"The aggregate inward entries during the ten months ended the 5th of November 1849, were 5,081,592 tons, of which 3,651,589 were British, and 1,430,003 foreign. During the corresponding ten months ending the 5th of November of the present year, the aggregate entries are 5,114,064 tons, the British being 3,365,033, and the foreign 1,749,031. Thus, comparing the first ten months after the repeal of the Navigation Laws with the corresponding ten months of the preceding year, when those laws were in operation, we find that British tonnage has decreased within this brief period no less than 286,556, or 8-1/10 per cent, while foreign tonnage has increased to the enormous extent of 319,028 tons, or 22-3/10 per cent, the whole entries having advanced only 32,472 tons—thus showing that our maritime commerce has not been augmented in any appreciable degree by the alteration, but that it has simply changed hands. The foreigner has taken what we have madly surrendered. I may add, that never was the state, and never were the prospects, of shipowners so gloomy. Freights in all parts of the world are unprecedentedly low, and, for the first time within my recollection, ships are actually returning from the British West Indies in ballast.

"Could I regard the whole subject with less of humiliating apprehension for my country, I might derive satisfaction from the confirmation of many predictions on which I have formerly ventured, afforded by an analysis of the return from which the melancholy result I have exhibited is taken. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Prussia, and Germany—countries whose rivalry you have repeatedly derided as undeserving of attention—have increased in the ten months from 502,454 tons to 796,200 tons, or 58-4/10 per cent. But I forbear. While all Europe bristles with bayonets, the loom and the spindle seem to be regarded as the chosen defences of this now the most unwarlike nation on the face of the earth. Wellington, and Ellesmere, and Napier have in vain essayed to arouse England to solicitude for her national defences; and till some imminently impending alarm shall awaken my countrymen to a sense of the insecurity in which they are unconsciously reposing, I almost dread they will accept the unworthy advice recently tendered to them by the unadorned oracle of Free Trade, to run every risk rather than incur any expense. It is thus that, under the illusory expectation of the most infinitesimally minute reduction in the freight of imported commodities, the hazard of leaving our navy unmanned is overlooked or disregarded."

In the single harbour of Liverpool, the decrease of British shipping, in the year 1850, has been no less than 100,000 tons; while the foreign has swelled from 56,400 to 126,700.[14] If such has been the result in less than one year, what may be anticipated if the system continues three or four years longer? It is quite evident that the foreign tonnage employed in conducting our trade will come to exceed the British, and then, of course, our independence and maritime superiority are alike at an end.

The Free-Traders, in answer to this appalling statement, say that the entries outward exhibit a different and less unfavourable result. Without referring to the authority of Mr Huskisson, who stated what is well-known to all men practically engaged with the subject, that the outward entries afford no correct data for judging of trade returns, it may be sufficient to remark that the difference is mainly owing, in the present instance, to the prodigious multitude of our emigrants to America, the shipping employed in conveying whom is estimated at 240,000 tons. The Free-Traders first, by their final measures, drive some 300,000 of our industrious inhabitants out of the country annually, in quest of the employment which they have lost at home, and then they rest on the tonnage required to convey them away, in order to conceal the effect of Free Trade in shipping on our mercantile marine! They are welcome to the whole benefit which they can derive from the double effect of Free Trade, first on our people, and then on our shipping.

These considerations become the more forcible when it is considered, in the third place, what immediate and imminent risk there is that either our principal colonies will ere long declare themselves independent, or that they will be abandoned without a struggle by our Free-Trade rulers. Now, the tonnage between Great Britain and Canada is about 1,200,000 tons, and to the West Indies somewhat above 170,000. Fourteen hundred thousand British tons are taken up with our trade to these two colonies alone; and if they become independent states, that tonnage will, to the extent of more than a half, slip from our grasp—as they have the materials of shipbuilding at their door, which we have not. Eight or nine hundred thousand tons will by that change at once be severed from the British Empire and added to the foreign tonnage employed in carrying on our trade, which is now about 2,200,000 tons. That will raise it to above 3,000,000 tons, or fully a half of our whole tonnage, foreign and British—which is, in round numbers, about 6,000,000 tons. The intention of Government to abandon our colonies to themselves has been now openly announced. Earl Grey's declaration of his resolution to withdraw all our troops, except a mere handful, from Australia, is obviously the first step in the general abandonment of the colonies to their own resources, and, of course, their speedy disjunction from the British Empire. As the separation of Canada and the West Indies is an event which may ere long be looked for—not less from the universal discontents of the colonies, who have lost by Free Trade their only interest in upholding the connection with the British Empire, than from the growing disinclination of our Free Trade rulers to continue much longer the burdens and expense consequent on their government—it is evident that, the moment it happens, the foreign ships employed in carrying on our trade will outnumber the British. From that moment the nursery for our seamen, and with it the means of maintaining our maritime superiority and national independence, are at an end. And as this separation will, to all human appearance, take place the moment that we are involved in a European war—which, with the aggressive policy of our Foreign Minister, may any day be looked for—this is perhaps the most immediate and threatening danger which menaces the British Empire.

When the magnitude and variety of the perils which Free Trade and the cheapening system have brought upon the British empire are taken into consideration, it may appear extraordinary that the foreign powers, who are perfectly aware of it all, do not at once step forward and secure for themselves the rich prize which we so invitingly tender to their grasp. But the reason is not difficult to be discerned. They know what England once was, and they see whither, under the new system, she is tending. They anticipate our subjugation, or at least our abrogation of the rank and pretensions of an independent power, at no distant period, from our own acts, without their interfering in the matter at all. They are fearful, if they move too soon, of committing the same fault which the Pope has recently done, on the suggestion of Cardinal Wiseman. They are afraid of opening the eyes of the nation, by any overt act, to the dangers accumulating around them, before it is so thoroughly debilitated by the new system that any resistance would be hopeless, and therefore will never be attempted. They hope, and with reason, to see us ruined and cast down by our own acts, without their firing a shot. Their feeling is analogous to Napoleon's on the morning of the battle of Austerlitz, when the Allies were making their fatal cross-march in front of the heads of his columns, and exposing their flank to his attack. When urged by his generals to give the signal for an immediate advance, he replied—"Wait! when the enemy is making a false movement, which will prove fatal if continued, it is not our part to interrupt him in it."

What, then, is the advantage which the Free-Traders have to set off against these obvious and appalling dangers, past, present, and to come, with which their policy is attended? It is this, and this only—that the manufacturing towns are prosperous, and that our exports are increasing. They point with exultation to the following statement:—

"The aggregate value of our exports, during the first ten months of the present year, has been L.55,038,206, against L.49,398,648 in the like period of 1849, showing an increase of L.5,639,558, which has occurred in the following order:

Month endingIncrease.Decrease.
££
February5,858,285—
March5,556,746—
April5,418,089—
May5,1,398,232—
June5,1,604,623—
July5,427,090—
August5,—334,858
Sept.5,—279,961
Oct.10,807,742—
Nov.5,183,570—

—Times, Nov. 10."