gested. Manning. Crew must be Three-fourths British. -Objections to this Law.-Right of Men-of-War to deprive Merchant Ships of Seamen. Injurious directly and indi- rectly to Owners and the Mercantile Marine. ties on Marine Policies should be abolished. - Timber for Shipbuilding should be admitted free of Duty. - Stores of British Ships should not be placed under Seal in a British An Act to amend the Laws in force for the Encouragement of British Shipping and Navigation. Cap. XXIX. 26th June, 1849 - 207 An Act for improving the Condition of Master, Mates, and Copy of a Letter from Captain W. A. B. Hamilton, R. N., Secre- tary of the Admiralty, dated 24th June, 1850, to the Penin- sular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company Copy of a Letter from Captain W. A. B. Hamilton, R. N., Secre- Account of the whole of the Registered Steam Vessels exceed- ing 100 Tons, exclusive of Engine Room, of the United Kingdom, on the 1st Day of January, 1851; stating, in sepa- rate Columns, the following Particulars: 1st, Vessels' Names ; 2nd, Port of Registry; 3rd, Date of Registry; 4th, Regis- tered Owners; 5th, Dimensions of Vessels in Length and Breadth; 6th, Tonnage, exclusive of Engine Room, and Gross A Return of the Receipt and Application of all Monies received as Tolls for Lighthouses, &c., in the Year ending 31st De- cember, 1849, by the Corporation of Trinity House of Dept- ford Strond (pursuant to the Act 6 & 7 Will. 4. c. 79. s. 62.); viz. First, Lighthouses, &c., not transferred or purchased under the said Act of Parliament Second Lighthouses transferred or purchased under the said Account of the Receipt and Appropriation of the Pilot's Fund of the Corporation of Trinity House of Deptford Strond, &c. 271 Statement by Hugh Dempster, Writer in Greenock, upon the Cases conducted by him as Agent for Messrs. Pollok, Gilmour, OUR NAVIGATION LAWS, &c. &c. CHAPTER I. The Progress of Trade and Navigation. Rise of our Maritime Rights and Privileges. - Navigation Laws of Cromwell and Charles II. — Navigation Laws of Holland. - Comparative Progress of British and Foreign Shipping in our Trade. Effects of Huskisson's Treaties on our Shipping. - Effect of Peel's Revision of the Tariff. — Effects of Labouchere's Policy. Export Trade to our Colonies and Possessions. - Export Trade of the United States, and of each of the principal Countries of Europe with the Entries Inwards of their Shipping at our Ports.-Burdens,- · &c., on our Shipping at Foreign Ports. - Folly of protecting Coasting Trade. IT was long considered the peculiar fate of Great Britain to depend almost exclusively upon her merchant navy for the superiority she enjoyed over the other nations of Europe. Until a very recent period the most unremitting attention was paid to the establishment and security of what was styled "our maritime rights." They alone were considered the grand source of our power, our wealth, and our glory. No change in our relations with other countries was then contemplated, and these rights and privileges were embodied in statutes enacted by successive Parliaments, with a feeling that their maintenance was essential to our wealth and power. For full five centuries, and amidst numberless subordinate regulations, the undeviating aim of legislation was to maintain a system of laws which would apparently insure a great and steady increase of native shipping; and this even to the prejudice of other interests. Then the whole aim in the framing and wording of the acts was most guardedly to confine certain portions of our trade with foreign countries, and the whole of our coasting and plantation trade, to British-built ships alone. In these trades foreigners, could not, and, as was then thought, ought not, to participate. In the reign of Richard II., when commerce was in its infancy, the supposed advantages and necessity of such a system presented themselves so vividly to our ancestors, that in the fifth year of his reign an act of Parliament was passed by which it was ordained that no merchandise should be carried into or out of the realm but in British ships on pain of forfeiture. This act was introduced "to awaken industry, and increase the wealth of the inhabitants and extend their influence." But it was soon discovered that such protective statutes defeated the very object which the Legislature had in view, and shortly afterwards it was wisely stipulated that goods might, under certain conditions, be imported in the ships of that European nation of which such goods were the growth or manufacture. We had, however, no clearly defined Maritime acts, till Cromwell, in 1651, established the fundamental principles of our "celebrated Navigation Laws," which existed, with the exception of the "Free Port Act," almost unimpaired and unaltered to the days of Huskisson in 1825. It would nevertheless appear, that many well-informed writers, even during the period of their infancy, questioned the soundness of the policy by which they were introduced; for we find from the writings of Sir Josiah Child, in 1691, that they had proved injurious, as the shipping employed in the Eastland and Baltic trades had decreased at least two-thirds since their enactment, while the Foreign shipping employed in these trades had proportionally increased." And again from Sir Matthew Decker, who, writing in 1756, gave it as his opinion, "that by rendering the freight of ships higher than it would otherwise have been, they entailed a heavy burden, and had been one of the main causes which prevented our carrying on the fishery so successfully as the Dutch.” These statements, from eminently practical men in their generation, were diametrically opposed to the prevailing opinion, that a close and guarded system of legislation was essential to continue and secure the supposed advantages granted by the statutes of Cromwell to Britishbuilt ships, and their owners, in carrying on the commerce of the country, and that by these, and these alone, Great Britain could remain in the possession of that preeminence which distinguished her as a maritime nation. One eloquent but enthusiastic writer, towards the close of the last century, in an article on the then system of navigation, exclaims, "After the experience we have had, no one can doubt but that it is the real interest of Great Britain to give her principal, we may say her sole attention to maritime affairs, to conduct her own trade exclusively in her own ships to all parts of the world, and to encourage her fisheries in every sea. From these sources she may always hope to obtain a naval force adequate to guard her shores from hostile invasion, and to secure her domestic felicity, both public and private, firm and unshaken as the foundations of the island." The latter portion of these remarks may appear to apply with peculiar force at this moment, when there are so many rumours of foreign invasion. England's best |