The Express.
London, England, 1848-06-10 00:00:00

7

been the principal author of the first rick)
circle ; but for him that thesis would never have bee:
adopted by • minister or accepted by a party, (hear, hear,)
and yet at the end of two years the hon. gentleman had
to-night again, to rise in his place, and become the advocate
of a new vicious circle. (Hear, bear.) Before the hon,
gentleman had promised the house and the country per'
petual advantages—now he said that it was but just that all
should take their share in the universal diluter. (Hear,
hear.) With regard to the unfortunate interest now under'
discussion before an assembly called together to watch over
the interests and to guard the rights of Englishmen—with
regard to the new victim, he must say that if this question
involved an inquiry into the comparative expense of build-
ing ships at Stettin and at Sunderland—he should consider
that he should himself be guilty of an set of the utmost
assumption if be offered au opinion on that subject. Though
he had paid constant attention to the course of the debate,
he had studied with as much power of *boric
tion as he could command, the evidence which
hal been offered to the two houses of parliament, and still
he felt if he offered an opinion as to the relative prices of
cordage and sailcloth it would be an act of arrogance which
he would not assume. Ile therefore left all these deductions
from the evidence to the hon. member for the West !tiding
(Mr. Cobden), for be thought that even the house itself woe
Cot exactly a tribunal competent to decide with satisfaction
upon ouch a topic. In such a matter the hon. member (Mr.
Cobden) had immense advantages, because he was the .6 ad
of Mr. Brunton, who had personal experience of the cost of
building ships at Stettin and at Sunderland, and had Rotted
that he had no fear of competition with the ports of the
Baltic. lie (Mr. Disraeli) bowed with great respect to the
opinions of that gentleman ; but as be had been quoted, be
(Mr. Disraeli) must refer to an opinion expre sod by Me
Brunton within the last few hours. At a meeting held at
the exchange of Sunderland on the subject of the navigation
laws, Mr. Brunton was the principal motor, and
had moved one of the resolutions adopted by the
meeting. In the course of his speech be attacked the
evidence given by a Mr. Wilson (mit the hon. member for
Westbury), upon whom he did not charge falsehood, but
adopted a milder term—(ti laugh) —sod then he was pleased
to state that the repeal of the navigatiort Isms would reduce
property 30 to 40 per mot., and would drive obi , building
out of the country, and inflict equal injury upon artisans,
builders, and owners. lie added that, by the co-operation
of all, means would be found to defeat the p'an of the
government. Mr. Brunton sat down amidst load cheers,
proposing a resolution to the effect that, if the measure of
the government was carried, it would be fatal to Wilde",
owners, and artisans, and calling upon all those favourabie to
native industry to rally round those dames at the present
moment. He (Mr. Disraeli) thought it but tight that he
should thus furnish to the house the last opinion which Mr.
Brunton had given on this very subject. (Hear, hear.) Be-
fore he (Mr. Disraeli) entered upon the general question, he
could not help noticing some of the observations made by the
hon. member for the West Riding respecting the commercial
marine of this country. He Lad heard wits r. gret his
remarks upon the character of tile seamen and captains.
In all closes—in all modes of employment—there must be
some troublesome fellows, from whose conduct it would be
hard and unjust to judge a whole race. It ought to be no
evidence against the system under which they were edu-
c tried, and under which they were employed. Now he (Mr.
Disraeli) had before him some evidence of the conduct of
Englishmen not employed on board ship, but in an institu-
tion which was scarcely less inferior in national importance.
A. gentleman well known to hon. members oppu.site—Mr.
John Brooks, of Manchester—had been examined before the
navigation committee, and, in answer to a question put by
the hon. member for Westmoreland (Mr. Alderman 1 hemp-
ion), this witness seemed to think that it was because crews
were &flossed to consist of one-fourth of foreigners, and
three-fourths of British seamen, they could net agree. But
Mr. Brooks, with more candour than the honour.
able member for the West Riding, had spoken of his
management of his men in Lancashire—that was to
say his own men employed in his own mill. Mr. Brooks was
well known to possess a knowledge of the Lancashire cha-
racter—indeed he himself was remarkable in a crowd,
(Laughter.) But, speaking of the management of his own
men, he said, " I have fought several battles with my men
—there are some of them called ' and some ' knob-
sticks'—(loud laughter)—and I have been obliged to have
sixty withers and three officers in my mill for nine months
together to keep them in order, for, when mixed together,
the men would not agree." (Hear, hear.) Now it would
be quite as just for him (Mr. Disraeli) to bring this evi-
dence forward as a proof against the character of the whole of
the working classes of the most favoured district of the
co. ntry, an for the hon. member for the %Vest Riding (Mr.
C den) to condemn the seamen in the commercial
m..• fie on the isolated instances of undisciplineel and
nor sly conduct which might be alleged against portions
of that body. lie therefore dismissed this part of tne case.
sVith respect to the allegation, that the coasting trade would
be protected by the ignorance of the net ye tongue of
foreigners, he begged to state that no man was allowed to
command a Swedish or Norwegian ship who was not master
of the English language. (Hear, hear.) The question now
before the house he understood to be a proposition ce, the
part of the government to abrogate an ancient national m-
um with respect to navigation—a system founded upon
definite principles, and aiming to arrive at definite ends; and
if he could show that the principles of that system were an
actual advantage to the country, and beneficent to the
state, then the question of the ability or inability of British
shipbuilders to enter into competition with foreigners
will not an element for argument on this occasion.
He was there to advocate the present system, which
he maintained had worked with great advantage to
the state, and to do this he bad but to make evident that
the arguments against that system were utterly unsubstan-
tial and fallacious. (Hear, hear.) In the first place, it had
been said that England was not protected in her export
trade, and therefore it wits asked why it was necessary she
should be protected in her import trade? He denied that
this country competed with succor with the foreigner in the
export trade. No member for Liverpool, or merchant of
that town, would venture to assert this, but, on the con-
trary, must admit that practically the export trade
was in the hands of foreigners. (Hear, hear.)
Beery one knew that if a large order was given from
America for iron, they mode it a condition that it should be
eoritro hadelinbetomgeriiven fcan srhionistheMFirthenicnhagdaovymocinstenwtofoar large;
and it was a condition of the contract that it should be ex-
ported in French ships. (Hear, hear.) He blarnod not the
American or French governments for this; but hearing it
said that we were not protected in the export trade, and yet
competed with so much ability, and knowing that there were
no authentic documents to guide tha house en tho subject,
I he was obliged to ask for the evidence, and in the want of it
to avail himself of the information which was open to eve q.
body; and he could not help arriving at a conclusion totally
different to that of those who were the promulgators of this
opinion. (Hear.) It had been said that England could compete
in an open market with any state, and that while we were
trembling before competition on the Thames, in the most
celebrated ports of South America and the Adriatic—Rio
and Trieste—English shipping carried everything before it.
He accepted the test, so ostentatiously offered, and would
show how utterly unfounded and fallacious was the founda-
tion of the principal arguments which had been offered
throughout these debates. He had • return from Rio for
I 1847' which had been given on oath before the Lords' com-
mittee. It showed that in that year 655 ships, amounting to
198,000 tons, had cleared from Rio with cargoes ; of these
the British tonnage was 32,000 tons, (mien more than
166,000 tons. Of the British tonnage 15,000 tons cleared
for our colonies, so they were out of the category; there re-
mained something more than 16,000 tons for foreign
parts . Of the foreign tonnage 68,000 was American.
15,000 Brazilian, 13,000 Danish, 14,000 Swedish, 13,000
Hamburg. 11,000 Portuguese, 10,000 French, 7,000 Sardis
nian, and 6,000 Belgian. So that out of a tonnage of nearly
200,000 tons from the port of Rio, British shipping only
' commanded 16,000 tone. (Hear.) How was it possible, in
the face of such a document as that, to pretend that British
shipping carried everything before it, and competed success-
, fully in open ports with all nations of the world. He had
a return from Trieste, not of very recent date, but he was
informed by a house having extensive commercial tranasc-
lions there, that the relative proportions of shipping were
still much the same. Analysing the trade of 14 countries
with Trieste, be found that in seven of them—the United
States, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Spain, Hamburg, Holland,
and Sweden—not a single British vetted was employed in
conducting the commerce between those countries and
Trieste; that in five others, Not way, Cuba, Por-
tugal, our own possessions at Gibraltar and Malta,
and St. Domingo, sometimes one, in other cases two
British vessels weer, employed; and that only to Brazil was
there a large majority of British shipping. (Hear.) Re-
co letting that England exported to Brazil four millions
sterling per annum, and received from Brazil only one
million, it was quite clear that the ships which took out the
four millions must be chartered to pay_ for the three extra
millions to other ports; the port of Trieste attracted this
great part of our traffic ; so that in fact these three millions
which the Brazils did not pay us for were drawn by the
course of commercial transactions from the port of Trieste.
So much for the two great cases, which had been appealed
to in this debate with so much triumph and with so little
foundation. (Hear.) The hon. member for Westbury
(Mr. J. Wilson), the great champion of the virtues of
competition, had stated, 0 thew the immense advantage
of relaxation, that from 1817 to 1823, British shipping was
not only stationary but absolutely in decline—the tonnage
having fallen off from 2,600,000 to 2,500,000, notwithstand-
ing the increase of population and of imposts ; and that the
moment the reciprocity act was passed, which was a consider-
able approach to the principles of free trade, there was a
rapid improvement in British shipOlon. But the hon. gen-
tleman forgot that, though the el .te -of the reciprocity act
was 1823, no increase whatever took place In the tonnage of
our mercantile marine till 1830 ; and that it was only in
1834 that it had arrived at the same amount as it exhibited
in 1817-2,600,000 tons, twenty years after the peace, and
eleven years after the boasted reciprocity act. (Hear.)
This w. a a speech made by one who was called a muter of
the subject, one of those speeches which influenced public
opinion, effected revolutions, altered tariffs, and changed
ministries. (Hear, and laughter.) It was impossible to draw
conclusions more at variance in every respect with the facts.
In alluding to the trade of this country and other countries,
before the reciprocity act, the hon. gentleman bad taken
great care not to give the name of a single country, or the
date of a single treaty. The date of the reciprocity treaty
with Russia was only in 1843 ; but our commerce with that
country had increased from 200,000 tons in 1824 to more
than 400,000 tons in 1846—an increase owing to 19 years of
that monopoly which the hon. gentleman denounced. He
had represented the whole British trade as having increased
from 3,290,000 tons in 1824 to 8S millions in 1846; but to
obtain the second amount the hon. gentleman had taken the
clearings inwards and outwards, and added them together,
while in the first he had studionily separated them. ',Hear,
hear.) Who could resist the boldness of such evidence as
that? (Laughter.) But this was the evidence which for
many years had governed England, which, brought forward