Ten years afterwards, in 1820, they had only increased to 1,670,000 tons, but in 1850 they had reached 4,700,000 tons.
That increase, however great, is nevertheless small when compared with the increase which took place after Great Britain, in 1850, swept away the last remnants of her Navigation Laws, and threw open her ports unreservedly to the ships of the world. In 1858, the clearances of British ships outwards employed in the over-sea trade, to which these returns alone have reference, reached 6,400,000 tons.
Thus it appears that in ninety years of the closest protection, when we guarded our ships with the most unusual care, and protected them in every branch of our trade to the detriment of our revenue, and by increased taxation upon the people, our shipping increased only 1,170,000 tons; whereas, in thirty years of partial free-trade, during which we entered into treaties of reciprocity with almost every nation, our shipping increased 3,000,000 tons, and in eight years of perfect free trade, that is, from 1850, when our Navigation Laws were entirely repealed, our shipping increased 1,740,000 tons, or, in round numbers, 600,000 tons more than it increased in ninety years of the closest protection. But it may be well to compare the relative progress of French and British shipping. By comparing the tonnage owned by the respective countries in 1838 and 1858, your Majesty will find that in the last twenty years France has increased her sailing vessels by 370,000 tons, and her steam ships by 50,000 tons. But England, during the same period, has increased her sailing vessels by no less than 2,800,000 tons, and her steam ships by 400,000 tons. Thus the Shipowners of England, who are left to depend upon their own energies and their own resources, are moving onwards at a rate eight times greater than that of the Shipowners of France, who, by means of protection, are taught to depend upon the State instead of upon themselves and upon the vast natural resources which their country affords. It is a mistake to suppose, as many persons do, that France has not facilities for carrying on a great maritime commerce. Her seaboard is almost as great as our own; she has no less than 150 leagues of coast in the Channel, 130 leagues on the Atlantic, and 90 leagues of coast on the Mediterranean. Along her seaboard there are many fine harbours, some of them easy of access, and at points convenient to the great markets of the world. I need hardly mention the position of Havre as affording great facilities for carrying on a large commerce with the United States and the continent of America, generally, nor that of Marseilles, in its contiguity with India, and the vast commerce of the East. But allow me to direct your Majesty’s attention to a remarkable contrast which may be drawn between two great branches of the trade of your own dominions. While your shipping is comparatively at a standstill, your special commerce is increasing with considerable rapidity, for I find that in ten years, from 1827 to 1836, the increase was 10,000,000 francs; from 1837 to 1846, 15,000,000 francs, but from 1847 to 1856 the increase was 22,000,000 francs in that particular branch of commerce, which is confined entirely to the produce and manufactures of France. To carry on this important and steadily increasing trade your Majesty is obliged to depend very materially upon the shipping of other countries, for I find that in 1858, while the total entries at French ports amounted to 4,162,000 tons, no less than 2,550,000 tons consisted of foreign shipping.
It is hardly possible to conceive the amount of money which the people of France are annually paying in, as it appears, a vain attempt, to encourage its shipping: I use the word “vain” because it is clear, if the experience of other nations, or the experience of your own nation is of any value, that all the money paid to “encourage shipping” is actually lost, for French ships, with all this protection, do not increase at the same rate as other nations, or at the same rates in the branches of your own trade, where they are guarded with unusual care, as they do in those branches where they are thrown into competition with the shipping of other countries. It would be impossible to ascertain the loss the people of France annually sustain, directly and indirectly, through the operation of its Navigation Laws. I have, however, analysed it in one small branch of trade. In 1858, there cleared from the Island of Mauritius, 180,000 tons of shipping. The trade which that island carries on with France is, through the operation of the differential duties, confined to the vessels of France. In a word, they have a monopoly of it. Analysing the commercial circulars issued at that island, I find that the excess of freight paid at the Mauritius to French ships for “a market,” or for the ports of France, amounted in that year to 300,000l. more than the people of England paid for a similar quantity of sugar imported from the Mauritius.
I have mentioned to your Majesty the differential duties still in force, but which in practice are unproductive to the revenue, because, as you will see by the following scale, they are so great that merchants are prohibited from shipping in any other than French bottoms. For instance, sugar pays a duty of 68s. per 100 kilogrammes if imported in French vessels, but 84s. if in English, from any of our colonies and possessions. Coffee in French ships is charged 48s. per 100 kilogrammes, and 84s. if in English vessels. Tobacco, if imported in French ships, pays 4s. per kilogramme, but double that duty if imported in English vessels. Other articles, the produce of our Eastern possessions, are taxed in somewhat similar proportions, so that your Majesty will see that your merchants and manufacturers are thus practically prohibited from using any other than French vessels to convey whatever produce they may require from the colonies and possessions of Great Britain.
Your Majesty has just concluded a Treaty of Commerce with England, which I feel certain will benefit alike the people of Great Britain and of France, and no doubt develop the trade of the respective countries to a far greater extent than many persons suppose; above all, it cannot fail to strengthen the friendly relations now happily existing between the Governments of the two countries, and which I most sincerely trust may long continue. That treaty will, however, be seriously clogged in its operations, unless there is a change in the Navigation Laws of France. I shall endeavour to show how.
The produce and manufactures of France will not, in all cases, be paid for either in coin or by the produce and manufactures of Great Britain, but in many instances by the produce of India, Australia, and Canada. Yet, by the French Navigation Laws, that produce which your own people require, cannot be imported into France in the ships belonging to those parties who buy the produce and the manufactures of France. No nation, as your Majesty is well aware, can produce all that is necessary to employ, to feed, and to clothe her own people. All nations must, to a greater or less extent, depend upon other countries for those necessary articles of existence. France, to keep her people employed, must have the wools of Australia and the timber of Canada, as well as various descriptions of raw materials which India alone affords, or produces in greater abundance and at lower prices, than other countries. Nevertheless, the Navigation Laws of France prevent those articles which are required for the very existence of the people of France from being imported in the ships of the country whose possessions produce them. India, as your Majesty is aware, has, within the last two years, become virtually, since the abolition of the charter of the East India Company, an integral part of the British Empire: therefore I trust your Majesty will see the justice as well as the policy of at least placing the shipping of England and France engaged in that trade on the same footing as they have been for many years in the trade between those two countries. Such a change would entail no loss of revenue, nor would it, I conceive, require more than your Majesty’s decree to effect. This change, in my humble judgment, is indeed necessary on even more urgent grounds than the development of the Commercial Treaty which has recently been concluded. The shipping of the world has just passed through an ordeal of great depression. The losses which Shipowners of all countries have sustained during the last four years have been so great, that capital has, to a considerable extent, ceased to flow in that direction, so much so that, by returns now before me, I find that the tonnage built during the year 1860 in the United States, in Canada, in New Brunswick, in Norway, in England, and in other great producing countries, falls far short of what it was either in 1859, or in any one of the previous years of depression. But, on the other hand, the general commerce of the world has, during that period, increased enormously. For instance, by our Board of Trade returns, the imports of cotton into Great Britain, which amounted to about 8,000,000 cwt. in the eleven months ending November 30, 1859, exceeded 10,000,000 cwt. in the eleven months ending November 30, 1860.
I need not call your Majesty’s attention to the vast increase in the imports of grain, or to the remarkable increase in the exports of manufactures, or to the greatly extended consumption of coal at remote stations. In a word, while the bulky articles which require ships for their conveyance to distant parts of the world have enormously increased, the shipping of the world has been comparatively stationary during the past year, and the many losses and disasters at sea during 1860 have tended materially to diminish the already scanty supply of shipping necessary to conduct the oversea trade of the world. All this will, without doubt, right itself in time, but it will take one year, if not two years, to do so. In the mean time, it might so happen that the artisans of France may be thrown out of employment for the want of French ships to bring them those raw materials necessary to keep them employed; or, what will amount to nearly the same, the increased cost to the manufacturer of the raw material, through the laws of France compelling him to bring it in her ships, might be so great that he would be unable to compete in price with his rivals in other countries, and, consequently, be obliged to close his mills or his workshops, as the case might be, for want of remunerative employment.
Might I, therefore, venture to impress upon your Majesty the desirability, I may even say the necessity, of at least placing the carrying-trade between France and the possessions of Great Britain on the same footing as it now exists between the mother countries. Your people would be immense gainers by this change, and your Shipowners would not suffer, for, independent altogether of the facts which I have stated in regard to the advantages which they, as carriers, derive above all others from the policy of Free-trade, there will be for the next twelve months at least ample employment for the shipping of all nations. I cannot close this, I fear too lengthy a letter, without calling to your Majesty’s attention a remarkable instance of the injury which even the Shipowners of that great maritime country, the United States, sustain by protection. While in 1856, 1857, and 1858, the tonnage owned in England increased 335,000 tons, the tonnage of America in those same years actually decreased 67,000 tons.
In a recent visit which I made to that country, I did not fail, in the many opportunities afforded me, to impress upon its Shipowners that they were more interested in the removal of all barriers to free intercourse than any other class of the community; for, as those barriers which they still maintain along their coast retard their commerce, and consequently limit the exchange of the different articles produced in the various districts, the employment of their vessels must necessarily be more curtailed than it would otherwise be if greater facilities were afforded for the transmission of those articles which one district produces in greater abundance than another.