AGITATION CONCERNING THE NAVIGATION LAWS.
Early in the parliamentary session, the government indicated an intention to repeal the navigation laws. In this they were supported very ardently by Mr. Hume, Mr. Ricardo, Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright, Mr. Milner Gibson, and by many other ardent friends of the Manchester school. The time was ill-chosen for any movement on this subject, because the seamen as well as the shipowners were opposed to any alteration, and the disturbed state of continental Europe, and indeed of the British Isles, made it extremely unwise for government to irritate a class whose physical energy, peculiar position, and popularity with the people, gave them, if disposed, peculiar capacity to disturb the peace.
The party which desired the repeal of the navigation laws maintained that free-trade in ships and seamen was as necessary as in other matters, and the cotton districts called loudly for the change. The leader of the shipping interest was James Mather, Esq., of South Shields, a gentleman not connected with ships or shipowners, but moved by patriotic feelings alone. Mr. Mather possessed all the qualities necessary for a leader in the agitation of a great political and politico-economical question. With a highly cultivated intellect, conciliatory address, fearless spirit, and astonishing physical energy, he was just the man to please at once the educated mariners, and the rough, bold, hardy tars. The gentlemanly bearing of Mr. Mather was also calculated to impress his opponents favourably, and a graceful persuasiveness of mien and language, aided in qualifying him for that object. Mr. Mather grappled with the arguments of Cobden, Bright, and the other leaders of the cotton districts, whose influence at that time, fresh from their victory over the corn interest, made it important to confute the arguments they addressed to the public. Mr. Mather addressed a letter to the editor of the Shipping Almanack and Gazette, which produced a great impression where the arguments of the Lancashire leaders had been accepted as irrefutable. It is desirable to reproduce this document, as the controversy was one of the most important in its day, and the policy ultimately adopted remained longer open to question than any other of the anti-protectionist measures which were adopted. Mr. Mather’s letter was the more effective, because it exposed an artifice to which Mr. Gladstone especially resorted, but in which he was supported by the Lancashire members:—
“The combined attack of Messrs. Gladstone, Bright, Cobden, and two or three others in the House of Commons, upon the navigation laws, on account of their preventing the importation of a few cargoes of cotton lying at Havre, and demanding a suspension of these laws for the immediate necessities of the manufactories, and the advantage of British shipping, was as unfair and discreditable a proceeding as party men have for a long time been guilty of. For the sixty-five thousand bales of cotton at Havre, brought across the Atlantic chiefly by French ships, it is, they assert, of advantage to British shipping to destroy that amount of carriage on the long voyage, and allow this cotton to be brought from France to England, which a few trips of a steamer would easily effect. The very statement of the matter, in plain language, refutes the absurd assertion. You are losing the carriage of thirty cargoes of cotton, these gentlemen asserted. No, it is replied, for by preventing their admission from France, as there is a great abundance of cotton in America, we are gaining the carriage of thirty cargoes on the long voyage—a portion in British ships; and you will get cotton just as cheap, nay cheaper for the manufacturers, as the expense of transhipment will be saved.
“But the cotton is immediately wanted, they assert. Now this was a mere pretence, which the parties clearly understood, to give a momentary effect to a most untenable charge. Events have corroborated this.
“Within a few days thirty-three vessels have brought seventy-three thousand six hundred and forty-nine bales of cotton from America; and such is the great want of it, sufficient to annihilate or suspend the navigation laws, that the manufacturers only bought nineteen thousand six hundred and sixty bales, while nine hundred and seventy bales were bought for exportation; that, instead of requiring cotton, they are exporting it from the manufacturing district in which it was stated to be so much required.
“If cotton was in such demand, would it be upwards of thirty per cent, lower than it was last year, and would it be falling in price as it is now? Prices are at present within 1/8d. per lb. of the lowest they were ever reduced to. For two months it has been a falling market, and at the very moment these men were advancing such assertions, was the cotton market in a state of decline, giving the broadest contradiction to them. If cotton had been wanted, the price, as in any other article, would have been high, not low, and would have been advancing, not receding, especially with a limited supply.
“The importation last year was the smallest for ten years. Increasing previous to 1845 for fifty years, it has since rapidly decreased, and now it has been found that nearly one-third less stock is required than there was in 1843,1844, and 1845.
BALES. In 1843 it was.......................... 1,557,597 1844.................................... 1,490,984 1845.................................... 1,652,731 1846.................................... 1,134,194 1847.................................... 1,087,058
“And in this year (1848), up to this month, it has been ascertained that one-third less stock than in the previous low year of 1847, is more than enough. (See George! Holt &c.; Co.’s Circular, and Liverpool Prices Current, for the 7th of April). In addition, a reduction of upwards of thirty per cent, in price, from that of last year, indicates a still more limited requirement.
“While the stock is only, up to this period for this year, three hundred and twenty-two thousand eight hundred bales, against the corresponding period last year, four hundred and ninety-two thousand six hundred bales; showing, with upwards of one-third less stock one-third less price—a demonstrative proof that the supply is infinitely greater than the demand. Whenever the price advances, indicating demand, the American supply will be poured into the market without any necessity for importations from France. Had the navigation laws been suspended, as urged by some of their opponents, and the French cotton brought in, it would only have been a drug in the market, useless and unsaleable. More has since been brought in than was lying at Havre, at thirty per cent, less than they have had it for two years, and they will not buy it. It was not wanted; only an excuse was wanted to strike a blow—a most unfair one—at the navigation laws, and the British commercial marine, which all the little opponents throughout the country, in their gross ignorance, have quoted and applauded.”
Meanwhile, the agitation of the mariners and shipowners was exceeding great, especially in the three grand centres of maritime activity—the Thames, the Mersey, and the Tyne. Along the north-east coast of England, the tidings that the government meant to repeal the navigation laws sped with rapidity, and produced the most intense excitement. Public meetings were called at Hull, Scarborough. Whitby, Sunderland, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Shields, and Berwick, which were attended by great numbers, and which were eloquently addressed. The sailors attended these meetings with boisterous enthusiasm. They were under the impression that a great wrong was about to be perpetuated, and they were resolved to do anything which loyalty allowed to defeat the meditated alterations in the law. Under the guidance of a man less just and scrupulous, and less jealous for the constitution than Mr. Mather was, much mischief might have arisen from the sense of grievance which the sailors entertained. That gentleman, however, so conducted the agitation as to gain a large measure of public support, and to defeat, during that year, the proposed alterations.
A convention of shipowners and seamen of the Tyne was held at Shields, one of the largest and most important ever held in England. Mr. Mather proposed the following resolutions, which were enthusiastically adopted: they will disclose the purpose and opinion of that community:—
“Resolved—That we will resist, by every legal and constitutional means in our power, the repeal of the navigation laws, so violently agitated by theorists and self-interested men, which were adopted, and have been sustained, by the wisest statesmen in all ages for the support of the shipping and seamen of Britain, to prevent the cheap ships and ill-fed and badly-paid foreigners from underselling and destroying the British mercantile marine.
“Resolved—That we pledge ourselves, on arriving in London, to take measures, in conjunction with all the seamen there, loyally and respectfully, as becomes British seamen, to lay, personally, an urgent memorial at the feet of her majesty, warning her of the consequence of driving British seamen into the service of a foreign state, where that protection and encouragement are freely given them that, by the repeal of the navigation laws, will be denied them in their own country; and humbly entreating her majesty to interpose her royal authority for the protection of that class of men who, in time of war and danger, her ancestors and this kingdom have ever found their best protection and their greatest glory.”
At this meeting Mr. Mather was deputed to proceed to London, and lay the statements of the ship-owners before the government. A speech made by that gentleman at Shields, places the controversy in the light in which it was then viewed by the shipping interest:—
“All the maritime laws that have guided the policy of this great state for centuries, that have made her ‘great, glorious, and free,’ are to be repealed under the most frivolous pretexts. Mr. Labouchere, the organ of the government, a supporter of reciprocity and equal rights to the commercial marine of the world—British and foreign—propounds a measure in which he bestows all the preponderating advantages upon the opponents of his own country. Had the act being that of an enemy it would have been proper. The whole foreign and colonial trade is to be given up to foreign shipping, free and unfettered, while that of Britain is to be bound down hand and foot, and scarcely capable of moving. First, then, your ships are to be built of taxed timber, 15s. and 20s. per load, exclusive of its freight, and expenses as much more, and to go into competition with the foreign ships with not a shilling per load duty or freight. You are not only obliged to compete with your heavily-taxed ships, and to pay foreigners freight to bring you the timber to build them, but you are obliged to carry three-fourths British crews in these offered-up trades, while the foreigner’s crews are to be all of his own country, half-paid and half-fed. You know well the wages and feeding of foreign crews; you have all been witnesses and are daily witnesses of it. It is a truth, and undeniable, that these foreigners have only from 15s. to 25s., the highest wages per month. It is thus with Danes, Russians, Prussians, Swedes, and Norwegians, while your wages are more than twice as much—60s. per month. They can be fed, too, on 6d. per day—in most instances, much less; while British seamen cannot be fed under 1s. per day, to feed them as their climate and constitutions require—hence their extraordinary energies. Yet, with these great disadvantages, in ships, wages, and provisions, it is determined to risk three-fourths of the commercial marine of Britain in a contest with foreigners that must be overwhelming. But Mr. Labouchere feels no difficulties, has no political qualms of conscience, in thus offering up a sacrifice three-fourths of the commercial marine of Great Britain. He says, ‘Look at the results of the same system tried so far back as the beginning of the seventeenth century in Holland—the Dutch by free trade became the most prosperous nation in Europe. Look at her great commercial marine. Under it the carriers of the world—her ships were on every sea.’ It is very surprising that this gentleman did not continue to follow history in that country and at home since that period downwards. The iron-headed Cromwell, great by his acts, had the sagacity to perceive that the commercial marine was the soul of the navy, and that as long as the Dutch had the carrying trade, Britain and other colonies were in danger. So he strengthened the old restrictive laws of Richard II., Henry VII., and Elizabeth, and passed the navigation laws, under which the British commercial marine has been protected to the present time, with the exception of the tampering they have met with lately. And what has been the result? The Dutch, with her free-trade system, has sunk her commercial marine to the lowest condition, while Britain, with her protective system, has grown a commercial marine, the greatest the world ever saw—her ships in every sea, her flag overshadowing the world. How does it happen—and let Mr. Labouchere and the whig government answer—how does it happen that the Dutch commercial marine has been ruined by the free-trade system, and that we have grown great, pari passu, by a restrictive system? But figures are appealed to by the present government to show that since the introduction of the reciprocity treaties, or free trade in a limited extent, our commercial marine has greatly increased.
“These figures Mr. Labouchere adduces as a strong argument in favour of Mr. Huskisson’s relaxations, commencing at the former period. Observe these figures more closely, and you will find that the tonnage of the United Kingdom, to which the reciprocity treaties apply, have increased considerably under one-half, while the trade to which they did not apply has more than trebled its tonnage. To overwhelm the defalcations in the British trade with the reciprocity states, by the extended or more prosperous state of the general trade, was both unfair and disingenuous. Yet, this has Mr. Labouchere not a moment hesitated to do. Knowing, for he must have known, that the British commercial marine, in its trade with the reciprocity states, had either decreased or only in a smaller proportion increased with those states, it was a great fallacy and a deceit for him to proclaim it as the source of prosperity. How stand the facts with the reciprocity countries.
“In twenty-two years, then, there has been a decrease of British tonnage employed in three of the five principal reciprocity states, and an enormous increase of foreign tonnage in four of the five states. In the two states where British tonnage has increased, the foreign, or the tonnage of the same states, has infinitely surpassed it; in Denmark, 2793 to 82,284; and in the United States, 160,129 to 281,924; and yet a British minister of state cites the cause of the increase of British tonnage to the reciprocity treaties as a reason for this momentous change. In thirty years averaging twenty of the reciprocity treaties, our tonnage has increased only 38 per cent., while our population and its wants have increased 50 per cent., and imports 104 per cent. Thus, in every phase that the question is presented to us, the shipping appears to have kept no pace with the other interests of the kingdom, presenting to our view some great obstructive cause; and that cause, I humbly submit, is the reciprocity system adopted so generally in 1824. Notwithstanding which, here have we a government insisting upon extending, without a moment’s hesitation, this system which has already so deeply injured us, to three-fourths of the commercial marine of this country. And what are the flimsy pretences in addition? Why, that Prussia has threatened on one hand, and the United States coaxed on the other, and that British masters and mates are intemperate, and British seamen insubordinate. I will take the libel first, and ask Mr. Labouchere and the whig government how it happens that British ships, commanded by such masters and manned by such crews, are at the great marine insurance office of the world, Lloyds, always insured 1 per cent., 1=1/2 and 2 per cent, lower than the eulogised foreign ships, with their masters and crews? Will they explain that indubitable fact? And also, I beg to know of these sage legislators the cause that in the winters of 1846-47, out of two hundred and ninety-four corn-laden British ships from America, there were only three foundered, while out of four hundred and thirty United States’ ships performing the same voyage, with similar cargoes, seventeen foundered. And how out of the same number four British only were stranded, while there were twelve American? Not a fourth part of the casualties amongst the British that there were amongst the United States ships; yet the Americans are an experienced, gallant, and well-conducted race of seamen. These things gave the broadest refutation to such a calumnious charge. It is not wise for a minister of state of Britain to proclaim to the world a character of the bravest and most important class of men of Britain, that disgraces them indelibly, injures the property of their employers, and dishonours the country. The twenty thousand gallant schoolmasters afloat that are busy day and night, educating and developing the powers of the future defenders of Britain, making them able and worthy sons—the ablest and worthiest of their great country—to be thus traduced by those who should ever and above all protect them, is an act of the most revolting nature.”
The effect of Mr. Mather’s exertions were seen in a grand demonstration on the 9th of February, in London, which, in deference to the civic authorities, was made on the river, rather than, as originally intended, in the streets of London and Westminster. According to the Shipping Gazette, there were ten thousand seamen from the Tyne and its neighbourhood in the port of London that day. On the evening previous to the demonstration, the crews of all British vessels in the Thames were in a high state of excitement, full of preparation for the morrow. Between three and four hundred vessels were in the Pool, the Gallions, Bugsby’s Hole, and Longreach, and their crews manifested the utmost eagerness to show their sense of what they considered their rights. The next day a grand procession of boats, partly tugged by steamers, proceeded to Westminster Bridge. The vessels and boats carried the union jack, and various flags; the sailors were dressed in their holiday suits, and bore the words “Navigation Laws” round their hats, in large yellow letters, the masters and mates in gilt letters. The Standard newspaper estimated the number of seamen in the procession at about fifteen thousand. The banks of the river and the bridges were crowded with spectators, whose sympathy was shown in every way that the most enthusiastic popular feeling could evince. Cheers rang along the river, cannons were fired, and the leaders of the demonstration, Mr. Mather, Captain Smith, and Mr. Butchert, were received everywhere with the loudest plaudits of the people. The appearance of the boats and steamers, manned by tars in their best attire, and bearing gay flags, was exceedingly picturesque. Perhaps no metropolitan sight so imposing had been witnessed by the generation of Londoners then living. The wind was boisterous and the sky lowering; the procession had also to make its way against tide; but these obstacles only broke the formality of the line of procession, while evoking an activity on the part of those who manned the boats, which heightened the interest of the scene, giving characteristic traits to a procession afloat, which in gentler weather it would not have exhibited. Even the cloudiness of the sky aided the picture, which would have been seen to less advantage under a glaring sunshine; yet, occasionally, the clouds broke away, and the sun fell upon the scene with that splendour, which, if wholly wanting, would have deprived the view of much of its effect.
The following is a copy of the memorial presented by the deputation:—
“TO HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY.
“The loyal and humble memorial of the masters, mates, seamen, shipwrights, and other naval artizans now assembled in London, and the delegates representing the outports of the kingdom.
“May it please tour Majesty,—We, your majesty’s loyal and dutiful subjects, beg most respectfully to approach your majesty to lay this humble memorial at the foot of the throne, believing that the subject-matter of it involves not only the well-being of your memorialists, but the security of your majesty’s dominions in every part of the world.
“Your majesty’s memorialists have learnt with deep regret and indignation that it is seriously contemplated to repeal the navigation laws, the principle of which, for the protection and encouragement of British ships and British seamen has been the undeviating policy of this maritime state for nearly five hundred years.
“Your memorialists most respectfully and loyally, but firmly, as ardent friends of their country, which they sincerely love, beg to represent to your majesty that the repeal of the navigation laws will bring ruin on your memorialists and the commercial marine of Britain.
“That by such a measure, admitting the cheap foreign ships, half-paid and ill-fed foreign seamen, of which your memorialists have the most correct personal knowledge, it will reduce, by a competition, the lowest in the world, the condition of your memorialists, and their families, and strike a blow at their very existence.
“That thus your memorialists will be driven to seek employment in another state, speaking the same language and possessing similar laws, where seamen’s interests and seamen’s rights are carefully attended to, and where thousands of British seamen have already found protection—so weakening your majesty’s empire, and giving additional strength to an already great maritime competitor.
“Your memorialists, therefore, urgently pray your majesty to throw your royal protection around your memorialists, and the commercial marine of Great Britain, whose predecessors in all ages in time of war and danger, your ancestors and this kingdom have ever found their best protection and their greatest glory.
“God bless your majesty, and counsel you in wisdom, your petitioners will ever pray.”
This demonstration, while it postponed the repeal of the navigation laws, did not avert various modifications in our maritime code, which were made in the ensuing year. The consequences were not so disadvantageous as those who objected to the experiment feared, whereas the abettors of repeal contend that free trade in ships and sailors has proved, like free trade in corn, advantageous to the country.
Soon after the demonstration, Sir George Grey wrote to Mr. Mather, assuring him that her majesty had received the memorial in the most gracious manner.