Table showing the comparative progress of British and Foreign Tonnage inwards, from 1821 to 1847, both inclusive, with Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and Prussia.
[Transcriber's note: Column headings: Y=Year. Bt=Brit. tons. Ft=For. tons.]
—Porter's Parliamentary Tables; and Parliamentary Report, 3d April 1848.
Thus, while our shipping with the whole world quadrupled, as compared with the foreign employed in the same trade, under the protective system, from 1801 to 1823; it declined under the reciprocity system of equal duties, in the countries to which that system was applied in the next twenty years, till it had dwindled to a perfect fraction;—our tonnage with Sweden being, in 1847, not more than a sixteenth part of the foreign; with Norway, a fiftieth part; with Denmark somewhat above a sixth; with Prussia somewhat under a fourth.
But then it is said these are selected states which do not give a fair average of the reciprocity system, or afford a correct criterion of its probable effects when applied, as it is about to be by a general repeal of the Navigation Laws, to the whole world. If they are "selected states," we can only say they were selected by Mr Huskisson and the Free-traders themselves as likely to afford the best specimen of the effect of their principles, and therefore as the first on which the experiment was to be made. But we are quite willing to take the general tonnage of the empire as the test; and we shall commence with a quotation from the tables of the great statistical apostle of free trade, Mr Porter, to show the effect of free trade in shipping on the comparative growth of our whole tonnage, as compared with that of foreign states, from 1801 to 1823, when the reciprocity system began; and again from thence lo 1847, when free trade in shipping was in full operation by the temporary suspension of the Navigation Laws, from the effect of the Orders in Council in March 1847 suspending the Navigation Laws under the pressure of the Irish famine:—
| Tons inward, | Tons inward | ||
| Year. | British. | Foreign. | Total. |
| 1801 | 922,594 | 780,155 | 1,702,749 |
| 1802 | 1,333,005 | 480,251 | 1,813,256 |
| 1803 | 1,115,702 | 638,104 | 1,753,806 |
| 1804 | 904,932 | 607,299 | 1,512,231 |
| 1805 | 953,250 | 691,883 | 1,645,138 |
| 1806 | 904,367 | 612,904 | 1,517,271 |
| 1807 | Records lost | ....... | ....... |
| 1808 | Records lost | ....... | ....... |
| 1809 | 938,675 | 759,287 | 1,697,692 |
| 1810 | 896,001 | 1,176,243 | 2,072,244 |
| 1811 | ....... | ....... | ....... |
| 1812 | Records destroyed by fire. | ||
| 1813 | ....... | ....... | ....... |
| 1814 | 1,290,248 | 599,287 | 1,889,535 |
| 1815 | 1,372,108 | 746,985 | 2,119,093 |
| 1816 | 1,415,723 | 379,465 | 1,795,188 |
| 1817 | 1,625,121 | 445,011 | 2,070,132 |
| 1818 | 1,886,394 | 762,457 | 2,648,851 |
| 1819 | 1,809,128 | 542,684 | 2,351,812 |
| 1820 | 1,668,060 | 447,611 | 2,115,671 |
| 1821 | 1,599,274 | 396,256 | 1,995,530 |
| 1822 | 1,664,186 | 469,151 | 2,133,337 |
—Porter's Progress of the Nation, 407.
It appears from this most instructive table that, under the protection system, from 1801 to 1823, the British shipping employed in conducting our commerce had gained so decisively on the foreign employed in the same commerce, that it had increased, from having been on an average of five years, at the commencement of the second, about two British tons to one foreign, to be, on the last five years, about four British tons to one foreign: in other words, during these twenty-two years, the proportion of British to foreign shipping had doubled.