The Express.
London, England, 1849-04-24 00:00:00

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AS j acid It weaffidifild,llm illniksgfinder those
and at OS psedialer steldelik -TM waist.
righly then, was Rot now inepgropriate ; items
riohn ai remember that, in preset ekethastances, we were
ate able to trifle with respect to the Omar on a quession
of snob vital importance with reknonee to their bade with
kerns powers. (Hoar, hear) • Pemba from the colealsts,
he would ask was it ordain that thew laws were knowable
to the shipowner ? As a sample of the hardship they ha-
rdapps him he was probilthed mitkieg say repairs in a
e rart beyond the yarn of Ms. per ton, however urgent
udgEt be the extremity. nth there were the enact-
lasts with respect t 0 height, to the registry of
seamen, to the number of tiees, and all theft ideate
regulations which in sesie le. of these laws had been
imposed upon him. and whisk by their repeal ho would
at owe get rid of. TUC did the British sailor really derive
say benefit from thine laws ? He was disposed to believe
that the Miens on impressment was very much to be traced
to their existence. (Hear, hear.) He was quite persuaded
that the regulations with respect to arprenticts operated
phut the wassan, ad dadaist to the lowering of his
wages. (Hear, hear.) There. wens various regulation, all
mbexteasive with and dependeat on the navigation laws, the
taxes wags, the Merchant selllllllol fund, and other
mattelh which must be repealed along with these laws. He
was tether! that, with the increased demand for the
etervlces of messes their higher rate of wages, and the
eels:Sion 0 various restricdons under which they labour,
that it would be to the ideated of merchant seamen that
there laws should be repealed. There remained only the
rase of the British consumer—the most important considera-
don of ell. It was admitted that, both dinetly. tad kill-
-11
inermarectly, the.coserneerthe
priaseaffwaseritpovit frons thee;
inereLedlaws • fretgoihtsawearte.
1 debt imported from abroad. The poor man who was the
wasumer at any little luxury, however small, foreign spirit,
foreign tobacco, or say other little luxury, bad the price of
it shamed by these laws. With regard to the manufw-
torus labourer, they diminished the demand for the article
as whisk he was employed. Urns the whole, ha was
satisfied these navigation laws were not eentbsalw
to the Stared or welfare of any Wass. (Hear, bear )
He did net understand why monopoly ghoul not
bear the same fruits in the shipping as in any other in
terest. (Hear, hear.) What was the case as to Franc.?
Fresco had long had savigaion laws of the most stringent
character. Nothing could be store strict, more extensive,
Mau the peeteetien given in Frame, or, at all events, given
ustil• way nest period, to Franck shipping as contradis
tieguithed fins fangs shippink: had this protection tended
to the adellaeseasst of French *hipping ? Quits the reverse.
Is 1836, newts had 15,956 ships, with a tonnage of
4100R00; in Ind, she had wily 13,673 skips. with •
uncap greatly degreased. (Hear, hear.) lAhat was
the state of effairs.here ? The house would, perhaps, per-
mit him to qquote the opisions of Mr. It *mond and
Mr. G. Freda ink Young. as to what wan the prosperity of
the British shipowner under a restrictive and protective
law. Mr. Richmond's statement wee' "The great bulk of
the mossy embarked in shipping here has paid no profit for
the last 25 years." (Oh, ob.) To another question,
Mr. Richmond replied that until he had bee. predut at the
examination of Mr. L.fevre, he bad not been aware how
small an amount of protection was let to the British ship-
owner under our reciprocity treaties and our thanes in
commercial policy ; that in tact it was clear little or no Fe-
der int at all n nuked. Mr. G. F. Young, on this point,
felt a ptrfed conviction that the capital embarked
in British shipping had, furies the whole period .f his ex.
peelers, produced smaller profits than bad an equal amount
of apical invested in any other branch of industry whatever.
Sach was the view entertained by these two gentlemen of the
easels of the system which yet they were so bent upoi re-
taining. (Hear, hear.) The right hon. member for Stam-
ford appeared to dispate a point upon which he (Sir James
Graham) very much insisted, namely, that if the proposed
change was ever to be made, this was the right moment at
which to make it. (Hear, hear.) It must be distinctly
born in stied by the shipownen that they had gained a
vastly improved position by the commercial regulations of the
art sor 6 yean. (Hear, hear.) Corn was now imported
into this country free; orlon was now imported free; wool
was isarrted free ; Canada timber was imported free; the
dusty to the export of coals had been repealed; the duty on
Baltic timber had been veer monk reduced ; the sugars of
Java, of the East Indies of the Mauritius, of Cuba. of the
Bras Is, which had hitherto been subject to a prAithitory
duty, were now admitted lath the British market at duties
greatly diminished. The trade with China had been mate-
rially extended ; all articles of first necessity, meat, prod-
-401111, every article connected with the sustenance of man,
were now Imported into this country duty free : all these
chutes were immense advantages conferred on the British
shipowners. (Hear, hew.) Nor let It be forgotten by them,
that concurrently with these changes, the price of every
article conneeted with food, with the sustenance of ships'
crews, had greatly diminished. (Hear, hear.) Hon.
gentlemen who sat arow d him, and more especially the
right hon. member fir Stamford, had made constant refer-
ence to the recent changes which had taken place in our
commercial policy. They said they considered it a fatal po
hey, fetal to the agricultural interest, fatal to the commercial
interest, and one hon. gentleman that evening, the chairman
of Lloyd., had extended his denunciation of it to this
point, that it qgs fatal even still more than all to the work-
tag clue intenit. Now, if thou gentlemen were all so very
decided in this view of the case, he could not comprehend
why they had km a single moment in bringing the question
distinctly before the legislature, and taking the opinion of
the legislature upon it, one way or the other. (Hear, hear)
If they were ell so sure that the policy was ruinous, and
that it was essential to the. safety of the country for parlia-
ment to retrace its sew, why all this deley ? (Hear,
near.) It so happened that, on the first even-
ing of ta's arson, elsewhere a declaration had
M made by a sobs friend of his—a declaration which
stood on record, and about which there could be no mir ake
whatever. He was now dealing with the political part of the
question, and, in his opinion,
i the economical and historical
parts of the question were llht as dust compared with the
political put. (Hear. bear. He had had leisure calmly
and deliberately to reflect os the changes which be had
taken a bumble share in effecting; Radio Mr frost regretting
thaw dosages, he had no hesitation in • %praising the con-
viction, that the peace and tranquillity whkh this country
had ski; ed during the year which had just passed ever
us ha,: teen owing to these changes._ (Hear, hear.) He
was satisfied that any attempt to go bath from them to pro-
ne:Pith duties, however 'soder the guise of duties of 'input,
any ittempt to rails by duties the pries of corn and of
other ankles of first necessity consumed by the great body
of the people, would lead inevitably to collision, to most
fatal coasequencee. (Hear, bear.) At all events, his part
was taken ; his stand was upon this ground--oppeeition to
reaction, support of progress, tempered by pru, snot and die-
erstion—(hear, hear)—end it was upon this Around that he
gave his cordial support to the third reading of the measure
before him, anxiously trusting that it would, without any sin-
Mk email delay, become ties law of the land. (Tee right
hon. gentleman eat down antliet loud cheering.)
Mr. T. BARING opposed the bill. Asa mercantile man,
he was quite ready. to admit that, as a general principle, re-
striction was injurious to trade • and it this country were a
mere community of merchants—Of receivers awl distributor
of goads—nothing could be more expedient than that the
community should be at full liberty to trade in what
muses it thought best, without any restriction whatever.
The next grievance was that the produce of Asia. Africa and
America 0011 la not be imported into Great Britain save in
their own ships, or in British bottoms, under the operation of
the navigation laws. But that, he apprehended, was more
a warehoudap and dock gentiles thesis navigation law ques-
tion. The real point at issue was whether other nations said
offer chewier warehouse room or lighter dock dues than
could be afforded to theigaships in England. That mutts
real question, and not the extension or repeal of the atavism-
tics laws. And wee the house to be called on to repeal those
laws oa such a ground as that ? The next grievance was
that of the edema which the right hon. baronet bad in-
sisted on very strongly. Bat the right bon. baronet was
wrong whoa bimodal that every one of the colonies
had memorialised the government to abolish the navigation
laws. There had been, he believed, so memorial to that
effect from the Mauritius, from Ceylon, Australia, and some
of the Wet Indian Islands. Indeed, the colonists is tar
West Indies ace pretty clearly that when once spiraling*
freely admitted into Great Britain in ships of all saffern,
they would very won fiad that the whole mut
would coma from Cuba, and little or sons
Jamaica or Trinidad. But then could be no desist
that then must be grievances where there were resisting.
The bill beim the house cpnod the whole of the
British pHs to the ships of Russia and • Prussia. bet
11 OM dim powers refused to remove the restriseleme
96611:1114 cupping is their ports ? What would the meow
seat de sour each eirernistauces? The principle of the
bill erns to remove all restrictions on the entry of foreign
ships into British ports, whilst it maintained all
the restrictions en British ship in foreign porta.
He observed that no precautions whatever were taken
as to the manning of foreign ship; and this, too,
lin the teeth of the open aekoowledgment on the pert
of the government the* British seamen were inferior to M-
I reign sailors la skill sad conduct. (The hon. member's de-
livery was se unequal se to prevent him from being heard in
the gallery.) The government was aware of and had sc-
-1 knewledged the importance of keeping up the ship-building
establishatestb, and of retaining the shipwrights in England,
hut how long could thew advantages be expected to
be retained under the insure system ? With respect
to the reciprocal advantages promised by the legis-
lative set of the United States. The right hon. gentle-
man the member for Oxford University well knew that puts-
tic opinion in America was divided as to the effect of that
set; and it had been segued that no alteration of the naviga-
tion laws of Or.at Britain would have the effect ascribed to
the measure under consideration by the govern-
ment and its supporters. By maintaining those
laws, Great Britain could always make terms with
foreign nations, by relaxing them as the occasion war-
ranted ; bat by abandoning them altogether a great and
a most effective power was thro en away. Who was it that
asked for their repeal? It was not the shipowners—nor the
sailors—oa the contrary, b nth those elutes look. d on the l
measure as a heavy, if sot a fatal blow, to th, it interests. Wei
it, then, the people of Bngla.'d who inked that the nudge- l
lion laws should be repealed ? If so, where were tank
petitions ? (Cheers.) He had no doubt that those
who looked merely to the adoption of a principle would TOM
for the bill of the government ; that those who th night the
country must suit a ftriaciple, and not that the primigio
must suit the cowry, would vote for the bill of the mem
moat i and that those perhaps to wino it was isimalidd