Witnesses examined by Mr. Ricardo’s Committee: Mr. J. S. Lefevre, Mr. Macgregor, Mr. G. R. Porter—Their extreme views not conclusive to the Committee—Evidence adduced by the shipowners—Ships built more cheaply abroad—Evidence of Mr. G. F. Young, and his general conclusions—Mr. Richmond’s evidence—Asserts that shipping is a losing trade—Replies to the charges against shipowners—Views as to captains of merchant ships—Praises their nautical skill and capacity—His character of common seamen—Attacks Mr. Porter—Offers valuable details of ship-building—Is prepared to go all lengths in favour of Protection—His jealousy of the Northern Powers—Evidence of Mr. Braysher, Collector of Customs in London—General effect of the Navigation Laws on the Customs—With the Northern Ports and America—Difficulty about “manufactured” articles—Anomalies of the coasting and internal trade—Committee’s last meeting, July 17—General dissatisfaction with the results of the inquiry—Commercial panic and distress of 1847—Suspension of Bank Charter Act.
Witnesses examined by Mr. Ricardo’s Committee.
Having now laid before my readers the substance of the state of the Navigation Laws at the time of the appointment of Mr. Ricardo’s Committee in February 1847, I shall proceed to state generally the principal facts put forth by the leading witnesses on the side of the Free-traders and of the Protectionists respectively.
Mr. J. S. Lefevre.
Mr. Macgregor.
On the side of the former, Mr. John S. Lefevre, Mr. Macgregor, and Mr. G. R. Porter, officers of the Board of Trade, and decidedly inclined to the total repeal of the Navigation Laws, were the chief witnesses brought forward to make out a case against the existing system. Of these, the first—a distinguished mathematician as well as a lawyer of sound learning—was eminently fitted to work out, calmly and dispassionately, the intricate points connected with the complex system then prevalent. The other two were strong partisans. Mr. Macgregor, a somewhat superficial person, gave the most off-hand answers to questions, though profoundly ignorant of their tendency, therein committing the most egregious blunders, and urging many inaccuracies about the Reciprocity Treaties, their effect on commerce, and the injury Great Britain had sustained through her ancient Navigation Laws. On the question of the maritime relations between this country and the United States, Mr. Macgregor gave evidence, also, at great length, a considerable portion of which was, however, erroneous as to matters of fact, while many of his conclusions were fallacious.
Mr. G. R. Porter.
Mr. G. R. Porter, Secretary of the Statistical Department, and well known as entertaining the strongest convictions that the Navigation Laws were as injurious to the shipowners themselves as they had been to the nation, was an industrious hard-working man, but he was at the same time committed by many previous publications to the most extreme opinions on Free-trade: of real practical commerce he had no experience. Mr. Porter had, however, studied the whole question with care, and, while enthusiastic in favour of an entire change, and sanguine with regard to the beneficial results to follow from the repeal of these laws, he gave strong and valid reasons for his bold opinions. Their repeal, he showed, would tend, materially, to develop and increase the warehousing system of Great Britain, making it, in fact, a vast depôt for supplying the wants of the people of all nations. Not that the existing laws presented any impediment to warehousing goods, but that facilities would be afforded for making advances on foreign produce by the removal of restrictions. In answer to numerous and varied questions from those members of the Committee who were opposed to his views, he gave a clear and decided opinion that the trade of England had not been benefited in any one of its branches, shipowning included, by the Navigation Laws: and he could not for a moment admit that these laws had operated beneficially even for the “encouragement of a commercial marine.” He rested his arguments on the economical principle that the shipping trade of this country, as a trade, could be conducted on no other principles than those whereby trade, generally, was carried on; he contended that no more ships would be built than it was expected would be required, so as to yield a profit to the persons who built them; that, in the long run, there could be no larger amount of profit derived from shipowning than from any other trade, as other persons would, of course, come in to share the profit with the existing shipowners; and that, unless shipping yielded the ordinary rate of profit to be derived from the commerce of the country, deficiencies in shipping from losses would not be, from time to time, supplied. It was well known, he remarked, that the trade of the country had gone on increasing; that, from year to year, more ships had been built; and, further, that, though shipowners had certainly been at times loud in their complaints and fears as to their future prospects, they had still continually added to the amount of their tonnage. Mr. Porter then put in the strongest light the groundless fears they had so long entertained by quoting their Report for 1833,[61] wherein they state that “the long-continued and still existing depression of the shipping interest, the partial production, and great aggravation of distress caused by continual changes in our navigation system; the utter impossibility of the successful maintenance of an unrestricted competition with foreign navigation; the gross injustice of the imposition of peculiar and exclusive burdens on maritime commerce for purposes purely national, while exposed to that competition; the declining quality and estimation of British tonnage; the embarrassment, decay, and ruin of the British shipowner, may now be viewed as incontrovertible positions.” In reply to this desponding statement, Mr. Porter directed attention to the official returns, showing that in 1833 the amount of British tonnage on the register was 2,634,577 tons, whereas in 1846 it was no less than 3,817,112 tons, an increase of 1,182,535 tons. So that, to the melancholy “facts” of the shipowners in 1833, Mr. Porter opposed his prosperous “figures” of 1846. Such discordant views could not by any means be reconciled; but shipowners of all countries and in all ages have ever had the most evil forebodings on the subject of the withdrawal of protection.
Mr. Porter did not fail to hold out the threat that Prussia, at the head of the Zollverein States of Germany, would still further carry out its restrictive principles, and impose differential duties on foreign shipping; and that Hamburg and Bremen were, at that time, deliberating whether they should join the Zollverein under one flag, as far as concerned shipping. He, nevertheless, expressed the most sanguine hopes that, when foreign nations discovered beyond all doubt, that England was advancing in the path of Free-trade, they would gladly follow her example, and that commerce throughout the whole of Europe and the world would be unshackled.
It appeared, further, from his evidence, that Mr. Porter was for a complete abrogation of the English Navigation Laws, without any reservations as to reciprocity, and that, from the general conviction that these restrictive laws were rather injurious than beneficial to us, independently of the policy of other nations.