[37] I daresay at that time Lord Russell had not studied the question sufficiently. I arrive at this conclusion from a note I received from his Lordship in the present year (1875), in which he says, referring to the repeal of the Navigation Laws:—“I felt convinced by the reasoning of all writers, of whom the present Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir Stafford Northcote, was one of the most able, that the Navigation Laws ought to be repealed. I was not frightened by Lord Derby’s sinister predictions, and events have proved me right.” Sir Stafford Northcote at the time was, I think, private secretary to Mr. Labouchere, the President of the Board of Trade under Lord John Russell’s Administration, and it is curious to learn that his Lordship, then the Prime Minister and leader of the great Whig party, should have been made a convert to the necessity of further progress by the young Conservative. Of course these writings could not have been read by Lord Russell at the time when he made the “declaration” to which I refer in the text.
[38] It seems worth while to give here in a note the dates of the several steps taken in the repeal of the Navigation Laws, with the references to Hansard, where the several speeches can be consulted:—
1. Committee moved for by Mr. Ricardo, February 9, 1847. (Hansard, lxxxix. p. 1007.) Carried by 155 to 94. Committee appointed February 16. 2. Lord John Russell proposes to suspend Navigation Laws with reference to the importation of corn, June 14. (Ibid., xciii. p. 472.) 3. Discussion on Navigation Bill, July 2. (Ibid., p. 1138.) 4. Motion of the Earl of Hardwicke for a Committee, February 25, 1848. (Ibid., xcvi. p. 1313.) 5. Committee of whole House on Navigation Bill, May 15, 1848. (Ibid., xcviii. p. 988.) 6. Motion of Mr. Herries in reply to Mr. Labouchere, May 29, 1848. (Ibid., xcix. p. 9.) 7. After five nights’ debate Mr. Labouchere’s motion is carried by 299 to 177, June 9, 1848. (Ibid., p. 664.) 8. Mr. Labouchere moves resolution for Navigation Bill, February 14, 1849 (Ibid., cii. p. 682), which is agreed to (Ibid., p. 741). The Bill is read a first time, February 16. (Ibid., p. 759.) 9. Second reading, March 9, 1849 (Ibid., cii. p. 464), which is carried, March 12, by 266 to 210. (Ibid., p. 625.) 10. Third reading, April 23 (Ibid., civ. p. 622), and Bill carried by 275 to 214 (Ibid., p. 702). 11. Bill introduced into the House of Lords, May 7. (Ibid., p. 1316.) Carried May 9, by 173 to 163. (Ibid., cv. p. 83.)
[39] Hansard, February 9, 1847, p. 1007.
[40] The preceding eighteen months had seen the height of the railway mania.
[41] The Spaniard, he said, would take in a cargo of sugar at Cuba which he would deliver at a French port, and take in wine for us; but we had so arranged that when he arrived at our ports he would be met by a custom-house officer, who would tell him that he could not be permitted to land his cargo. “Why?” the Spaniard would inquire. “I understood you wanted wine.” “So we do,” the officer would reply. Then the Spaniard would say, “I will exchange my wine for your earthenware.” “That will not do,” replies the officer. “It must be brought by Frenchmen on a French ship.” “But the French do not want your earthenware”[42]. “We cannot help that; we must not let you violate our Navigation Laws”[43].
[42] They did very much; for Mr. Garratt, the partner of Alderman Copeland, said at the time to a friend of mine, that he would ruin every earthenware potter in France if they would allow British earthenware to be admitted free of duty.
[43] The Spaniard was no doubt under a misapprehension. The French wines could not have been brought into our ports in a Spanish ship; wine being an enumerated article which was excluded, “except in British ships, or ships of the country of which the goods are the produce.” (8 & 9 Vict., cap. 88, s. 2.)
[44] We give the words of Adam Smith, p. 203 et seq. of his ‘Wealth of Nations,’ by McCulloch. Ed. 1850. “There seem to be two cases in which it will be advantageous to lay some burden upon foreign for the encouragement of domestic industry. The first is, when some particular sort of industry is necessary for the defence of the country. The defence of Great Britain, for example, depends very much upon the number of its sailors and shipping. The Act of Navigation, therefore, very properly endeavours to give the sailors and shipping of Great Britain the monopoly of the trade of their own country, in some cases by absolute prohibition, and in others by heavy burdens upon the shipping of foreign countries.” Adam Smith, at great length, expounds the principle of the Navigation Laws, admitting at the same time that they are not favourable to the growth of the opulence arising from foreign commerce. “As defence, however,” he adds, “is of much more importance than opulence, the Act of Navigation is perhaps the wisest of all the commercial regulations of England.”
In another passage, Adam Smith says: “To expect, indeed, that freedom of trade should ever be entirely restored in Great Britain, is as absurd as to expect that an Oceana or Utopia should ever be established in it.” P. 207. Same Edition.