The Sun.
London, England, 1849-03-13 00:00:00

Ottening .;AtIL

LONDON, TUESDAY, MARCH 13, 1849.

The debate on the Navigation Laws was brought to
a conclusion last night. The amendment of the
Right Hon. Gentleman the Member for Stamford
was rejected by a majority of 56—the numbers being,
for the amendment, 210; against it, 266. The Bill
was then read a second time without further divi-
sion. The principle of the measure has thus received
the legislative sanction, and the various details may
receive that mature and attentive consideration which
the importance of the subject so eminently merits.
The opponents of free trade mustered strongly, and
made the most determined efforts in what, we trust
may prove the final struggle. Many persons from whom
we should have expected better things were led
astray by the fallacies that were uttered respecting
the decay of the maritime power of Great Britain,
and the consequent destruction of our chief national
defence. They adopted the view put forward by
ADAM Salmi, to which we alluded yesterday, "that
defence was better than opulence," and swelled the
ranks of the monopolists by their votes. Now, we
eandidly confess that if there were any real weight
in this argument—if the effects of the change would
indeed be to cripple our naval power—we
should disregard all economical considerations,
and support the British seaman at any cost.
We are, however, satisfied that the results
would be very
.different indeed, and that the
total and unconditional abolition of all restrictions
would be in the highest degree 'beneficial to the
ship-
ping interest. We do not think so humbly of our
enterprising and intelligent shipowners, or of our
hardy tars. We do not believe that they would
shrink from entering into a just and fair competition
with. those of other nations. Why should they do
so ? British shipping still maintains a fair price in
other countries. Are not our artizans as
skilful and industrious, as able and wil-
ling to work as any of their competitors ?
If not, is it by fostering and maintaining an artificial
system that improvements can be effected ? Certainly
not. Such a course might preserve a mediocrity,
which could, not exist without bounties and protec-
tion, but it will never lead to anything like perfec-
tion. If we desire a permanent amelioration the
dormant energies must be excited, the activity
aroused; the shipwrights must be taught habits of
self-reliance and independence, and not to rest satisfied
that they are only sustained by the practical mono-
poly afforded, the tax paid by the great body of con-
sumers throughout the entire nation for the exclusive
benefit of their craft.

Neither does the British sailor require any artifi-
cial recommendation ; his merits are recognized
throughout the entire world, he is eagerly sought
for in other lands. In every port he maintains a
pre eminence, atia he will readily command wages
that can scarcely he obtained by others. Unfortu-
nately, under the much-lauded system of protection
we find our very best men induced to enter
into the service of our maritime rivals, and
driven to other countries to seek the employ-
ment denied to them in their native land.
What then are our deficiencies ? «le fearlessly assert
that they are mere creatures of the Imagination,
ithout any real existence—delusions that will cease
to exist, when subjected to the test of experience.
It must_nnt be supposed that other nations have
p4t. ' itaed our exclusive system. On the
.311 its naturally enough produced a coun-
;
7 Anfon their part, a system of retaliation
•" has proved most injurious to all parties con-
'. Our code has been the model for general
and as might have been expected, the pupils

in many instances surpassed the teachers in the strin- 1
gency of their enactments.
The exclusive system was first modified at the
special instance and request of these interested in our
carrying trade. The celebrated " Reciprocity Acts"
were introduced with their full consent and appro-
bation. Mr. PORTER, the experienced and able
Secretary of the Board of Trade, in his evidence
before the Committee on the Navigation Laws in
1847, stated that—

" The reciprocity treaties did not originate
from any movement on the part of the trading
world, but from a movement on the part of the
shipowners, who were urgent with Mr. Hus-
kisson for entering into treaties with foreign coun-
tries, in order to prevent British ships being placed
at a disadvantage in the countries with which they
traded—Prussia particularly, for it was with Prussia the
reciprocity treaties first began. It was at the particular
instance of the shipowners trading to that part of the
continent :that Mr. Iluskisson was induced to enter into
these reciprocity treaties, in order that the British ship-
owners might continue to send their ships to the ports
of Prussia, for Prussia had threatened to exclude our
ships by a reciprocity of another kind."
If, then, we abolish our navigation code, and admit
foreign shipping freely and unrestrictedly to our
ports, they will adopt an equally liberal policy. The
eyes of the chief maritime nations of the globe are
placed upon us at this emergency. They are patiently
awaiting our decision ; and their conduct will be
chiefly directed by the course we may adopt ; they
will be guided by ourselves. Shall we then deprive
the shipping interest of the great advantages placed
within their reach, or shall we in a frank and friendly
spirit throw open our ports to all comers, and thus
cement our amicable relations with all nations, and
give the strongest guarantee for the maintenance of
perpetual peace and tranquillity, for the approach of
that golden age when, according to the poet,
" Man to man the world all o'er
Shall brothers be and a' that ?"

At a period when our calamitous expedition beyond
the Sutlej renders the delay of the Overland Mail,
even during a few hours, a severe and almost unen-
durable disappointment, it becomes a question of vital
importance to the community to discover whether the
time required in the communication between Eng-
land and her Oriental, possessions cannot, in some
manner, be abbreviated. That the protracted voyage
round the Cape of Good Hope has been avoided
through the instrumentality of the enterprising WAG.
HORN is, no doubt, a circumstance which should in
itself excite throughout the kingdom feelings of
the liveliest satisfaction. It is very nearly
as much a matter of astonishment that in-
telligence should mutually, like the flux
and reflux of the tides, flow between the Thames and
the Ganges, in the space of two instead of four, or
even eight months, as it is that in our own country,
where the time occupied in travelling over a distance
of a hundred and fifty miles, is reduced from three or
four days to three;or four hours. When Mr. OSBILDES.
TONE rode over two hundred miles in Leicestershire,
mounted on a succession of racehorses, it was won-
derful. Yet the steam-engine has since then tra-
versed within the same interval more than 50 miles
through hilly counties, at night, and in a
hurricane. When the first steam-vessel came round
from Bombay, by Cape Town, it was considered mar-
vellous. Yet even that mode of conveyance has been
rendered tedious through the detection of an over-
land track to Ilindostan via Marseilles. Rapid,
however, as the conveyance unquestionably is by the
latter arrangement, the line now traversed has
still so many disadvantages, that it becomes
more than ever necessary to find, out, if possi-
ble, a shorter "cut" to our Indian empire. Recent
events have inforced this necessity in a rather painful
manner, for it has been calculated that in the event
of reverses occuring to our arms, still more deplora-
ble than the bloody victory gained at Chillianwallab,
the aid of a superior tactician could not be afforded
until after the expiration of the five months during
which, alone, campaigning in India is practicable to
Europeans. Even with relays of couriers, Sir
CHARLES NAPIER could not—so it is calculated—
arrive at his destination before some weeks had
elapsed. Besides this, the overland line of correspond-
ence between the mother country and her Asiatic do-
minions, might at any moment be interrupted by the
outbreak of an European war. It is consequently
only too manifest that a different track for communi-
cation must, if within the bounds of possibility, be
discovered.

But hoe', and in which direction, can a new and
swifter intercourse be established between Asia and
Great Britain ? " Aye, that's the rub !"
We hive tried successively the sea voy-
age round the southern extremity of Africa,
and the overland journey via Marseilles, and
both are found open to very serious objections. The
one is too long, and the other too liable to interrup-
tion.
In the dilemma, some day-dreamers, blessed
with a very sanguine temperament, have projected
adventures through the polar regions for the purpose
of tracing out what is popularly termed a North-
West Passage. For half a century the science of
navigation has been striving to carry vessels through
Davis's Straits, and Barrow's Straits, and Beh-
ring's Straits, round the top of the New World, from
the western extremities to the eastern extremities
of the old hemisphere. Expedition after expedition
has failed in this undertaking, and now the gallant
but unfortunate FRANKLIN is supposed to have
perished in the attempt, with the whole of his heroic
companions. Everything makes it sufficiently clear
that if ever the passage from Europe to China is made
in a westerly direction, it must be lower down than
the Arctic zone, where eternal snows and icebergs
seem to render the way impassable. Like COLUM-
BUS, we must sail eue west across the Atlantic in
order to reach the shores of China. But
the American continents intervene to obstruct
our vessels midway—that is the difficulty that
remains to be overcome. And it can only be effectu-
ally overcome by one of two methods—either by
cutting a ship-canal through the Isthmus of Panama,
or by constructing a railroad directly across North
America. Several objections existing in reference to
the first exploit, we are consequently reduced to the
consideration—plainly and distinctly—of the last-
mentioned, namely, the establishment of a North
American Railway.

Sooner or later a railroad must connect together
the Atlantic and the Pacific. When that shall have been
accomplished, commerce and intercourse will flow
and reflow across the New World, between the opposite
extremities of the Old. The globe will have assumed
a new phase, and fresh vigour will be imparted to the
extraordinary destinies of the human race. Civiliza-
tion will flood, westwards, to the East. The riches

of the Orient in exchange fur the blessings of civi-
lization will flood, eastwards, to the West. All the
resources of Australia and of the spice-growing
Archipelagoes of the Pacific will be called into activity.
America will deve:ope its glorious career, nourished
into maturity by the interchange of knowledge and
wealth between the east and the west of the Old
W orld.

The
i only problematic,questions that remain to be
solved n connexion with the future North American
Railway, are when and by whom that railway will be
accomplished. In the settlement of those two ques-
tions is involved a wholesome rivalry or competition
between England and the United States. Which-
ever of these great powers—both of them of the
Anglo-Saxon race, the one the off-shoot, the other the
original stock—shall precede its competitor in the
construction of this inevitable line of steam commu-
nication, will have acquired an advantage the conse-
quences of which cannot, at this distance, be, in any
degree, estimated.
On the 16th of February we directed public atten-
tion to a pamphlet, in the form of a letter, addressed
to Judge HALLIBURTON, the immortal " Clockmaker,"
by an officer in one of her MAJESTY'S Highland
Regiments—a pamphlet in which a magnificent
scheme is proposed for the connexion of the Pacific
and the Atlantic by a railroad running through our
North American possessions, through the Canadas,
and through the territories of the Hudson's Bay
Company, beginning at the harbour of llalifax, near
Newfoundland, and terminating on Frazer's River,
opposite Vancouver's Island. Since then, it will have
been observed by our readers that the author of that
remarkable pamphlet, Major ROBERT CARMICHAEL
SMYTIT, has addressed a letter to ourselves, in which he
disclaims any of that dogmatic egotism which is gene-
rally supposed to actuate the projectors of such colossal
enterprises. The pamphlet of Major SMYTH, pre-
viously printed for private circulation, and written
Without any signature upon the title-page, has, sub-

Tilt SUN,