a

harbours, may be rendered popular with the masses of the people. That these masses would make the most strenuous exertions to support the independence of the British flag, if war actually broke out, may be considered as certain; but will they be equally ready to make those efforts during peace, and when the danger is as yet distant, which are requisite both to insure its success and shorten its duration? Experience proves that they will not; for, though menaced by maritime dangers of every kind, they have, in the last five-and-twenty years, let the royal navy sink down one-third of what it was during the war, and one-half what it was before its commencement. The only mode, therefore, that is apparently practicable of bringing up the royal navy to a level at all commensurate either with the strength of the state or the dangers with which it is threatened, is by giving the masses some present and personal object of advantage, which is to be gained by the expense requisite for its increase. Now, no object would be so generally popular, or universally felt to be important, as that which furnished the means of gratuitous emigration to a large proportion of our surplus working population. Every class in the country, every part of the empire, would at once feel the benefit of such an arrangement: the poor, by the safe and easy means of emigration that would be afforded them to countries where their condition would at once become prosperous; the landholders, in the diminution of the number of paupers and the burden of poorrates, which would be occasioned; the manufacturers, in the vast increase in the colonial market for their produce which would be opened up; the colonies, in the boundless supply of robust and efficient labourers with which they would be furnished. The increase in the population, now so much the object of concern to the mother country, would cease to be regarded with any disquietude; it would be considered only as the harbinger of the increased growth of our colonial possessions, and an increased vent for our produce for our colonial wants. The British navy would really become the chain which holds together the far distant parts of its immense dominion; the

means of uniting them in peace-the force to protect them in war; and the prosperity and extension of the far and distant parts of the empire, acting and reacting upon each other, would tend only to augment their mutual and highly beneficial dependence on each other, and to increase the strength of the naval force which was to protect alike all parts of the empire.

The British commercial policy, ever since the reciprocity system began, may be characterised in two words"Colonial Neglect and European Propitiation." As this system has now been in operation for sixteen years, ample time has been afforded to demonstrate, by experience, its effects, whether for good or for evil. The following statement of the effect of this system, which commenced in 1823, was made by Mr Alison at the Glasgow dinner above referred to :

"Standing as I do in the midst of this great commercial city, second to none, after the metropolis, in the British empire, I need not say that we are people mainly dependent on commerce and maritime strength; and we have only to look around us, and contemplate the narrow extent of these islands, compared with the vast population already crowded within their shores, to feel convinced that any serious and permanent obstruction to our foreign commerce, or decline in our maritime power, would not only beattended with the greatest danger to our independence, but fraught with a degree of wide-spread misery, perhaps unparallelled even in the long annals of human suffering. But, gentlemen, when we minutely examine our maritime and commercial situation, we shall find many causes for serious alarm, and many reasons for concluding that our policy in these respects has hitherto been mainly directed to fruitless or unattainable objects; and that, in their prosecution, we have overlooked or neglected the certain elements of strength lying in our own bosom, in the growth of our colonial empire. If we look to our exports and tonnage returns, we shall see that our maritime resources for the last forty years have been far from keeping pace with our commercial growth, and that our exports to the countries whom we have made the greatest sacrifices to propitiate, have been constantly and rapidly declining, while those to our colonies, for whose interests we have done so little, have been as constantly and rapidly increasing; and that it is the growth of the latter which has concealed and counterbalanced the decay of the former. Let us look at our total exports, imports, and tonnage in the present time, as compared with what they were during the peace of Amiens. They stood as follows : very extension of our export of manufactures, be nursing up a foreign, and possibly hostile, commercial navy, which would ere long wrest from us the empire of the seas. It is needless to go farther into details; for the fol

Exports.

Imports. Tonnage. 1892, L.38,309.990 L.29,8:6,210 L.2,167,000 1838, 105,170,549 61,265,320 2,690,601

"Thus, gentlemen, you see, that while from 1802 to 1838, that is in six-and-thirty years, our exports have advanced from 38 to 105, that is about 280 per cent, and our imports from 29 to 61, that is about 210 per cent, our whole tonnage has only increased from 21 to 28, that is about 33 per cent. This broad and decisive fact is calculated to excite the most serious alarm in every rational bosom, as to the maintenance in future of the maritime superiority of Great Britain. For who has carried the remainder of our merchandise abroad, and wafted the remainder of our imports to our shores? Somebody must have done it. The conclusion is unavoidable that it was done in great part by foreign states, that is, by vessels and seamen that may any day be ranged against us by our enemies. And, gentlemen, the number of these foreign seamen and vessels now employed in the British trade, and the rapid encroachments they are making on British maritime strength, is decisively proved by the Parliamentary Tables collected with so much care and accuracy by Mr Porter, at the Board of Trade: for from them it appears that the relative proportions of Foreign and British shipping employed in conducting our trade at these two periods were as follows:

that is, nearly tripled. This, gentlemen, is the general result; and unquestionably it is sufficiently alarming to every one who considers how essential our maritime superiority is to our foreign commerce; and what would be the condition of the British population if the empire of the seas were wrested from it, and the Thames, the Clyde, and the Mersey, were blockaded by hostile fleets? But the particulars of our trade with separate countries are far more instructive, because they demonstrate, in the clearest manner, where it is that the decay of our trade and shipping is going on, and where the counterpoising sources of strength and revival are to be found. It appears from Mr Porter's Parliamentary Tables, that since 1823, when the reciprocity system commenced, our tonnage with the countries with whom the reciprocity treaties were concluded has been decreasing in the most alarming manner, while no increase whatever has taken place during the same period in the amount of the goods which they take off our hands. The British and foreign shipping employed in the trade with Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, since 1820, have stood as follows :British declined with

Prussia from 539 ships to 270

Denmark,

lowing is the general result of the change which the tonnage of our foreign commerce with all parts of the world has undergone during the last thirty-six years :

•

These facts may be considered as decisive against the reciprocity system, so far as the maritime interests of the empire are concerned. They prove, beyond the possibility of doubt, after the most ample opportunity of trying the system by experience has been given, that under the recipocrity system the British flag is gradually becoming extinct in the trade with Continental Europe; and that, if it is continued for ten or fifteen years longer, our whole traffic with Europe will be carried on in the vessels of foreign states. Indeed, it is evident, from the extraordinarily rapid growth of foreign shipping in

carry

ing on the British commerce, that if the present system continues many years longer, the foreign sailors and tonnage employed in carrying on our commercial intercourse, at least with the States of Europe, will be greater than our own; that is to say, we shall have nursed up a race of foreign seamen in our own harbours, and in conducting our own trade, superior in number to those of the British islands-in other words, sharpened, and put into the enemy's hands, the dagger which may at any moment pierce us to the heart.

Real reciprocity with these countries would evidently have consisted

from 65 to 48 per cent.

...

...

18 to 26 6 to 9 3 to 5

...

in stipulating, that in consideration of our admitting some article in which they had advantages over us, on the same terms as they admitted ours, that they should do the same with some article of our manufacture in which we had the advantage, and they had the worst of it by nature. But we never thought of doing this, but contented ourselves with surrendering to them the whole advantages which the navigation laws gave to our shipping, without ever stipulating even the smallest corresponding advantage in favour of our cotton, hardware, or woollen goods, inwhich we had by naturethe start of them. The consequence has been that our own shipping employed in carrying on the trade with these nations has been almost destroy. ed, while no benefit whatever has been gained in our exports to these nations by the sacrifice. This decisively appears from comparing our exports to the powers with whom we concluded recipocrity treaties for the last ten years, during which time, in consequence of the action of these treaties, our shipping with them has been dwindling away to nothing. The following table exhibits the value of our exports to the Baltic powers, in 1827 and 1828, and 1835 and 1836 :

105,156

79,278

104,916

174,338

It is needless to go farther into details, for the following statement by the learned and indefatigable Mr Porter, of the Board of Trade, on that subject is decisive : - " That part of our commerce," says Mr Porter, "which, being carried on with the rich and civilized inhabitants of European nations, should present the greatest field for extension, will be seen to have

113,308

79,469

91,302

160,722.

fallen off under this aspect in a remarkable degree. The average annual exports to the whole of Europe were less in value by nearly 20 per cent in the five years from 1832 to 1836, than they were in the five years that followed the close of the war; and it affords strong evidence of the unsatisfactory footing upon which our trading regulations with Europe are established,

that the exports to the United States of America, which, with their population of only twelve millions, are removed to a distance from us of 3000 miles across the Atlantic, have amounted to more than one-half of the value of our shipments to the whole of Europe, with a population fifteen times as great as that of the United States of America, and with an abundance of productions suited to our wants, which they are naturally desirous of exchanging for the products of our mines and looms." *

Thus it distinctly appears, that while we have completely sacrificed, by the reciprocity treaties, our shipping employed in the trade with Northern Europe, we have derived no countervailing advantage whatever in our exports to these countries, because they actually, as a whole, take off, on an average of five years, less of that produce than they did five-and-twenty years ago. It is evident, that while they have taken advantage of our simplicity to engross to themselves all the carrying trade between their harbours and Great Britain, they have taken care to give us no corresponding advantage whatever in our commercial intercourse with them. In fact, they have done more the only return they have made for our concession in maritime affairs, has been to load our manufactures with additional duties. Prussia has rewarded us for our ample concessions to her by the Prusso-Germanic league. Every year brings a fresh ukase from the Emperor of Russia, imposing additional duties on our goods; and even our little puppet, the revolutionary Queen of Portugal, has shown her gratitude for the aid which put her on the throne, by nearly doubling the duties on every species of British manufacture?

Mr Alison, after dwelling on these facts, proceeded as follows to exhibit the very different picture which the colonial trade has presented:

"Gentlemen, I will not fatigue you with farther details. You see here the astonishing facts that France, with its thirty-two millions of inhabitants, takes off only £1,500,000 worth; that Prussia, with a population of fourteen millions, takes off only £160,000 worth; and, most marvellous of all,

that Russia, now with a population of sixty millions, takes only £1,700,000 of our produce. From these facts we may estimate, with perfect certainty, the chance which Great Britain has of being able to maintain a lucrative commercial intercourse with the old European nations in the same stage of civilisation with herself, and influenced by the political hostility and commercial rivalry incident to their political situation. Gentlemen, I have said, however gloomy the prospects of our commercial interests with such states may be, there is not only hope but confidence to be derived from another quarter; and if we turn to the Colonies we shall at once see whence it is that England is now deriving its heart's blood, and from what commercial intercourse our wealth and greatness in future times is to be derived. Gentlemen, you will be astonished, your hearts will exult, at the magnitude of the returns which I am now to lay before you. In the year 1836 it appears that our

Exports to the United States

of America were no less
than

British North American

Colonies,
British West Indies,
Australian Colonies,
East Indies,

•

•

Real Value.

£12,425,605

2,732,291

3,786,453

1,180,000

4,285,829.

"The articulate returns of the trade of each country for the years 1837 and 1838, have not yet been laid before the public; but here is surely enough to excite our wonder and astonishment. You see that Canada, with its population that does not yet yet reach fifteen hundred thousand souls, takes off no less than £2,800,000 of our produce, or nearly twice as much as Russia, with its population of sixty millions. You see that the British West India Islands, with a population of about forty thousand white, and eight hundred thousand black inhabitants, consumed in 1836 no less than £3,700,000, or considerably more than twice as much as France, with its population of thirty-two millions. And what is most marvellous of all, and comes directly home to the object of this night's festive assembly, the Australian Colonies, with a population scarcely at this mo

ment amounting to a hundred thousand, take off no less than £1,100,000 a-year of produce. Why, gentlemen, I venture to predict, that before the year 1840 the colonists of New Holland, reinforced as they will be by our friends around us proceeding to New Zealand, will consume more of British produce and manufactures, though they may not number a hundred and twenty thousand souls, than the sixty millions of the Muscovite empire. Such is the wonderful difference between the commercial intercourse we can maintain with our own descendants our own flesh and blood the Anglo-Saxon race whom we have sent forth to civilize the world-and the inhabitants of foreign states, subjected to the authority of hostile governments, or swayed by foreign commer. cial jealousy.”3

Lord Brougham, in the debate on the repeal of the Orders in Council in 1812, has explained, with even more than his usual felicity, the causes of this remarkable difference between the commerce opened in our own colonies and that which can be maintained with any other independent state in the old world. "The extent," says he, " and swift and regular progress of the American market for British goods, is not surprising; we can easily and clearly account for it. In the nature of things it can be no otherwise, and the reason lies on the very surface of the fact. America is an immense agricultural country, where land is plentiful and cheap; men and labour, though quickly increasing, yet still scarce and dear, compared with the boundless regions which they occupy and cultivate. In such a country manufactures do not naturally thrive; every exertion, if matters be left to themselves, goes into other channels. This people is connected with England with origin, language, manners, and institutions; their tastes go along with their convenience, and they come to us as a matter of course for the articles which they do not make themselves. Only take one fact as an example: the negroes in the southern states are clothed in English-made goods, and it takes 40s. a-year thus to supply one of these unfortunate persons. This will be admitted to be the lowest sum for

I know the real or

which any person in America can be clothed; but take it as the average, and make a deduction for the expenses above prime cost, you have a sum upon the whole population of eight millions, which approaches the value of our exports to the United States. But it is not merely in clothing. Go to any house in the Union, from their large and wealthy cities to the most solitary cabin or log-house in the forests, you find in every corner the furniture, tools, and ornaments of Staffordshire, of Warwickshire, and of the northern counties of England. The wonder ceases when we thus reflect for a moment, and we plainly perceive that it can be no otherwise. The whole population of the country is made up of customers who require, and who can afford to pay, for our goods. This, too, is peculiar to that nation, and it is a peculiarity as happy for them as it is profitable for us. affected contempt with which some persons in this country treat our kinsmen of the West. I fear some angry and jealous feelings have survived our former more intimate connexion with them-feelings engendered by the event of its termination, but which it would be wiser, as well as more manly, to forget. Nay, there are certain romantic spirits who even despise the unadorned structure of their massive democratie society. But to me I freely acknowledge, the sight of one part of it brings feelings of envy as an Englishman: I mean the happy distinction that, over the whole extent of that boundless continent, from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Mississippi to the Atlantic Ocean, there is not one pauper to be found. Such are the customers whom America presents to us. rapid increase of their culture and population, too, doubling in twenty-five or thirty years, must necessarily augment this demand for our goods in the same proportion. Circumstanced as the two countries are, I use no figure of speech, but speak the simple fact when I say, that not an axe falls in the woods of America which does not put in motion some shuttle, or hammer, or wheel in England."*

The

Such is the astonishing effect of the causes thus eloquently described by