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.