The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-14 00:00:00

rors " of the day is the prejudice arising from
ignorance, which exists amongst the destitute poor,
against such establishments. More than one suicide in
this class of society have recently been recorded by
the daily newspapers, which profess to have been oc-
casioned by destitution ; the parties preferring ra-
ther to fly iu the face of their Maker, rather
than avail themselves of the relief which
have been afforded them in an union workhouse.
Nor ought it to surprise any one, that the exa,-ge-
rated accounts of such places of refuge, which have
been repeatedly supplied by an influential portion of the
daily press, should have so wrought on minds de-
pressed and weakened by painful personal privation.
We are no admirers of union workhouses, and are
little disposed to eulogise the New Poor-law Bill, even
in its present improved and modified. form; but we
are quite satisfied that but for the factiously
exaggerated accounts of the treatment of the poor under
that law, which have appeared in a contemporary journal,
in which the union workhouse has been typified by
Dante's Hell, and its executive represented as so many
incarnate fiends, no such prejudices against it as the
distressing casualties to which our attention has
been directed would seem to indicate, could have
existed. The conduct of a few persons connected
with the administration of the New Poor-law,—conduct
which, in the particular instances, it is impossible to
reprobate too severely, has furnished an excuse for stig-
matizing the whole of its executive in terms calculated
to excite the deepest and most painful prejudice against
it ; and thus the poor are content to suffer
the most heart-rending privations rather than avail
themselves of relief from such a source; nay, in some in-
stances, they have, we are told, committed suicide rather
than accept of the relief it would afford them. These
distressing cases have been reported in a daily print in
the most prominent manner, as so many fresh
proofs of the frightful unpopularity of the
New Poor-law Bill ; whereas they are more likely to
have resulted from the exaggerated accounts which have
appeared from time to time in its columns of the alleged
sufferings of the door in union workouses, and its re-
peated and unfounded assertion that a few examples of
the misconduct of the authorities in such receptacles are
but the types of the entire system.

PARLIAMENTARY SESSIONAL

PAPERS.

SELECT COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF
COMMONS ON BRITISH SHIPPING.—
(No. 545. H. C.)
One of the most important points to which the
evidence of the witnesses examined was directed (as
we remarked in a former article on the Shipping In-
terest, and its prospects), regarded—
" Reciprocity Treaties," and one of the main causes
assigned by them for the depression in the value of
shipping property which has been for many years
taking place. This evidence applied to them under
five principal heads :-1. Generally ; 2. Their injurious
effect upon British Shipping ; 3. How far observed by
Foreign Powers ; 4. No effect to be attributed to the
Treaties—whether or not they ought to be further
carried out; 5. Whether the Government could have
avoided entering into them. These are all of them
important matters in relation to the existing aspect of
our shipping interest. Mr. Hall, of London, having
observed that "no duties have been taken off ships
excepting under the reciprocity treaties"—and having
answered affirmatively to the question, " Whether he
would have similar treaties for the reduction of duties
on goods ?" proceeds—" I have no doubt they would
be met in a similar spirit on the Continent. When
the first reciprocity treaty was proposed in this
country it was with Holland. M. Fagel was Minister
here. 11Er. Huskisson was at the Board of Trade ;
and when M. Fagel represented to him that it was
impossible for Holland to enter into a reciprocity
treaty with this country, having the Navigation Act
in favour of British shipping, Mr. Huskisson said—
" That is the fundamental law of this country, but
we have no objection to your passing a similar Act to
protect your own." But M. Fagel replied, "Those
very items in the importation of which you protect
British shipping are the very articles which we are
exporting. Let us put a similar number of articles in
our Navigation Acts, and we are ready to meet you."
Mr. Geo. P. Young thus speaks to their injurious
effect upon British shipping and upon the freights, as
exemplified by both the North American and Baltic
timber trades :—" The stipulation under which Ame-
rican ships were placed, strictly speaking, on the
principle of reciprocity, was long antecedent to the
passing of the Reciprocity Duties Bill : it was part
of our concurrence in the treaty of peace after the
last war with America. That was followed out in
the case of the American trade, by the loss to the
British shipping of a great proportion of the direct
carrying trade between the United States and this
country, which ever since has been continued to be
engrossed in a very large degree by American ship-
ping. 1 am hardly prepared to say whether this
degree is increasing at the present moment; I am
inclined to think it is not—the importations both in
American and English ships having increased ; and
am not aware whether the proportions of that
. . "The same effect has principally fol-
inci,-,ase are In favour of American or British ton-
nage." .
„? trade with those countries with which
•
lowed in ti
we have made .!
reales of reciprocity ; but as I con-
sider those treaties how to form part of the per-
manent policy of this ntry, I regard the system
in no other light than as cause of permanent
pressure froth foreign competinj,sn upon British
tonnage in certain trades, which depf:ves it of a
great portion- of the navigation in those tra,lf.'s, and
causes a re-action upon other branches of maritime
commerce which I will take the liberty of illustrat-
ing. In the great article of timber the competing
produce of the British Colonies or North America
and the Baltic are so newly adjusted in price, in the
British market, that a very small variation will
transfer the demand from the one article to a corre-
sponding production of the other part of the world:
and thus, the' Baltic timber being now, in a great
degree, imported in Baltic ships at a low rate of
freight, which the cheapness of production and navi-
gation enables them to accept, drives the British
shipowner, engaging in the same trade, to take the
same rate of freight in that trade, inasmuch as there
cannot be two prices for the same 'commodity in
the same market. This re- acts upon the American
trade by preventing any rise in the freight of
American timber ; because any such rise would in-
crease the cost of American timber in this market,
and induce the consumers, in preference to paying
that rate, at once to have recourse to the Baltic
timber. Thus, I consider this particular alteration of
our navigation system to be a cause of permanent
pressure upon British tonnage. This, being in ope-
ration, has during the last few years been greatly
aided by the concurrence of a variety of other cir-
cumstances leading to the same result. Among the
most prominent, I have no hesitation in saying, is the
over-production of ships. But I hope I shall be al-
lowed to explain why I have arrived at the conclu-
sion that that over-production has not been the result
of any improvident act on the part of the British
shipowners, but is almost wholly, if not entirely, the
consequence of the freedom of admission of North
American colonial-built ships to the privilege of
British registry." The same witness proceeds to ex-
press a strong opinion that no further competition of
foreign shipping should be admitted ; but that these in-
jurious effects of reciprocity treaties should operate as a
warning against future errors of the same nature;
especially, seeing that all the countries with which
we have contracted these treaties can navigate more
cheaply than ourselves. Mr. Somes concurs in the
views of Mr. Young as to the disastrous influence of
the reciprocity treaties on British shipping. He
holds that no further infringement upon the present
protection of that interest should be allowed ; and
that the same cause injuriously affects all other
trades. Mr. Chapman thinks that these treaties have
diverted shipping from some branches of commerce
into others, and thus proved an active cause of com-
petition ; but Mr. Tanner, allowing that they are a
cause of the depression complained of, remarks that in
1839 and 1840 our shipping was in a comparatively
flourishing state.
It is important to notice, on this last point, the dis-
crepancy between the unqualified evidence to depres-
sion for the last five years, given by Messrs. Young,
Somes, &c.
On the depression of freights, Mr. Anderson says,
that though it was partly owing, during the last
three years, to the generally bad state of trade, it was
mainly attributable to the operation of these treaties ;
and that it was particularly in the interval from
1826 to 1829 that this effect began to be felt, allowing
for the action :of the general distress then prevalent
throughout thcs kingdom. The same cause, he states,
had largely operated to produce all the main fluctua-
tions experienced by the shipping interest since 1820.
The fact of our being, as to the northern ports of
Europe, an importing, rather than an exporting,
country, makes the system of reciprocity disadvan-
tageous to us.
We are disposed to attach the more value to the
evidence of this gentleman, on account of the great
candour and sound sense with which the whole bearings
of reciprocity treaties, and, incidentally, of " discri-
minating duties," are set forth in the following
a greattt
neg
d detrimentureciprocityties h ad ttrboeeaeotniuersi,i
imposed
wplosue shippinglldda iinft
answers to questions 0,004 to 2,030:
have
heavyA t
ht
eh
ede
s ca
phwpfloiviulegldiailed to
riv timeme ynf
t
f or
operatee i g
Willn youpt
oa parts?—No she ?ex—pdl e
taNi
rnoi
m:
how
wt doo
ft nothßa
tr
thei
sionhukl
shipping
m
giving my opinion by what occurred in Dantzic • at
the port of Dantzic the duties were very heavy.
There were double charges on British shipping at one
time before the reciprocity treaties, and Dantzic lost
all its trade, a and was reduced tostate of beggary,
and the ships were laid up and rotting, in conse-
quence of their laying on higher duties than the
neighbouring ports.
The result was to drive our shipping out of Dantzic ?
—We-had :Memel to go to.

Suppose they had adopted the same principle in
Memel ?—We should have gone to Prussia.
Suppose they had done the same thing everywhere.
Suppose those foreign Powers datermined.to retaliate