The increase being 2,772,549 tons during nine years of Protection, while it was no less than 5,977,988 tons during eleven years of Free-trade.
But experience has proved that restrictive laws are injurious to all countries which maintain them. It is verified in your our own case. See what the trade of the Tagus has become to that of the Thames or Mersey, though the former affords much greater natural facilities for shipping and commerce. It has long been apparent in Spain; and though the wealth and great natural resources of that country are now in course of development by means of railway communication, its intercourse with other countries is still very limited, and must remain so while they continue to maintain high differential duties, which yield little or no revenue, and seriously curtail their intercourse with the world.
Even France is a striking example of the loss a nation sustains by endeavouring by means of Protection to shut herself up within herself.
It is thus evident that every restriction a country imposes upon its freedom of intercourse with other countries—while it curtails the operations of its merchants, and enhances the price of the raw material to its manufacturers, increasing also the cost of the commodity to the people—must necessarily curtail the employment of its Shipowners.
These restrictive laws often compel merchants to buy what they require, at greatly enhanced prices, articles not produced in the country from whence they are imported; as is the case in your importations from England of cotton, sugar, coffee, hemp, jute, silk, foreign wool, and numerous other articles, all arising in a great measure from the fact that the differential duties[315] imposed by your Navigation Laws oblige you to import foreign manufactures or produce, either in your own ships or in the ships of the country where the articles were produced. Consequently the people of Portugal pay much higher prices than we do for almost every article they require to import from other countries, for the exclusive benefit of your Shipowners, who do not increase the number of their vessels. But these restrictive laws retard the natural progress of commerce in ways too numerous to mention within the limits of a letter, and they are as absurd as they are pernicious. Their absurdity becomes apparent when you ask yourself the question, why should the merchants of either France or Portugal not be allowed, when it suits their purpose, to import direct, in any ships they please, the produce of Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, instead of importing it through England or through any other country where it is not grown?
France, as you are aware, has recently made great changes in her commercial tariff, and ere long she will, I daresay, make as great changes in her Navigation Laws. I can offer no opinion to your Chamber of Commerce beyond advising its members in the interests of their country to urge the Legislature by petitions and by every constitutional means within their power to remove every restriction in your Customs’ regulations not absolutely necessary for the protection of the revenue, to reduce the duties upon all articles of large consumption, to abolish all differential duties which yield little or no revenue, and to repeal your Navigation Laws, which do the people great injury, and do not benefit your Shipowners except in rare instances.
I am thoroughly convinced that by some such changes as these much of your ancient greatness and grandeur would be restored. Unwise laws, combined with other matters too delicate for me to name, have done perhaps more to retard your progress than the loss of your possessions in the East, or your severance from the Brazils. Indeed, had Portugal adopted Free-trade measures at the time of that severance she would have retained the bulk of the Brazilian commerce; but your Protection laws set up barriers at all your ports, through which very few ships but your own could enter—they drove trade from your cities, and the very bread from the mouths of your children. No wonder that the glory of Portugal passed away; and that your merchants, who were, indeed, princes in the days of Vasco de Gama, are now almost unknown in the markets of Europe.
Even, in spite of your restrictive laws, the natural facilities of the Tagus are still so great and so many that vessels from the Brazils are beginning to make it their port of call, and if the changes I have ventured to name are carried into effect, I am certain that Lisbon, from its position, is destined to carry on a very extensive traffic with the world. It may even become one of the great entrepôts for the supply of many of the European markets, as the railways now in course of construction will afford facilities for conveying its imports, not merely to the interior of Portugal and to Spain, but also to more distant parts of Europe.
It is, indeed, sad to look, as I now do, from the window of my hotel upon the beautiful but lifeless Tagus—to think what it is by nature, what it was in commerce, and what it might be under wise and liberal laws. The future is in the hands of your own people, and the members of your chamber might become instruments of great good by the dissemination of statistical and other information bearing upon the questions on which you have invited my opinion. You have happily a free press, which will enable your chamber to do so to great advantage. I return to England to-morrow. When I reach home I shall forward to you copies of the works you desire to possess, as also other publications which may be of service to you. Much useful information might also be obtained from the various ministers and consuls resident in this city; and I am sure they will only be too happy to assist you in the laudable object you have in view, for the countries they represent, especially England and France, are deeply interested in every measure tending to create greater intercourse between your country and their own.
I am, Sir,
Your very obedient and faithful servant,
W. S. Lindsay.