The Sun.
London, England, 1849-05-08 00:00:00

Lord BROUGHAM, in rising to address their Lord-
ships, was astonished to have heat d of its being said, not
many hours ego, that he, who had all along been a sup-
porter of free trade, should now turn his back upon and
refuse to aid in pteting the crown open the last pillar of
its trium; hs. Ile glaried in the conquest reterred to—
he gloried in having. obtained ti at mural triumph of
whet he believed to be the soundest principles of poli-
tical philosophy, and over the most groundless preju-
dices by which its progress was ever attempted to be
obstructed. But if there were any one drop in that cup of
ride which was more sweet and palatable to him, it was
the recollection that the most eminent statesmen had
given up tl er prejudices against free trade, and had
jeined him in carrying the repeal of the corn-laws. He
hoped that after the long voyage their Lordships, had
among the dry details of statistics, and which it was
their fate to continue somewhat longer, though Lot
under the able and enlightened guidance of his Noble
Friend (the Marquis of Lansdowne), they would excuse
him if he would resist the opportunity of enlivening the
subject, for one moment, by what long experience in
that deliberative aseintly had proved to him to be more
interesting than any, however important, statistical
question.— (Hear, hear.) But he must first positively
eeny the assertion that that seas a question of free
trade, or that the navigetion•laws had any sort of con-
nexion with it, for some of their Lordships considered
that this measure was a miserable fragment of free
trade. He would_ ask, who was the leader of the
great free-trade principle? Who was the eminent
apostle of that doctrine? Whose work was it that
constituted as it were the Scriptural volume of authority
for till free-traders end all political economists of thet
school ? Beyond all question, the great apostle of free
trade vies Ac are Smith, the author of " The Wealth of
Nations." And yet Adam Smith declared that as apu-
tenets was less important than defence, the navigation-
laws were the wisest of the commercial regulations of
England.—(Hear, hear.) Washington, the revered
founder of the American constitution, and the father
of American freedom, signalised his entrance into office,
at the end of the American war, by a statement of the
absolute necessity of America's taking measures, by the
encouragement of the American and the discourage-
ment of foreign shipping, for securing a maritime
ascendancy in their own ports.—(Bear, hear.) Again,
Maddison, who on many questions differed from Wash-
ington, signalised his administration by the adoption of
that course of policy which the navigation-laws had
sanctioned in this country. His argument was, that
although such a policy might lead to tome financial
loss, or to some commercial restrictions, it was right
that the interests of the revenue and of commerce should
yield to the higher object of national security. lie
(Lord Brougham) had also to state that it was the doc-
triee of Mr. Huskisson—whore opinions upon that sub-
j, et had been so misunderstood—that where com-
merce and marine came into antagonism, com-
merce should yield, as it was upon our merino that
the safety of the country mainly depended.—(hear,
hear.) His Noble Ft iend had told them that it appeared
front " Pcpys' Diary" that the navigation•laws had
been found to have failed fifteen years alter their enact-
ment. • But it was net the navigation-laws that had lad
at that period to the decline of our marine. The fact
was that Charles 11. had not maintained his navy in a
state of efficiency from a want of the funds necessary for
that purpose, or from a want cf a desire to devote the
funds at his disposal to the construction of ships or the
payment of able seamen. Ms Noble Friend, in the
course of his argument, had embarked in a sea of
fieurcs ; but he (Lord Brougham) believed that his
N Friend could not embark OD a more dangerous
voyage than by launching out upon the great ocean of
statistics in the good ship "Board of Trade, G. R.
Porter, master."—(A laugh.) Indeed he feared that in
such a voyage the shipwreck of his Noble Friend was all
but inevitable. During the whole of his experience.,
from the year 1808 to 1812, in 1817, in 1824, and 1842
—during all these different crises in commercial
affairs, he the ught that nothing but evil ever arose
Irons any of our statesmen founding. their mercantile
rolicy on details of figures end statistical tables.
There was no proposition which might not be
proved by the statistical tables.—(hear, hear.) It was
well known that these statistics were done by a process
of cookine.—(Hear and laughter.) The Committee
which had sat on that question had sufficiently elicited
the process by which those tables were prepared. Yet
upon these his Noble Friend had relied in support of his
case. He bad desired them to look to the state of Ame-
rican shipping. Ilis Noble Friend had told them, on
the authority of those tables, that while our tonnagehad
increased by such an amount, tho American tonnage had
only increased by such . another amount. His Noble
Friend had said that all that was the consequence of pro-
tection. Now, it so heppened that he (Lord Brougham)
had access to the same accounts to which his Noble
Friend bed access, and what did he find was the case?
He had extracted from.the report a few questions which
would throw some light on teat matter. "It appears,"
said a member of the Committee, examining the wit-
ness who. had prepared those statistical accounts—" it
appears, in pages 447.57, that you have taken the
whole of the British, and only part of the American
tonnage into your calculation," The witness admitted
as much. " Then," continued the examiner, " can any
kgree of accuracy whatever he ascribed to that account,
as a lair statement of the comparative extent of British
and American tonnage?" " Certainly not," said the
witness.—(Laughter.) Suppose one asked his cook—
" Is what you have served up for dinner good food or
not?" and the cook answered, " Certainly not"—(Le ugh-
ter)—would that be thought a very satisfactory meal to
sit down to?—(Bear and laughter.) The witness was
further asked, " Have you no moans of remedying this
error, or of correcting this inaccuracy?" His reply was,
"I do not know that I have. I rather think I have, but
lam not certain."—(Much laughter.) Such were the
atatistias upon which his Noble Friend founded his case.
Now, with respect to the old system of theenavigation-
leWs, as laid down by Mr. Huskisson, they did not
object to his proposition. The policy had been adopted
with the view of arranging the reciprocity system and
the differential duties, and prohibition had been en-
tirely out of the question. Mr. Porter, Mr. Ri-
cardo, and all those who were for repealing the
navigation-laws, had stated that it would be found the
protected trade had not increased near so much as the
unprotected trade. Yet it had been acknowledged that
so false a heading had never been put in a beak as that
which professed to describe the " protected" and " un-
protected" trades. It should have been protected and
less protected. All the following places should be in
a different class from that in which they appeared in
the tables in question. The Roman States, Tuscany,
Gibraltar, China, Java, the lonian Islands, amid the South
Seas. That made a difference of no less than 350,000
tons in tie account, which was nearly oneehalf of the
whole. Such returns, therefore, were not those upon
which they could safely legislate. It was another
part of the principle of the navigation-laws to keep as
much of the carrying trade in our own hands as we
could, and to keep other countries as much as possible
from it. It had been said that 215,000 tons of shipping
were now engaged in the carrying trade, which were
likely to be put out of it if that measure were not passed.
Now that was a fiction of the grossest—he was almost
going to say scandalous nature he had ever heard.—
(Hear.) lie had never seen a more unfounded misre-
presentation. The calculations of tonnage had been taken
from the number of voyages which the ships made.
There had been 47 ships of about 7,000 tons entirely,
and they having made 32 voyages on the year, the
abovementioned amount of tonnage bad been set down
in the calculation.—(llear, hear.) There was ono ship
called the Magician, set down as at 14,200 tons, yet she
was only 96 tons burden, but she made 146 voyages on
the year, and that was the way in which her magical
amount of tonnage had been made out.—(Hear, hear.)
He would leave it to those Hon. Members of the other
House of Parliament, who called upon their fancies for
their facts, and their memories for their jokes—(Laugh-
ter)— to reconcile such an amount of exaggeration as
that account showed.—(Hear, hear.) Allusion had
-been made to the Russian trade with this country. Now
there was no question relative to the navigation-laws
between this country and Russia. No goods could now
be exported from Russia, unless Russia had been the
entrepot fur the same. One of the witnesses examined
had said with regard to the difference between Eng-
lish and Russian seamen; that one of the for-
mer would do the work of twelve of the
latter.—(Hear, hear.) Now he (Lord Brougham)
believed that to be an exaggeration. It had been said
that they were now dealing only with the remains or
fragments of the old navigation-laws. But he maintained
that these fragments were of a large or gigantic size,
and in dealing with them he conceived they should not
be dealt with in the contemptuous manner which the pro-
moters of the present measure treated them. Under the
remains of that system no less than 1,500,000 tons of
shipping were engaged—no less than 20,000 seamen
were employed—and a capital of near 5,000,0001. em-
barked.—(Hear, hear.) Yet it was said that the present
syStem could not be continued, chiefly on account of the
discontent of Canada. With respect to the trade by the
St. Lawrence with the United States, he contended
there was perfect freedom of trade between Canada and
the United States, and that either might export to the
other in their own shipping. What had induced Mr.
Pitt to make a change in the navigation-laws of his
time was the great changes which bad taken place
in the West Indies, the colonies, and the South
American States, since the passing of the 12th of Charles
les;
ipos
ars luod,s
hahnraddo
acted
ee
ste wasid° onsn
ait
in
reart
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Ipi
11 in ns c.
11. They had to be suited to the new condition of the
plßer
aa
zl also
America,
3 thaticeex Mse
eodr, . a
to
ol
the
e
t h absolutelyem ,an
colonies,
adapt
and
ouitr lawb 2e
atmoethemdtrenaetces sar necessary
as
thatforeignwe
should
countries, and not as colonies. But even this had not
been done without great sacrifices. If Noble Lords
would look to our returns of seamen and tonnage for
six years before 1822, and fur the six years following,
they would find that our tonnage had fallen off to the
extent of 1,300 vessels, measuring 150,000 tense in the
course of the six years after 1822, and that it did not
recover itself for sixteen years.—(llear.) He rested this
assertion, not on returns made w ith reference to this
particular question, but on the annual returns made from
1822 to 1838, before this subject was agitated. He should
now come to what he considered the gist of the ques-
tion, which Ise could net help thinking his Noble Friend
opposite, conscious of the weakness of his case, had most
carefully avoided. The policy of the navigation-laws—a
policy continued by Mr. Huslcisbon through all, he
would not say the changes, but the alterations which he
proposed, was founded on the principle laid down by
Adam Sniith, that the great object of every island
w hose coasts were extensive compared with its inland
territory, ought to be to encourage by all reasonable
means the formation of a mercantile navy, as the feun-
datien of a military navy, because it was impossible to
wit hoe, the other.—(Hear, hear.) His
cppoit?,
her. be alluded to Bonaparte's
to
•P 8) -.oionieti, and es.rnmeree," had taken a
le of speech than any
.nsultiplicatioa ot
g"lcr hit"'
Ale ugh.) The fact was, that Bona-
figures by 150.—(
dame ,
in utteri
colonies,o words, breathed a wish hostile to
shipsug these and cog=erce.—(" No, no," from Noble

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