[THE REMOVAL OF TRADE RESTRICTIONS]
Source.—The Political Life of George Canning, by A. G. Stapleton. London, 1831. Vol. III. pp. 16-22.
Mr. Huskisson felt therefore, when he came to the Board of Trade, that although much had been done, yet more remained to do, and he proceeded fearlessly, yet at the same time most cautiously, in relaxing those restrictions on our commerce, which if preserved were calculated to render almost nugatory the concessions already made.
Accordingly during the sessions of 1823, 1824, and 1825, different Acts were introduced by Mr. Huskisson for doing away with the discriminating duties; but in order that foreign nations might not impose new, or increase old discriminating duties, at the very moment when we were abandoning ours, a power was reserved to the King in Council to enforce the payment of additional duties upon the ships of all foreign countries, in the event of the treatment which British ships should meet with in their ports, not being reciprocal to that, which their ships were to meet with, in the ports of the United Kingdom.
In 1826 a new rule of navigation, exclusively applicable to the Mediterranean, was established. Goods, the productions of Asia and Africa, which should find their way to ports in Europe within that sea by internal routes, and not by the Atlantick Ocean, were made importable from those ports in British ships: thus erecting the Mediterranean and its surrounding shores, as it were, into a fifth quarter of the globe.
Mr. Huskisson also revised and altered the list of "enumerated articles." When that list was first constructed it was intended to consist of commodities of extensive importation; in process of time some of the articles contained in the list had nearly ceased to be imported, while their places were supplied by other articles which were omitted. The list was therefore reconstructed upon the principle of its original intention.
In 1825 the general consolidation of the Laws of the Customs was effected by Mr. Hume,[3] under the favouring auspices of the Board of Trade and Treasury. The difficulty and vastness of this undertaking was only surpassed by its importance. From the reign of the first Edward up to the present times, these laws had accumulated to the enormous number of fifteen hundred—frequently contradictory, and made without reference to each other, they were only understood by the initiated few, and required the devotion of a whole life to their study, at once to comprehend, and to obey them. They were unintelligible to the merchants, while they perplexed and harassed all their proceedings. This chaos of Legislation was compressed by Mr. Hume into Eleven Acts (a sort of Code Napoleon), with an order, a clearness, and a precision whereby even the least talented of our mercantile men are now enabled to consult the laws of the Customs with facility, and to take them with safety for their guide. These effects, upon which for their advantages to commerce Mr. Huskisson several times expatiated with exultation, would alone make this consolidation a most important era in our fiscal policy; but advantage was likewise taken of the opportunity to introduce into the Laws themselves some memorable changes, in conformity with the spirit of those principles of commercial intercourse, on which the Government had determined to act. Not only were duties of importance considerably reduced, but those on numerous minor articles were lowered. During the war the rates of the Tariff had been so increased, for the single purpose of revenue, that they had become for the most part inapplicable to a state of peace, and required general revision. This revision was regulated by the following principles: First, those duties were reduced, the heaviness of which tended to lessen, rather than to increase their total product. Secondly, the duties on raw materials, and on various articles useful in manufactures, were lowered to little more than nominal sums. Thirdly, protecting duties of extravagant amount were reduced to that point, at which the consumer was fairly entitled to relief, either by the increased industry of the home manufacture, or by access to other sources of supply. And, lastly, the comforts and the tastes of the publick, and the advantage of their retail suppliers, were consulted by the removal of duties which prevented the introduction, or most unnecessarily abridged, the use of many articles without benefit to any party whatever.
By the system founded on these principles, there has not only been distributed amongst a numerous population a great increase of employment, but its diffusion has been greater in proportion, than its increase. It is also very remarkable, that those trades which have been prominent in complaining of foreign competition have neither suffered more in diminution of profits, nor increased less in extent of business, than those which have been able to hold foreign competition at defiance.
Besides this consolidation of the Customs' Laws which took place in 1825, an Act was passed in the session of that year, whereby many commercial advantages were conferred on the Colonies, beyond those contained in Mr. Robinson's two acts of 1822; Mr. Huskisson laying down as the fundamental principle on which his alterations were founded—a principle deduced from past experience with respect both to Ireland and to our Colonies—that "so far as the Colonies themselves were concerned, their prosperity was cramped and impeded by a system of exclusion and monopoly; and that whatever tended to increase the prosperity of the Colonies could not fail, in the long run, to advance, in an equal degree, the general interests of the parent state." By these Acts, not only articles of first necessity, but goods of all descriptions, with very few exceptions, were allowed to be imported from all countries, either in British ships, or in ships of the country of their production; and the goods of the Colonies were allowed to be exported in any ships to any foreign country whatever. The only part of the Colonial system which was persevered in, was that which excludes foreign ships from carrying goods from one British place to another; "so that by this arrangement was preserved the foundation of our Navigation Laws—all intercourse between the mother-country and the Colonies, whether direct or circuitous, and all intercourse of the Colonies with each other, being considered as a coasting trade to be reserved entirely and absolutely for ourselves."