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

SICILY.

The Marquis of LANSDOWNE laid on the table
certain papers relating to Sicily.
NAVIGATION-LAWS.

The Marquis of LANSDOWNE then moved the
-
second reading of the Bill fir h
Lion-laws. He felt himself re tevetf. repeal of the naviwts
d 'fro m the necessity of de-
rest length, tram a taining their Lordshoi
rps
tyhait
Pasn
y wereg
already familiar with
know-
ledge that their L d
almost all the facts and arguments of the case. He, how.
ever, must detail some of the reasons which induced him
to make his motion, because he knew that in 'many cases
the opposition to this Biloltwha:
was founded
sure upon
soil nicae belief,re, belief, h e
believed an erroneous, but
that this measure would affect the naval supremacy of
this country. It would be his business to endeavour to
disabuse the mindst ot'
Noble Lords of that belief. He
necessary to sacrifice some
admitted that it was
to preserve the rest,
so was it n eessary
portion of our libertyto
sacrifice some portion
'
of the wealth and resources obit)trusted he should
the country for the
purposes of defence.
show their Lordships thatßasucth.saerifices as were desired
by the continuacce of the nargation laws were not re-
quired. lle a ,uld not go step by step into the history of
those laws. The first attempt
hi the time of Richard 11., anavigation law was
but the year after
its enactment it was found to be so destiuctive to
commerce that the very Parliament
which passed it
was compelled to repeal it. These laws were founded in
the natural feeling of grasping at every thing in coat-
nierce, which invariably brought with it its ownpunish-
ment. The prosperity of every country must be invari-
ably founded upon the prosperity of other commercial
countries—(Cheers)—and, consequently, all those at-
tempts had tailed. Another attempt had been made to
enact a navigation-law by Henry VIII., and having
protected the shipowner, he protected the people
ageinst the shipowner, by en :cting that only a
certain number of ships should be permitted
to enter the ports of the kingdom. This scheme,
as might have been supposed, failed. It wits not until
the time of Cromwell that the present navigation-laws
were enacted. The object of the navigation-law was
not purely of a commercial nature, his ()lint
was to punish the Dutch for the support which
they had given to Charles IL Considering the then
situation of this country there might p‘rhaps have been
the experiment how far by a
fair grounds for trying
present sacrifice of wealth a stimulus might be given to
the development of our marine strength. Our
circumstances, with regard to nollend, were at
that time the very reverse of what they were now. But
thengh he admitted that the experiment
might have been at the time fairl
he by no means adinittei that that experi y tried,
ment had been
kacc,ssful. Ftfzuu years alter tho.se, laws hzd been
enacted I,eivt:nd it i%.corded in that most ftintuing hook,
the " Diary of Mr. Sscrvtary PLp3,s," that it was itn-
posAblo to see any hut women nawiatitz boats, as the
men had all been pressed, end that as a remedy for this
state of things, it had been found necessary to recom-
mend the immediate suspension of slle navigilfioniaws.

Ile would pass over the history of those laws durirg the
reigns of the Stuarts, merely stating that their effict,
after a few years' trial, being found most disadvanta-
geous, considerable modifications were made, and on,the
accession of William 111. the trade and commerce of the
country were in a very flourishing condition. He would
next go on to the period when at theer.d of the American
war Mr. Pitt came into effice—a name to which he
never alluded. but with' the greatest respect, and for
which many in that House professed an almost super-
stitious reverence. Mr. Pitt immediately on coming
into office; peisualed of the importance in the then state
of things of introducing some relaxation of the naviga-
tion-laws, introduced a measure for that purpose. That
was at a moment when beyond any other in the history
of England, the importance of the navy to the security
of the country had been proved, and at the dose of a
war in which the tarnished laurels in the unfortunate
war which had taken place, by. land, in America, had
been in a great degree redeemed by the glory of those
successes which from the victory of Rodney, in the West
Indies, to the relief of Gibraltar by Howe, in the Mediter-
ranean, had established the naval supremacy of this
country. and rescued her honour, enabling her to obtain
a satisfactory peace. Was that a moment when any
wise and prudent Minister would think of laying his
hands on a sacred ark, as some considered the naviga
tion-laws, in which the security of the navy,
.and con-
sequently of the country, corisistA ? Nevertheless,
Pitt at once saw the necessity of opening the colonial
trade, and introduced a measure for that purpose, but
which his retirement from office prevented him .from
carrying, although this principle had from time to time
been acted on by acts of authority on the part of succes-
sive Ministries.--(llcar, hear.) He next came to a time
within his ownlecollection. In 1807 he brought into
the other House a measure for establi,hing free inter-
course between the West Indian and American colonies
and the mother country. That measure was oppos..d by
Sir W. Grant, on the ground that it would affect the
navy and mercantile marine of this country. He further
stated, that such would be then inducemen t afforded to
American vessels for ping to the West Indian islands,
and engaging iinthe trade of them, that it was doubt-
ful whether any sugar would be imported to this
country. Now, remembering those allegations, and the
powerful eloquence with which they were enforced, he
had the curiosity to ascertain what the effect of that
measure had been which was denounced as having so
destructive a tendency. He had tak(n the year in vi filch

the measure passed crown to the conclusion of the war,
and ho found, that while in the year 1807, the year in
which that Bill was passed, the general tonnage of Bri-
tish ships was two millions and ninety-six thousand tons,
at the conclusion of the war that tonnage had increased
to 2;247,000 tons.

The Duke of RICHMOND—That included ships of
war as well as merchant ships.

The Marquis of LANSDOWNE—He would then turn
to the system with which they had now to deal, and lo
at the altered shape which the navigation-laws have
taken, if shape it could be called, which shape had none
distinguishable. And on that part of the subject he had
to state, that instead of the commerce of this country
being girt about, as some would insinuate, with a coat
of impenetrable armour, it was clothed with a gar-
ment of shreds tied patches, a system the most com-
plicated that ever was put on the statute book in the
shape of an enactment.—(hear, hear.) Under
what protection was it, he would ask, that they now
existed ? The fact was few were aware, and it would
perhaps not a little surprise their Lordships whin he
told them that several most respectable witnesses engaged
in shippi, g and commerce, called before a Committee of
their Lordships' House to give evidence in favour of the
navigation-laws, avowed that, until they were called
upon to consider the subject, they had no idea that there
was so little protection as there was.—(Bear, hear.)
But when the subject was looked into, the absence of all
that protection soon became apparent. They had, for
instance, various treaties concluded, such as the United
States, Mexico, Buenos Ayres, Vein vide, Russia,
Anstris, the Netherlands, Prussia, Denmark, Sweden,
Holland, Portugal, Neples, Turkey, Oldenburgli,
Greece, an] every me of these had been entered
into independent of the navigation-laws. They
were Lot all framed on the same principles ;
on the contrary, they exhibited the greatest va-
riety of opinions and ideas. Some of them were
terminable, others interminable. They contained diffe•
rent catalogues of charges, and different conditions
as to the engagement of vessels for foreign voyages,
and taken as a whole, compris-d a mass of contusion,
d fficulty, and inconvenience, which made it not at all
surprising that those having the deepest interest in
them, found it impossible to discover under what law
or what protection they were acting. That, therefore,
had had the effect of suspending, in many instances, the
operation of the navigation-laws, and the general result
of that hal been, that year by year the amount and
value of British shipping and trade had been progres-
sively increasiug.--(Hear, hear, from the Opposition.)
He found teat, white in 1816 the tonnage of British
shipping was 2,783,000 tons, in 1818 it had risen to up-
wards of five millions of tons. No doubt it would be
said that during that time the commercial prosperity
arid power of other nations had also increased, and that
he viewed as one of the best aspects of the times, for
it showed how one nation benefited by coming in
contact with others, and how the whole flourished
by a system of commercial enterprize. But it was
also said that the British shipowner and merchant
was not in a condition to compete with foreign coun-
tries without a large amount of protection being afforded
him. Now, in answer to that, he would call the atten-
tion of their Lordships to the manner in which the Bri-
tish shipowner and merchant prospered in the very
voyages and countries in which they were most exposed
to that competition. Ile had before him the proportion
of English and American tonnage, and, as it was said
that one effect of the present measure would be to enable
the United States to beat the shipping of this country
out of the market, he would state that proportion to the
House. For a great many years past, in the direct
voyages between this country and the United States, the
English shipowner had gone totally unprotected. Now,
what was the issue of the contest between him end the
American in that respect? In 1536 the tonnage of
English ships engaged in direct trade with America, and
in competition with American ships, was 544.000 tons,
and the American tonnage was 1,255,000, while in 1848
the English tonnage had risen to 1,177,000 tons, and the
American to 2,393,000 tons, thereby showing not only
that the English shipping had maintained itself, but that
it had increased in a greater proportion during the time
stated than had the American tonnage. And to show the
proportion of British and foreign tonnage employed in
the trade with the United States, he had to state that
while the British tonnage in that trade was 1,177,000
tons, that of all other nations only amounted to 228,000
tons, so that the British tonnage was six or seven times
the amount of that of all other nations so employed.
Within the last few days he had received a letter from a
very extensive shipowner on the subject, who stated, as
the result of his experience, that his ships never got so
good freights, and were never so successful, as when
they sailed between two foreign ports.—(Hear, hear.)
And that being what the present measure was intended
to render more common and extensive, no one could say
that its passing would deteriorate the interest of the
shipowner. He would now turn to the Baltic; but would
first allude to the trade carried on by the British ship-
ping with Hamburgh. The trade carried on by British
shipping there exceeded the amount of the trade •of
Hamburgh itself, and hail exceeded that carried on by
shipping of all. other nations. •The tonnage of British
shipping which sail from that port was 291,000, while
the tonnage of all other nations was only 265,000 tons.
Then if they went to Russia and the Baltic, where it was
said competition would be more severe than anywhere
else, as ships could be built there so cheap that the
English shipowner had no chance with such competitors;
there timber was cheap, and the greatest facility
afforded for ship-building; but, notwithstanding that he
found that while there had sailed from the port of St.
l'etersburgh 228,000 tons of British shipping, the ton-
nage of Prussiah and other foreign vessels trailing there
only amounted to 221,000 tons, so that in the very heart
of that country, where timber was cheap and where corn-
petition the most materially be feared, the British mer-
chant had maintained so decided an advantage and supe-
riority as might make him careless about future
competition. But it might be said, if the present system
works thus well, why introduce a change at the present
time ? It must, however, be borne in mind, that although
this country might be at present master of shipbuilding,
it might not alwa3s remain so, and that there were be-
sides many other considerations to be taken into account,
which made it evident that unless a change was
made in time, the duties now to be altered would have
to be so when it would, perhaps, be more difficult and
dangerous to do it. There were besides from 220,000 to
230,000 tons of English shipping engaged in indirect
trade with countries, the treaties between which and this
country were about to expire, and which, were they not
secured, all that amount of shipping would bo thrown out
of employment.—(Hear.) Ou the other hand, they
would find that great disadvantages were cccurring in
regard to this country, in its trade with countries who
bad no such prohibitory duties as this country had. For
instance, most of the British vessels trading to French
ports had to leave those pe its i i ballast, and consequently
iacurred great loss to the owners. The colonies also
called on them to pass such a measure as the present. The
West Indian colonies were subjected to great difficulty
in consequence of the navigation-laws, and Canada told
them that the entire trade of the St. Lawrence depended
upon their abrogation. In consequence of the opening
of canals and other means of transit, the trade of
Canada had been diverted through the United States,
which had endeavoured to draw its trade away from it,
and the only remedy for that would be the opening of
the St. Lawrence—and if that was not done, could they
imaeine that the people of Canada would remain quiet?
It they expected the co-operation of Canada, they were
bound to give full means of development to all her re-
sources. He believed that monopoly was not the way
affordedu l rea d y
had in that respect in the history of
to in,:ure prosperity. The experience they
ohr lad
them a great and serious lesson.
Europe the greatest
voured to be established in
They had seen endea-
voured
obtain ships, colonies, and
commerce, his object was to
mono-
polies that ever existed. They. had heard Bonaparted
commerce, in order that he might establish such a mo-
nopoly as would swallow up British commerce altoge-
ther, but they had seen him fail in all those projects.
Ships he could not get, colonies he could not acquire,
and commerce he could not accelerate;
and that was be-
cause the character and enterprise of British commerce
were such, that when once it gained a footing
it pro-
grtss.ed on to the establishment of trade on a basis
which was not easily to be disturbed or an-
nihilated. He would, therefore, advise their
Lordships to pass the second reading of the Bill, and
he way c eitident that if they did not do so the position
their trade sod eo:Ltnerce v,uuld occupy would become

••" " •
C ;nstider, u I,r(A, Lt. triovin,
eund re,. ;c• 13111 thcii and uaderstandiug timt tlte
11)lie Lurd oiipisite had iesolved to run the risk of re-
jecting it, he would say, for himself and his colleagues,
that they were equally prepared to run the risk of 43
being adopted and passed.—(Cheers.)