History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce, Volume 3 (of 4)

by W. S. Lindsay

Coasting clauses withdrawn.

On the 23rd March, the motion for going into Committee on the Bill gave Mr. Labouchere an opportunity of withdrawing the “Coasting clauses” he had previously paraded as an important feature of it. The tone and manner of the right honourable gentleman betrayed the humiliation he was doomed to undergo. He discreetly, however, held his tongue respecting the flat refusal he had received from the United States with respect to their expected reciprocation of the coasting trade, expatiating, instead, at great length, on certain conferences he had had with Sir T. Fremantle, the head of the Board of Customs, the upshot being, that whereas Sir T. Fremantle had previously said that the new proposed regulations regarding the Coasting trade would not endanger the revenue he had now changed his opinion, and, with the officials under him, had come to the conclusion that, if not absolutely impossible, it would be extremely difficult to frame any regulations which should not leave the revenue of the country exposed to great danger if the distinction were done away with between the coasting and general trade of the country—that is, if a foreign or a British ship were allowed to combine a coasting with a foreign voyage.

Mr. Hume saw at once that if the trade were entirely laid open this difficulty would be removed; but, although this was admitted, Mr. Labouchere plausibly answered that to say to an American, “You may come here and carry coals in our coasting trade, but you must not combine that with a foreign voyage,” would be quite illusory. To open the coasting trade in this manner, it was urged, would excite a great deal of unnecessary alarm among the shipping classes; and, so, the coasting clauses were hastily withdrawn. Of course, the refusal of the American Government to reciprocate in the coasting trade did not escape the sagacity of Mr. Herries, who, delighted at the withdrawal of the obnoxious clauses, declared the excuse made about the revenue to be wholly unsatisfactory; moreover, that it was made known, unfortunately, just after the communication from the American Government, so long delayed, had been laid on the table, by which it appeared that Government was not, otherwise, prepared to make the proposed concessions on the subject of this trade.

Mr. Bouverie’s amendment opposed by Shipowners’ Committee.

However, in the meantime, Mr. Bouverie, member for Kilmarnock, a Free-trader, had given notice of a long amendment[114] to the first clause of the Bill, which was, substantially, to the effect that the several restrictions and prohibitions contained in the Acts recited in the 1st Clause (i.e. the old Navigation Laws), with certain exceptions, should continue in full force, till it should be shown that British ships were not subjected in foreign countries to the like restrictions and prohibitions. It might have been supposed that the Shipowners would have consented to such a compromise: but they showed no disposition to accept this proposal. Indeed, their hostility to any alteration mainly led to their ultimate discomfiture. At a meeting of the Central Committee for upholding the principle of the Navigation Laws, it was unanimously resolved, “That the fatal consequences of the repealing Clause, No. 1, in the Navigation Law Amendment Bill, would not be removed by the amendment of which Mr. Bouverie had given notice; and, as they were convinced that this clause would still prove destructive to British navigation, they trusted it would not in any form receive the sanction of friends to the shipping interest in Parliament.”

Mr. Gladstone’s scheme

This was, perhaps, the last chance offered to the Shipowners: they, however, relied upon throwing out the Bill, and rejected every offer at modification, or conditional relaxation of the existing law, their aim being to uphold those laws in their integrity. Mr. Gladstone’s views, on the other hand, favoured the adoption of conditional legislation, but not exactly in the way proposed by Mr. Bouverie. He proposed to divide the whole trade of the empire into two divisions only: the first of them relating to domestic or British trade; including under that head the trade coastwise and the colonial trade. He proposed to enact a law, not dependent on the discretion of the ministers of the Crown, otherwise than that it would be their business to ascertain when any country was disposed to give Great Britain perfect freedom in its foreign trade, and to provide in such a case that it should receive in return her foreign trade. Whenever any nation would propose perfect freedom in all maritime trade, both foreign and domestic, it would be placed on equal terms with British vessels in all ports, foreign, colonial, and coasting. Mr. Gladstone, however, contemplated a provision for the foreign trade of the colonies by dealing with that trade irrespectively of the conduct of other countries. He suggested the repeal of every direct restraint on the importation of tropical produce—or non-European produce—from Europe, that being a restraint which, according to the actual law, affected British ships as well as those of foreign countries. He was also for the repeal of all fiscal restraints, and of every restraint of the nature of a tax on the British Shipowner. He would have set him free, alike with respect to the command and the manning of his ship; he would also have allowed a drawback on the timber used in the construction of ships.

also opposed by the Shipowners.

Such were Mr. Gladstone’s views, which he was sanguine enough to imagine would have been acceptable to the shipping interests, had he proposed a scheme embodying his opinions, and invited the Legislature to make the necessary fiscal alterations. But when Mr. Gladstone saw that both the Government and Shipowners rejected Mr. Bouverie’s proposal, a form as it unquestionably was of conditional legislation, he relinquished his intention of bringing his plan before the House, as it had in fact no chance of being accepted by either party.

Such was the temper of all parties when the Bill went into committee on the 23rd March, 1849; Mr. Herries, before the Speaker left the chair, having intimated his intention of opposing the Bill during all its stages, believing that it could not be rendered a good Bill, whatever alterations might be made in it.