The Sun.
London, England, 1830-04-03 00:00:00

attending to this subject. That there had been an increase
of the foreign. shipping engaged in the British trade, was
.a point which he-did sot mean to deny; -hut the increase
of the foreign tonnage was to the increase of the British
tonnage in the ratio of 5,000 to 200,000.—(Loud cheers.)
He mentioned this, not for the idle purpose of gaining a
temporary advantage in debate, but for the sake of dis-
pelling the gross delusions which prevailed in certain quar-
ters on this topic.—(Hear.) He did not enter at present
into the question of the profits or of the distress of those
ship-owners, who, being employed, were employed, as
they stated, at a loss. He would only say that there was,
on the part of Ministers, no want of anxious attention to
the condition of the shipping interest. There was, on
the contrary, an earnest desire to apply their best abilities
to the consideration of any remedy which the members of
that interest could point out to the grievances of which
they complained. Ministers were, and had been, ready

upon all occasions to listen to all their petitions, to weigh
therm with care, and to argue them with patience, and
they bad never turned a deaf ear to any statement which
had come from this important branch of the trade of the
country.—(Hear, hear.) He assured the Housa that Mi-
nisters were inclined to pay attention to those parts of the
petition which were of a peculiar kind, .not referring to
the foreign policy of the country, but to the burdens more
peculiarly affecting the shipping interest; and concluded
by promising that they should be made the subject of his
immediate consideration.—( Hear.)
Mr. EWART referred, in confirmation of the asser-
tions of the Right Hon. the President of the Board of
Trade, to a declaration contained in the report recently
made by the Committee on Commerce to the Congress of
the United States. That declaration was as follows :
" When the present and past condition of our navigation

are contrasted,—when we compare the increase of British

and American tonnage before and since the war, and show
the rapid growth of the commerce of the British North
American possessions, we shall learn to comprehend the
advantages of a system of free trade,"--(Hear)--" and we
shall perhaps feel no small degree of alarm, lest our fatal
restrictions should have already driven us too far in the

' rear of all our rivals for national power and naval ascen-
dancy."—(Hear.)—Attached to that report was a compa-
rative statement of British and American tonnage actually
employed ; and from that statement it appeared that for
the last few years the increase had regularly been on the
side• of British, and the decrease on the side of American,
tonnage.—(Hear.)—The Hon. Member for Worcester had
quoted the number of foreign vessels entering inwards as a
proof of the mischief arising to the shipping interest from
the reciprocity system ; but the evidence which the Hon.
Member had brought in support of his position did not ap-
pear to him to be altogether satisfactory. For his own
part he believed that all foreign shipping was in a much
worse situation than our own.—(Hear.)—Ths distress of
the shipping interest was not the malady of our country,
but of the times.—(Hear.)—He believed that the further
we advance in experience, the more should we be convinced
that the doctrines advanced upon this subject by his Right
Hon. Friend, the Member for Liverpool, were doctrines
founded on sound policy and the most philosophical prin-
ciples of political economy. They were the seeds which
would hereafter ripen into a plentiful harvest of national
wealth ; and to their prosperous results might be applied
the beautiful expression of Virgil—
. Mox veniunt, seris factura nepotibus umbras."

The petition was then brought up. On the question
that it be laid upon the table,

Mr. ROBINSON said, that he must be permitted to
make one or two remarks on the observations which had
fallen from the Right Hon. President of the Board of Trade.
The Right Hon. Gentleman had said truly that there had
been—not that there is—an increase in the amount of
British tonnage entered inwards and cleared outwards.
The Right Hon. Gentleman had not given the returns up
to the latest period. He (Mr. Robinson) had seen the
official return for the last year, which had not yet been
published, by which it appeared that the, e had been a de-
crease in the amount of tonnage for the present year.
—(Mr. Herries.:--" No, no.")—The Right Hon. Gentle-
man said, that there had been an increase in the amount
of British tonnage employed in trade generally. He would
undertake on another opportunity to show, beyond all pos-
sibility of contradiction, that that increase belonged en-
tirely to the vessels engaged in our colonial trade, which
had nothing to do with any reciprocity system, and to the
vessels engaged in the Brazilian and Indian trade. He
would undertake to show that there had been, during the
year ending December, 1829, a decrease in the registered
tonnage of the United Kingdom of no less than 642 vessels.

Mr: HERRIES, in reply, stated that he had spoken
of the increase in the amount of our tonnage from returns
made up to the latest period.—(Haar.)—He had stated
that the ansount of British tonnage entering inwards and
clearing outwards for the last four years, was superior to
the amount for the four years immediately preceding the
year in which we made the alterations in our commercial
system ; and he now said that the amount of men, ton-
nage, and ships entering inwards, and clearing outwards,
during the last year, was greater than ever it was at any
former period. Take the amount, for instance, for the
years 1828 and 1329. In 1828, the number of ships en-
tering inwards was 13,436, their tonnage was 2,094,357,
and the number of men employed was 119,141. In 1829,
the number of ships entering inwards was 13,659, their
tonnage was 2,184,535, and the number of men em-
ployed was 122,155. Thus the difference in favour of
223,th in tonnage,eyearlB2
9,f
0,7
for ships
sentering inwards, was, in ships,
and in men, 3,o44.—(Hear. )...
In 1826, the number of ships clearing outwards was
12,248, their tonnage was 2,006,397, and the number
of men employed was 119,143. In 1829, the corre-
sponding numbers were,--ships, 12,636, tonnage,
2,063,179, men, 119,262. Thus the difference in
favour of the year 1829, for ships clearing outwards, was,
in ships, 388, in tonnage, 56,782, and in men 119.--
(Hear.)—Surely this would satisfy the Hon. Member
for Worcester.—(Hear, hear.)—He had also spoken
of the comparative average amount of ships, tonnage, and
men entering inwards, and clearing outwards, for the four
years, 1822, 1823, 1824, and 1825 ; and for the four
years, 1826, 1827, 1828, and 1829 ; and if the Hon.
Member, would allow him, he would shortly state it to
the House. In the first of these two periods there were
entering inwards—ships, 11,894 ; tonnage, 1,836,223 ;
men, 110,734 ; in the latter of them there were—ships,
13,175 ; tonnage, 2,079,105 ; men, 117,775 ; leaving a
difference in favour of the last period, of ships, 1,281 ;
tonnage, 242,882 ; men, 7,041. In the first of the same
two periods there were, of ships clearing outwards,
10,172; tonnage, 1,634,327; men, 101,034; and in
the latter, ships, 11,802 ; tonnage, 1,923,671 ; men,
113,999 ; leavieg again a difference in favour of the latter
period—of ships, 1,630; tonnage, 389,344; men,
12,915.—(Hear, hear.)—He would likewise state that
the increase of British ships, on the average of the last
four years, over foreign ships, engaged in foreign naviga-
tion, was—in ships entering inwards, 464 ; in tonnage,
5,000 ; and in men, 530 ; and in ships clearing out-
wards was 820; tonnage, 30,000; and men, 2,400.
Mr. ROBINSON again contended, that in the return
which he had seen there were 642 vessels of registered
tonnage less this year than there were last.

Mr: TRANT said a few words which were inaudible in
the gallery.
The petition was then laid upon the table. On the
motion that it be printed,
Mr. SYKES returned thanks to his Hon. Friend the
Member for Montrose, for having excited the Right Hon.
President of the Board of Trade, by his observations, to
give some reply to the statements of the petitioners. He
thought that this question would have been left in a very
unsatisfactory condition indeed, it it had not elicited from
his Right Hon. Friend the observations which he had just
made.—(Hear.)—His object in giving notice of his in-
tention to present this petition to-day, was to apprise
Ministers of the importance which he attributed to it, and
to call upon theta to declare their sentiments upon it. If
his Right Hon. Friend had persisted in his original de-
termination to keep silence, the greatest dismay would
have fallen upon the petitioners.—(Hear.)—lt would have
pleased him much more if his Right Hon. Friend, instead
of dealing in general professions of the attention which he
and his colleagues were always ready to pay to the com-
plaints of the shipowners, had said that he was prepared to
bring forward some specific measure for their relief.—
(Elear, hear.)--As to free trade, that was a subject on
which he had not thought fit to say a single word ; for on
this subject of all others he thought that a discussion of its
merits ought not to be introduced. Free trade, as he
understood the phrase, consisted in the greatest extension
of imports and exports into and from every country in the
world. To other interests it might be one of the most
pestilent heroic.. that ever existed ; he did not, however,
think that it was; but to the ship-owners it could not
but be favourable, as they were, and must always remain,
the carriers of the world.

The petition was then ordered to be printed.
Mr. SYKES presented a petition from Bridlington, in
favour of the extension of the trade to India.
Re:erred to the Committee on the East India trade.
Mr. N. CALVERT presented a petition from the inha-
bitants of Hoddesdon, praying for a mitigation of the se-
verity of the criminal law ; and another from the inhabi-
tants of Bishop Stortford, relative to the levy of poor-rates.