The agitation thus invoked by the central body of shipowners in London was responded to by their fellow-shipowners throughout the country. Meetings were held at Belfast, Bristol, Dartmouth, Devonport, Dunfermline, Dundee, Exeter, Exmouth, Fleetwood, Glasgow, Gateshead, Hull, Hartlepool, London, Liverpool, Leith, Lynn, Montrose, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Portsmouth, Penzance, Perth, Sunderland, Shields, St. Andrews, Swansea, Saltash, Tynemouth, Weymouth, and Yarmouth. The petition from London was signed by 27,000 persons of the most respectable classes; while that from Liverpool comprised 24,700 names, not shipowners exclusively. This petition, eloquently drawn up, expressed alarm at the progress of a measure which proposed to take away from this country advantages it had so long and so successfully enjoyed, and to invite, unwisely, foreign nations to share those advantages with us; nations, too, utterly unable, even if willing, to confer on us any adequate equivalent in return. It pointed at the evident result of the substitution, to a great extent, of foreign for British and colonial shipping, the employment of foreign labour and capital in lieu of our own, and the creation of new relations between foreign nations and our own colonies; thereby weakening the ties which bind the latter to the mother-country, and diminishing British power and influence throughout the world. They did not fail to show, above all, the consequences the measure would have on the supply of seamen to the Royal Navy.

The second reading of the Bill was fixed for the 9th March, when each party mustered all its forces. The shipowners throughout the kingdom were in a state of great excitement. It was true that among them were many who were ready to accept the measure as proposed by Government, if other nations would only reciprocate; and there were even a few who were so extreme in their views of Free-trade as to desire that the Bill should be carried as it stood, but the majority were vehemently opposed to repeal; and, though some fears were entertained that the second reading of the Bill would be carried in the House of Commons, it was confidently anticipated that a considerable majority in the Lords would, under the brilliant leadership of Lord Stanley (Lord Derby), who had warmly espoused their cause, defeat its progress and throw out the Whig administration.

FOOTNOTES:

[95] All these figures may now (1875) be at least doubled, except the number of men, as the improvements in mechanical contrivances have materially reduced manual labour since the repeal of the Navigation Laws. In the case of steam ships to nearly one-half. See following table:—

Years.Sailing Ships.Steam Vessels.
Tons.Men.Proportion
of Men
to 100 Tons.		Tons.Men.Proportion
of Men
to 100 Tons.
18523,215,665146,2864·55165,21913,2778·04
18543,516,456146,5224·17212,63715,8947·47
18694,677,275152,1863·25880,02843,3044·92
18704,519,141147,2073·251,039,96948,7554·69
18714,343,558141,0353·251,290,00358,7034·55
18724,245,904137,1013·231,515,70466,6194·40
18734,067,144130,8773·221,680,95371,3624·24
18744,037,564128,7333·191,827,02474,8734·10

[96] The original Bill will be found in vol. iv., Session 1847-8, p. 495.

[97] It was on this occasion that I first appeared before the public as a politician. Following in the wake, but a long way astern, of Sir Robert Peel and Mr. Gladstone, I addressed a number of letters to Lord John Russell, which appeared in the ‘Morning Herald,’ and were afterwards republished in a pamphlet. They had a very large circulation, and caused considerable excitement among shipowners at the time. They were written in a homely style, commencing, “I am a plain man of business, daily to be found at my office in one of the City lanes, in the midst of my clerks, in the centre of a large dingy room. Business is my politics, not politics my business. If I have a leaning it is towards Free-trade principles,” and so forth. But I soon learned that my “principles,” as I laid them down, were, however plausible, fundamentally and radically wrong. Sound enough they no doubt were, if all nations had been prepared to adopt them; and if they could have been applied to the world at large, no system could have been more perfect. But, unfortunately, Foreign States were not prepared to adopt Free-trade; and if we adopted retaliation against those which did not, we reverted to Protection in its most pernicious form. Consequently we pursued the policy most likely to suit our own interests, and very wisely did not attempt to enforce it on other nations. Therein Government was right and I was wrong.

[98] See ‘Parliamentary Papers,’ vol. li., 1849, p. 237, et seq.

[99] Ante, p. 63.

[100] In truth, the policy of the American Government, since that country became an independent nation, has with few exceptions been throughout in favour of Protection. When Congress was first inaugurated in 1789, one of the measures of that year (4th July) was “An Act for levying Duty on Goods,” &c., and another (20th July, 1789) was passed, entitled “An Act imposing Duties on Tonnage.” Indeed, so thoroughly Protectionist were the great founders of the Republic, that Mr. Adams, writing to Mr. Jay in Paris on the 26th February, 1786, says: “If the United States would come to the resolution to prevent all foreign vessels from coming to their ports, and confine all exports and imports to their own ships and seamen, they would do for anything that I know the wisest thing which human prudence could dictate.” Further he says: “On the other hand, if the United States would adopt the principle of the French economists, and allow the ships and merchants of all nations equal privileges with their own citizens, the consequence would be the sudden annihilation of their manufactures and navigation.” And this has been in a great measure the opinion entertained by the Americans throughout, no doubt under the impression that, with so vast a territory, where they had within themselves almost everything they required, they could do without foreign nations. They have not yet seen the advantages they would derive by being allowed to purchase in the cheapest market, wherever that market may be,—home or abroad.