Let us continue to extend our foreign intercourse and home cultivation—let the merchant legislate in affairs of trade—the landholder in country matters; each in that in which his judgment has been formed by experience, acting always on the principle that the general prosperity of the country is the interest {133} of every class—that, like the branch and the root, their prosperity is indissolubly combined.
When we view the advantages of Britain—almost to a wish,—when we view her able and ready to supply the necessities of man in every clime, in exchange for his superfluities, and to scatter science, morality, the arts of life, all that conduces to happiness and improvement over the nations,—when we view all this, being blasted by an exclusive system of monopoly, of very doubtful advantage to one party of the nation, and tyrannically oppressive upon all others, can we refrain from execration? We would desire the casuist to draw a distinction between the criminality of preventing the operative from exchanging the produce of his labour (otherwise unsaleable) for cheap food[31], when his family is famishing; and compelling the labour of the Negro (whom you support with food) with the whip. Men will be found of a virtue sufficiently easy to advocate either system. We only wish that the supporters of {134} monopoly and their abettors were sent off to some separate quarter of the world with all their beloved restrictions, duties, tariffs, passports, revenue officers, blockade men, with the innumerable petty interfering vexatious regulations, and all the contrivances which surely the devil has invented to repress industry and promote misery, where they might form an Elysium of their own.
There is nothing more certain, should we by restrictions continue to banish knowledge, capital, and industry from our shores[32], than that the Genius of Improvement will fix upon some other place for the seat of her throne. Maritime dominion will follow in her train; and on the first war, all exportation of the products of our manufacturers being at an end, unexampled misery will involve four-fifths of our population, and an explosion will ensue, from its origin and character of unparalleled fury, which will sweep to destruction the insane authors of the calamity—tear to shreds the whole fabric of society—and give to the winds all the institutions which man has been accustomed to revere. {135}
It is disgraceful that our MARINE is not directly represented in the British Parliament. Is it possible that every clown in England, who is owner of a few acres or miserable hovel, is carried to the poll,—and that our shipping interest, and brave seamen, to whom the rest of the nation is indebted “for all they have, and almost all they know,” are passed over—have not one direct representative—have not even one direct vote, and that their interest is totally neglected[33]? Will it be credited that our most sage legislators, as if on purpose to ruin our marine, have laid on a tax of L. 4 per load (above 1s. 7d. per solid foot) on oak-plank, and L. 2, 15s. per load on rough oak-timber, imported from other nations; which, as only a small part of what is (not of what would be) used, is so derived, at the same time that it raises the price of the whole[34] nearly 100 per cent., tends comparatively little to swell the revenue,—nearly the whole of the high monopoly price reverting to our landholders and our grateful Canadian {136} colony? As about a load (50 solid feet) of timber is required for the construction of a ton of trading shipping, this duty, together with the high duty on hemp, increases the cost of our vessels nearly L. 4 per register ton, independent of the higher price of building and sailing them, from other monopolies; and it is only from the very superior skill, honesty and industry of our seamen[35], that our shipping, since the peace, under this very great disadvantage, has been at all enabled to compete with foreign. At Shields and Newcastle a new merchant-vessel of oak, rigged and ready for sea, uncoppered, can be purchased for L. 10 per register ton. Were the price, by the removal of monopoly, reduced to L. 6 per ton, scarcely a foreign bottom, American excepted, would compete with British, in the carrying trade, or would enter a British port. Can it be believed that our very liberal late minister (Mr Huskisson), and our very non-liberal member for Newark (Mr Sadler), have both made a full exposè of the distresses of our shipping interest, and not once have adverted to the cause of this, and of the comparative decline of our naval preponderance—the very high duty on the {137} material? Does our Government perceive the rapid strides which our rival brothers in America are making to surpass us in marine—and will it be so besotted as continue laws to the speedy fulfilment of this?
May we hope that, through the energy of OUR SAILOR KING, Britain will lead the van in the disenfranchisement of man from the old bondage of monopoly and restriction—that a more sane system of taxation (a tax on property) will be adopted, as well as a necessary retrenchment—that the true interest of Britain will be understood and followed, and a new era begin. We are sick of the drivelling nonsense of our closet economists about loss by colonies and foreign connexion. Bonaparte well knew the value of SHIPS, COLONIES and COMMERCE, and dreaded the power which eventually wrought his fall. The existence of China depends upon her Agriculture, and the sovereign devotes a part of his time annually to the plough. The existence of Britain depends upon her Marine, and the king should always be bred a sailor—the heir-apparent and presumptive being always sent to sea. In the case of a female, if she did not take kindly to the sea-service, a dispensation might be allowed, on her marrying a sailor, and the foolish law prohibiting our Royal Family from marrying a Briton be put aside.
NOTES TO PART III.
- [25]. If the heat and evaporation of a gardener’s pocket for several days be sufficient to render the seeds of melons and gourds productive of plants of earlier maturity, that is less disposed to extension and more to reproduction,—what may be expected from kiln-drying fir-cones?
- [26]. The full ripening of the seeds of some cultivated varieties of vegetables, and also the drying of the seeds severely without artificial heat, are found to have considerable influence upon the germination of the seeds, and even some impression upon the character of the resulting plant.
- [27]. Covered drains are not adapted for woods, as the matted fibres of the roots, especially of the semi-aquatic trees, very soon enter them and form obstructions.
- [28]. Laburnum (Cytisus) is the most valuable timber this country produces. It is equally deep in colour, and takes as fine a polish as rose-wood, having also something slightly pellucid in the polished surface. From its extreme hardness, it is much better adapted for use than mahogany, not being indented or injured by blows or rough treatment. We are acquainted with no other timber of home produce so little liable to decay. The large-leaved variety in rich warm soils acquires a diameter of a foot or a foot and a-half, and grows rapidly till it fall into seed-bearing. Its usual very stunted growth is partly owing to less valuable faster growing trees overtopping it: Were it planted alone, and trained to proper curve, it might be profitably reared for the upper timbers (the part where decay commences) of small vessels: it has the thinnest covering of sap wood of any of our timber trees. The extreme beauty and richness of its clustered depending blossoms is a considerable injury to its growth, as it is often broken and despoiled of the branches on this account. The small-leaved Laburnum, though producing the most beautiful timber, is of such puny growth as not to rank as a forest tree. There is a peculiarity, at least seldom occurring in other trees, attending the growth of the small-leaved variety: a branch frequently gives up feeding the connected trunk and roots, drawing supply of nourishment from these upward, without returning much or any of the digested matter downward. This branch above the place of the stagnation of the bark vessels becomes enlarged, running into numerous shoots, which are generally unnaturally thick and unhealthy, approaching to dropsical—often, however, beautifully pendant down to the ground, from their weight and the smallness of the supporting branch. We do not know whether this is an awkward effort towards increase—that these branches, under the influence of a not entirely matured instinct or faculty, droop in search of earth to root, and extend by layers, in conformity to a habit of some tribes of trees, in which this mode of increase is efficient, or that it is a disease unconnected with design or final cause. These overgrown branches of the small-leaved laburnum are generally thrown out by trees, which, owing to circumstances, are little disposed to seeding.
- [29]. Let us compare the wealth of the British landholder with that of the like grade on the Continent. It is the unrivalled skill and industry of our manufacturers and traders which have laid every shore under contribution for the immense riches which has poured in upon our landholders, and which, from juxtaposition, will continue to do so, in a certain degree, under the fullest freedom of trade. It is now absurd to talk of duties on foreign products, to counterbalance home taxation—taxation now bears lightly on home agricultural production, more so than in many parts of the Continent, and our manufacturers, under the same or greater taxation, compete with and outstrip all the world in cheapness of production.
- [30]. The dread of change in Catholic countries—the proscription of almost every new work treating of science—the complete submission of the mind to the religious authorities, bearded men “becoming little children” even to the letter—the consequent general abandonment to sensual enjoyment—the immense number of holidays—and the shoals of meddling priests, are a great bar to improvement—an insurmountable one to manufacturing pre-eminence. We need not say that all this is subordinate to climate. Effect, however, soon turns to cause.
- [31]. Our industrious operatives, rendered trebly more productive by recent machinery improvements, fabricate three times more commodity than our landed and other population can with their present habits consume. Few other nations can give else but food in exchange for this overplus; our landholders have enacted laws to exclude food, and our operatives are being starved down to the requisite number for home supply.
- [32]. The same polity under which Britain has acquired supremacy, will not now serve to continue it. A knowledge of the interests of nations is abroad, and if we will not suffer our country to be the emporium of the world, another will.
- [33]. See App. E.
- [34]. The price of any article raised at home, when any part requires to be imported, of course rises to the whole cost (prime cost, duty and freight) of the foreign.
- [35]. The chance of loss by wreck, damage from sea-water, and pilfering, being much less in British than in foreign bottoms, enables the British to obtain a higher freight than the foreign.
PART IV. NOTICES OF AUTHORS RELATIVE TO TIMBER.
After throwing together several of our own observations, we bethought ourselves of examining into the ideas and experience of recent writers on the same subject. Having taken notes of the more prominent matter contained in their pages, we believe we shall do the public a service by printing these notes, accompanied by slight remarks. This may be the more useful, especially as almost every author has his own particular mania, which few common readers have sufficient knowledge of the subject to discriminate from the saner matter: and as, from the nature of hobbies—from some shrewd enough guesses by the owner that they are his own undoubted property—and, perhaps, from some misgivings, that what he advances on these is not perfectly self-evident, he is thence the more disposed to expatiate upon them, and embellish. The {139} credulous and inexperienced, partly from this, and partly from the fascination of the very improbability, rush at once into the snare; bring the speculations or assertions to practical test; get quickly disenchanted by realities, and ever after are disposed to treat all written directions on material science with contempt. We bring forward these authors in the order of perusal. We have found several remarks similar to our own; this was to be expected.