The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1841-02-19 00:00:00

marine

The demonstration against the shipping interest, to
which we refer, is contained in an article of our con-
temporary on Friday last upon the subject of the tim-
ber duties, With a view of advancing the interests of
our colonies, the British Government has, wisely, we
think, allowed their timber to be imported for con-
sumption at home, at a lower rate of duty than that
imposed upon foreign timber; and, contemporaneously
with the benefits thus conferred upon British subjects
in Canada and upon the manufacturing interest at
home, which is furnished with an extended market for
its goods, a large source of profitable employment has
been opened for our merchant vessels and our seamen
in the conveyance of British merchandise to, and of
timber from our Canadian possessions. From this
carrying trade, we need scarcely say that the shipowners
of Liverpool reap considerable advantage.
The equalisation of the duties, however, and the
transferring of the benefits derived by British subjects,
upon both sides of the Atlantic, from their operation,
to the landowners of Russia and Norway, has long been
a favourite object of the free trade school of politicians.
" Why should we," they ask, " be compelled to buy
our timber from Canada, when, but for these discrimi-
nating duties, we could buy it nearer home, and at a
less cost ?" For the same reason, we answer, and upon
the same principle, that the people of Canada are com-
pelled to buy their merchandise and their manufactured
goods from us. We give our other colonies the pre-
ference, and reduce our scale of import duties in their
favour in every instance; and the sole reason why the
protection afforded in the article of timber to our
fellow-subjects in Canada is greater than upon other
articles of colonial produce, is because a less protection
would be entirely inoperative, and exclude them alto-
gether from supplying the markets of this country—
thus not only destroying a leading source of the grow-
ing prosperity of the Canadas, but rendering them at
the same time unable to supply themselves with those
articles of comfort and necessity which they now re-
ceive exclusively from Great Britain. The colonists
themselves receive not a shilling of advantage, beyond
the bare permission to vend their timber, from the
operation of the duties in question, the advanced price
paid by the people of this country being almost entirely
composed of the cost of trabsport.' '
We admit, then—and we are content to meet our
contemporary upon this ground alo'ne—that the shipping
interest of the country absorbs the greatest portion of
the benefit derived from the trade in colonial timber.
At the same time, however, we are far from supposing
that a reduction of duty, in favour of the Baltic, would
operate materially to cheapen the article. This part of
the question, however, we leave for the present, and
confine ourselves to the object with which we set out,
viz., to shewing the animus by which our " liberal"
contemporary is influenced in opening the subject, and
the arguments by which he endeavours to support his
views.

" The average duration of the voyages of the timber
vessels," observes the Mercury, " to and from Canada,
cannot be less than six weeks ; the average duration
of the voyage to and from Norway {nay be estimated
at one week (query ?); so that the discriminating duties
must be sufficient to cover the employment of all the
ships and seamen necessary to supply us with timber
for five weeks every year." If we understand this
sentence aright—and we have been at some pains to
do so—its meaning is simply, what we have before
stated, that the protection given to the colonist must,
to be effectual, he sufficient to enable him to compete
with the timber-growers of the continent, notwith-
standing the heavier cost of transport to which the
former is subject. " The distance," continues the
Mercury, in explanation, " from London to the entrance
of the gulf of St. Lawrence being six times as great as
the distance between London and Bergen" (fudge !),
" and the amount of tonnage engaged in bringing
timber from our colonies being estimated at 216,000
tons, navigated by nine thousand men for five months
out of every six, in order to procure the required sup-
ply of timber"—(clear-headed logician !)—" the timber
duties cause the labour of that amount of men and
that amount of tonnage to be as completely destroyed
as if for that period the men's hands were tied and the
ships were rotting in port" ! !

Who would have imagined, whilst wading through
this obscure trash, that he was about to be introduced
to such an astounding conclusion ? The people of
Great Britain are absolutely throwing away, for ten
months in every year, the expense of navigating
216,000 tons of shipping and the wages of 9200 men,
the former of which might just as well be converted
into as many floating baths, and the latter be engaged
in kicking their heels along our dock walls ! " Besides,"
continues our contemporary, " the vessels employed
in the timber trade to North America are very bad"—
who told him that I—and " the dangers of a voyage are
proportioned to its length"—we always thought dif-
ferent; and the poor lambs of " seamen would be far
safer on land during five months out of every six that
they now spend afloat." (?) Very considerate this, we
must admit; but perhaps our free-trade philosopher
would add to the safety of the British tars, by allowing
the timber of his Norwegian friends to he imported ex-
clusively in foreign bottoms, and the " dangers of the
sea" to be allotted altogether to those unclean animals
whom we have occasionally observed in the neighbour-
hood of the Queen's Dock luxuriating upon a mess of
tallow or cart-grease, served up upon wooden platters,
and forwarded to its destination by wooden spoons or
marling-spikes. By all means let the foreign seaman
monopolise this very hazardous employment !
Now, reader, come we to the modest proposition of
the Mercury, which is simply to throw out of employ-
ment 216,000 tons of British shipping, and 9200 Bri-
tish seamen, for five months out of every six, or ten
months in the year—to condemn the former to rot in
our ports, and the latter to sit idle for the same period,
" with their hands tied," and nothing within their
teeth ! This, we suppose, is free trade naked, for we
have seen the same wretched fallacies advanced before,
but never so openly and so impudently betraying their
object; and from this specimen of the recklessness with
which such small philosophers as the Mercury are ready
to sacrifice the interests of the nation in pursuit of their
various and absurd crotchets, our readers may imagine
what results may be anticipated whenever—which
Heaven avert !—the commercial welfare of the country
is placed at the mercy of theorists so wild and sense-
less. Coming from such a source, this or any other
proposal must, we grant, be harmless; but it must be
borne in mind that .there are other men who have ad-
vocated the same views before, and may do so again ;
and we therefore call upon the shipowners of Liver-

pool to consider the risk of certain ruin to their pro-
perty which they incur when they place their confidence
in such a party. To argue the question seriously with
their present organ would be too absurd a task for us
to undertake; yet we cannot omit to remark the fact
that upon such a driveller as this, whose sympathies on
every occasion are with foreign, in preference to British
interests, and whose anti-national and anti-local efforts
are harmless only upon the principle that a toothiest
dog is harmless, the shipowners and merchants of
Liverpool confer so large a share of their patronising
support. Surely—surely, this ought to be amended.