at length obtained, the entire command of the country. Mr Huskisson, and the other statesmen who adopted this wretched policy, were most able men, but

they were misled by a false estimate of the importance of national wealth, and did not advert to the obvious truth, that national independence and public security are sometimes incompatible with the adoption of measures calculated to increase the sale of manufactures in foreign states; and that if one or other must be injured, it is in the end the most ruinous, as well as in the outset the basest policy, to sacrifice public defence or security to the insatiable craving for wealth in a particular class of society. Adam Smith's work has had most important effects upon public policy, as well as private speculation in this country, within the last fifty years; but his disciples have totally perverted his principles, and, by fixing their attention exclusively on the "Wealth of Nations," which is but a part, and frequently a subordinate part of the objects which should engross a statesman's attention, more than counterbalanced all the good to be derived from the truths which his immortal work has unfolded.

On this subject we shall let Mr Huskisson speak for himself. On the night of the 6th June, 1823,-a day destined to be more disastrous in the end to the naval power of England, than the 21st October, which witnessed the thunderbolt of Trafalgar, was to that of France,-he thus expressed himself,-" Although the alteration he had to propose was in itself most important, and an entire departure from the principles which had hitherto governed our foreign commerce, yet his plan was so clear, and the benefit to be derived from it so obvious, that he trusted he should in a few words be able to shew the propriety of it. Honourable members were aware, that it had for a long time, indeed from the passing of the Navigation Act, been our policy to impose, upon cargoes brought in foreign vessels, higher duties than those imported in British, and to allow smaller drawbacks upon articles exported in foreign, than upon those exported in British bottoms. Now, whatever might be thought of the policy of such a measure, it was all very well as long as the nations with whom we traded acquiesced in it. But when once the attention of those countries was

called to it, it was not likely that such an inequality could last much longer. Accordingly, the greatest commercial nation in the world next to England, and our great rival in trade, the United States of America, finding the pressure of this tax, immediately commenced the retaliatory system, by imposing duties upon all articles imported into that country by British ships. In consequence of this, great embarrassment arose in the commercial intercourse of the two countries-insomuch, that in cases where the increased duties countervailed the freight, it became necessary to have two sets of ships employed; that is, to have British ships employed to bring home American produce, and American taking our produce to that country-—each being of course obliged to leave its own port in ballast. We were in consequence obliged to place American vessels on the same footing as English with respect to duties, and they did the same to our ships. Portugal, by the same means, obliged us to equalize the duties on her shipping; and Belgium has recently given a bounty of 10 per cent on Dutch ships, with the same view. Prussia also has raised the duties on our vessels, and plainly intimated, that she will adopt still stronger measures of retaliation, if our system is not abandoned. We have arrived, therefore, at that point when one of two things must be done: Either we must commence a commercial conflict by means of prohibitions and duties-a course which no gentleman would recommend; or we must admit other Powers on a footing of perfect equality and reciprocity of duties."*

Proceeding on these principles, this great advocate of the reciprocity system proposed the following resolutions:

"I. That it is the opinion of this committee, that his Majesty be authorized, by order in Council, to declare, that the importation or exportation of merchandise in foreign vessels may take place upon payment of the like duties, and with the like bounties, drawbacks, and allowances, as are payable or granted upon simi

Parl. Deb. IX. 795.

lar merchandise when imported or exported in British vessels from or to countries in which no other duties are charged, or drawbacks, bounties, or allowances granted on the importation or exportation of merchandise in British vessels, than are granted or charged on such merchandise when imported or exported in vessels of such countries.

"II. That his Majesty may be authorized, by order in Council, to direct the levying and charging of additional duties of customs, or the withholding of any drawbacks, bounties, or allowances, upon merchandise imported or exported into or from the United Kingdom in vessels belonging to any country, in which higher duties shall have been levied, or smaller bounties, drawbacks, or allowances granted upon merchandise when imported into, or exported from, such country in British vessels, than are levied or granted upon similar merchandise when imported or exported in vessels of such country!"†

These resolutions were immediately adopted by both Houses of Parliament, with the general concur rence of a liberal and conciliating Legislature, and mutual compliments from his Majesty's Ministry, and his Majesty's Opposition, upon the triumph of liberal principles, and the ascendency which the great truths of political economy had at length obtained in the councils of the nation. It is one of the most remarkable circumstances of those disastrous days of conciliation and concession, when amidst general transports, and pompous declamation upon the boundless prospects of our national felicity, the strong and ancient foundations of British greatness were loosened, and the seed of national ruin sown with the concurrence of the whole men styling themselves enlightened in the kingdom, that this prodigious change, involving, as Mr Huskisson admitted, a total departure from all the principles of our former navigation policy, excited hardly any attention in the Legisla ture; the whole debate on it did not take up two hours: it hardly occupies six pages of Hansard's Reports;

Ibid. IX. 799.

and the seal was put to a change, involving in its ultimate consequen ces the downfall of our maritime superiority, the dissolution of our Colonial Empire, our subjugation by foreign nations, with only one dissentient voice (Mr Robertson) in the Legislature, and without even a division in either House of Parliament!!

From the very first, we, in this Magazine, firmly and resolutely opposed the changes: we foretold that it would ruin our shipowners, check the growth of British shipping, ruinously depress our nautical industry, immensely increase that of our enemies, and ultimately raise foreign states to a level with us on our own element, and force us to fight with the offspring of our infatuated policy, in the Channel and German Seas, for our national existence. We founded our opinion upon the superior advantages which foreign nations, and especially the Baltic Powers, enjoyed for the building and repairing of ships over those of this country; possessing, as they did, every species of naval store, oak, fir, hemp, tar, pitch, iron, flax, at their own door, and with men to work them who did not receive half the money wages which are necessarily paid to the shipwrights in the British harbours, where all the necessaries of life are, comparatively speaking, so dear, and where taxation and long-established national wealth have exposed to such serious disadvantages this vital branch of national industry. Our arguments, in short, were precisely the same, mutatis mutandis, which are now put forth so generally, and happily for the nation, with such effect, against the repeal of the Corn Laws; and both were grounded on the same basis, viz. salus populi suprema lex. National subsistence, or defence, are of paramount importance; the measures calculated for the protection of both are the Palladium of the State, non tangenda non movenda; and how alluring soever may be the prospects held forth of encouraging other branches of industry, or increasing other branches of wealth, by measures calculated to depress them, they are instantly and peremptorily to be rejected, for reasons superior to all interested views, on

principles above all that can be urged in behalf of any single class in the state. Of national, not less than female salvation and honour, it may truly be said, Those that deliberate are lost.

Immense was the abuse, boundless the vituperation, inexhaustible the ribaldry, poured out upon our devoted heads for this resolute course. We were the only influential journal that held out against the lights of the age: intrenched in the fastnesses of former prejudice, we held fast by all the errors of a former period: like a hulk moored in the water, we served to measure the velocity of the tide, which was sweeping past us. The metaphors were partially true: we were moored fast; a tide was sweeping past us; but we were moored to the rock of truth in the haven of the British constitution, and the torrent, which was flowing so impetuously past, was the tide of Revolution, undermining all the bulwarks of the State, bearing away every prop and support of former greatness.

Some of our readers may consider this inflated or exaggerated language. Before they adopt this conclusion, let them consider the following returns, and contemplate the steady decay of British, and increase of foreign shipping, in all the harbours of the kingdom, since the introduction of the reciprocity system. The details we are about to give may be minute, and to many uninteresting; but they are all taken from Parliamentary documents, and may be fully relied on. The subject is one of vast, of paramount importance: national independence, public freedom, are at stake in the questions which these figures involve; if they are neglected by the thoughtful and influential part of the nation, the elements of our existence will melt away, and we may be reduced, like Venice, to exhibit to the world the degraded shadow of the Queen of the Ocean.

Keeping in view that the reciprocity system was introduced in summer 1823, attend to the instantaneous decline in British, and increase of foreign shipping, that ensued in all the principal harbours of Great Britain:

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Thus, while the British vessels annually entering the port of London have only increased, since 1822, from 3230 to 4140, that is, a third, and their tonnage from 611,00 to 780,000, or a sixth; the foreign vessels annually entering have increased from 597 to 1557, or nearly tripled, while their tonnage has increased from 106,000 to 269,000, or twice and a half.

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Thus, while the British shipping entering the port of Hull has increased, since 1822, from 696 to 989, or a third nearly, and the tonnage from 139,000 to 189,000, or about the same; the foreign ships have increased from 106 to 725, or multiplied nearly SEVENFOLD, and their tonnage swelled from 14,000 to 73,000, or nearly sixFOLD.

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