every harbour in the United States, The conse- export trade at the present time, we have only to quence was, that the exports of Great Britain, which, reflect upon the vast increase of exports, imports, and in the year 1810, amounted to forty-three millions, population, which have since taken place; we have sank in the next year to twenty-seven; and the fall only to recollect that our exports, which in 1810 in the exports and imports taken together for the one were forty-three millions. had, in 1838, risen to year, amounted to no less than thirty-six millions. one hundred and five millions; and that our imMr. Brougham, in terms no less just than eloquent, ports, which in 1809 were thirty-one millions, had in the debate upon the Repeal of the Orders in Coun- risen in 1838 to sixty-one millions; and that our cil in 1812, thus described the state to which the population, which at the former period was seventeen manufacturing districts in England were reduced by millions, is now twenty-five. Now, if such widethis calamity:-"Take, for example, one of our spread and heart-rending misery was produced then, great staples, the hardware, and look to Warwick- what would be its effects now, when the manufacturshire, where it used to flourish. Birmingham and ing establishments of the country have nearly its neighbourhood, a district of thirteen miles round tripled, and our manufacturing population has adthat centre, was formerly but one village, I may say vaced in a proportion unheard of in any other age or one continued workshop, peopled with about 400,000 country? It may confidently be affirmed, that the of the most industrious and skilful of mankind. In misery, devastation, and social convulsions that what state do you now find that busy hive of men? would ensue, would be greater than ever yet were Silent, still, and desolate during half the week; experienced in the world. during the rest of it miserably toiling at reduced If we look at the jealousy with which we are wages, for a pittance scarcely sufficient to maintain regarded by foreign powers, and the general aspect animal life in the lowest state of comfort, and at of the political world at this time, we shall see no all times swarming with unhappy persons, willing, teason to believe that the elements of strife are anxious to work for their lives, but unable to find em-awanting in the political atmosphere, or that the ployment. He must have a stout heart within him, time is far distant when war, even on as great a who can view such a scene and not shudder. But scale, as it was waged with Napoleon, must be even this is not all: matters are getting worse and undertaken by the British empire. With Russia, it worse; the manufacturers are waiting for your deci- is universally admitted, we are in a state closely sion, and if that be against them they will instantly bordering on hostility; it is only a question of time yield to their fate, and turn adrift the people whom when that gigantic contest is to arrive. The menacthey still, though inadequately, support with employ-ing aspect of the Baltic, of the thirty ships of the ment.""In the West Riding of Yorkshire, the ap-line lying ready, and thirty thousand land troops plications to the parish officers have so alarmingly ready at a moment's warning to embark in themincreased, that they have given repeated warnings of the Dardanelles, where fifteen British ships of the to the master manufacturers, and believe to the line are constantly stationed at the back-door of the higher authorities, of their utter inability to relieve Russian empire-of Affghanistan, where twenty the increasing distress, or to answer for its conse- thousand British troops are permanently stationed in quences. Among other circumstances which marked the very heart of Asia,-all demonstrate that both this part of the case, there was one peculiarly affect- parties are preparing for this great contest, and that ing to every one who heard it. It had been proved it will be carried on on a scale which will render that at Kidderminster, where the great carpet manu- the world itself the field of battle. And on whom facture is almost entirely destroyed, the wants of the are we to rely for maritime support in such a contest? poor became so pressing, that they were forced to Is it on the Austrians, who could not furnish a ship part with their little stock of furniture, which used of the line or two frigates to save England from to make their cottages in some degree comfortable, destruction? or on the French, who, what between and even the clothes off their backs, to raise food, dread of Nicholas, and separate interests at Algiers, until the pawnbrokers, having already loaded them- have drawn off from the British alliance at the very selves with such deposits, refused to issue any more first outbreak of hostilities in the Archipelago? or tickets. But at Sheffield the same feature recurred the Americans, whose government is so weak, and in a heightened and still more striking form. The their hostility to this country so inveterate, that workmen in the cutlery trade, unable to obtain any thousands of armed pirates have for two years kept longer their usual market from the master dealers up an almost incessant warfare upon the Canadian aud merchants, or brokers refusing to purchase any frontier? Every thing indicates that a great maritime more, were compelled to pawn their articles at a contest is not far distant, and that, when it does arvery low valuation for money, and even for food and rive, we will have to depend almost entirely upon clothes; so that this extraordinary state of things our own resources for our defence. arose the pawnbrokers came into the London mar- And are these resources, then, particularly our ket with the goods, and there met with the regular maritime strength, in such a state as to warrant us dealers, whom they were able greatly to undersell, in any reasonable expectations that we shall be able in such wise as to supply to a considerable degree to maintain our maritime superiority in the contest the London and other markets, to the extreme aug- and avert the evils of actual blockade from the mentation of the distresses already so severely press- British harbours? The preparations of the enemy ing upon this branch of trade."* are well known: they have thirty ships of the line Now, in order to appreciate the misery that would and eighteen frigates constantly in commission in ensue to this country from a similar stoppage in its the Baltic, and fifteen ships of the line and twelve frigates constantly in readiness in the Uxine. In considering the force which England has at her • Parliamentary Debates, xxiii. 548. 1 command to resist aggresion from such an enemy, we revolutionary war commenced, and when the nava shall go back to the higher palmy days of British and military establishments of the country were on exertion during the war; we shall not go back to the scale to which Joseph Hume always refers as the the year 1606, when the British navy consisted of ne plus ultra point of economic perfection. Now, two hundred and forty-two ships of the line, and a upon turning to authentic documents, viz. the returns thousand and sixty-one armed vessels of all sizes. of the navy in 1792, given by Mr. James in his Naval We shall content ourselves with reverting to a hum- History, we shall find that the defensive naval bler and more parallel period, viz. the state of the establishments of the country at the two periods British navy in 1838 compared with 1792, before the stood as follows: Frigates, ordi- Total Total Exports. Official Value. £24,904,850 105,170,549 84 153 115 Grand Total of of all vessels. 411 363 the former. To ascertain whether this is the case, let us examine what was the state of the population, our exports and imports, at these two periods, as affording a measure of the agriculture, manufactures, and general resources of the country. They stood respectively as follows:† Thus it appears that since 1792, the population market for our produce, and the only undecaying of the British islands has more than doubled, the clements for our strength. Some very striking facts imports more than tripled, the exports more than on this subject were brought forward upon the late quadrupled, and the commercial navy increased about dinner given upon the occasion of the embarking of seventy per cent., while the ships of war, in all the first emigrants to New Zealand, at Glasgow; branches, have sunk to nearly a half of their standard and we willingly give a place to them here, as exin 1792. This, too, has taken place during a time hibiting, in a more striking light than has yet been when the colonial empire of Great Britain has been done, the incalculable importance of the British multiplied above five-fold, and the chances of hostility with which we are brought in contact at different points over the globe, have been increased in a similar proportion. We invite the Whig-Radical" writers to examine and contradict these facts if they can, and submit them to the deliberate consideration of all the sober reasoners, and of all the intemperate admirers of democratic wisdom throughout the realm. colonies, not merely to the extension, but to the independence and existence of the mother country. "Let us no longer strain," said Mr. Sheriff Alison, after the impracticable attempt to disarm the commercial jealousy of the European states; but, boldly looking our situation in the face, direct our main efforts to the strengthening, conciliating, and increasing of our Colonial Empire. There is to be found the bone of our bone, and the flesh of our flesh. There It is impossible for any one who is a friend to his are to be found the true descendants of the Anglocountry to contemplate such a state of things without Saxon race; there the people, who, already imbued the most serious alarm an alarm which is only with our tastes, our habits, our artificial wants, must rendered the greater from the experienced difficulty be chained for centuries to agricultural or pastoral of getting such future and contingent events to arrest employments, and can only obtain from the mother the attention either of Government or the nation in country the immense amount of manufactured prothis unthinking age. But, above all, if the matter duce which their growing wealth and numbers must is seriously considered, and if we reflect upon the require. So strongly, gentlemen, am I impressed imminent hazards of a maritime war, the miserable with these principles-so clearly do I see the future state of preparation in which the British navy is to path traced out to England, not less by her duty meet it, and the awful effects which will ensue by than her interests, that there is no one circumstance the stoppage of trade, and the blockade of our har- in her present condition, not even those which are bours by hostile squadrons, it must be evident that most justly considered as pregnant with danger and no more important subject of consideration ever was alarm, that may not be converted into the source of submitted to the attention of a thinking nation. And blessings, if a decided and manly course is taken by we dwell upon the subject with the more earnestness the nation and its Government in regard to its cobecause, when our situation as a whole is fairly lonial interests. Indeed, so clearly does this appear, looked in the face, and the policy which duty and that one is almost tempted to believe that the maniinterest alike prescribe, is adopted, there not only is fold political and social evils of our present condino ground for alarm, but the most satisfactory pros- tion, are the scourges intended by Providence to pects of future prosperity and welfare are opened on all sides to the nation. It is in our colonies that this source of strength is to be found; it is in our descendants on the other side of the Atlantic and the Pacific, that we are to look alike for the only certain * James's Naval History, 11. 404; Barrow's Anson, App. 424. † Porter's Parliamentary Tables and Finance Accounts for 1838. bring us back, by necessity and a sense of our own in commission in the British navy, be employed only interests, to those great national duties from which in useless parades, when hundreds of thousands on we have so long and so unaccountably swerved. the British shores are pining for the means of transAre we oppressed with a numerous and redundant port across the seas, and millions of acres on the population? Are we justly apprehensive that a mass other side of the ocean, teeming with verdant ferof human beings, already consisting of five-and-tility, await only their robust hands to be converted twenty millions, and multiplying at the rate of a into a terrestrial paradise? Why should the British thousand souls a-day, will erelong be unable to find navy not be employed, like the Roman legions in subsistence within the narrow space of these islands? time of peace, in works of public utility? and why Let us turn to the Colonies, and there we shall find should their efforts not construct causeways across boundless regions, capable of maintaining ten times the deep, which would bind together the immense our present population in contentment and affluence, cireuit of the British Colonial dominions, as strongly and which require only the surplus arms and mouths as the highways constructed by the legions cemented of the parent state, to be converted into gigantic em- the fabric of their mighty empire? In this view the pires, which, before a century has elapsed, may last inconvenience attending a redundant pauper poovershadow the greatness even of European renown. pulation-that of being with difficulty removed, Are we justly fearful that the increasing manufactur- would be converted into an element of national ing skill and growing commercial jealousy of the strength, because it would induce all classes cheerContinental states may gradually shut us out from fully to acquiesce in the duplication of our naval the European market, and that our millions of manu-force, from which they all derive such obvious adfacturers may find their sources of foreign subsist- vantages; the navy would augment in size and grow ence fail at a time when all home employments are in usefulness under such a salutary system; and the filled up? Let us turn to the Colonies, and there very quality which Adam Smith long ago remarked we shall see empires of gigantic strength rapidly as the greatest obstacle to the improvement of the rising to maturity, in which manufacturing establish- human race, that of being the lumber which it is of ments cannot for centuries take root, and in which all others the most difficult to transport, would bethe taste for British manufactures, and the habits of come the means of augmenting the maritime force British comfort, are indelibly implanted on the of England, and strengthening the unseen chain British race. Are we overburdened with the weight which holds together the far distant provinces of its of our poor-rates and the multitude of our paupers, mighty dominion." and trembling under the effect of the deep-rooted dis- We cannot help thinking that the suggestion here content produced in the attempt to withdraw public made, of directing a part at least of the British navy support from the maintenance of the adult and to the removal of such part of our population as healthy labourer? Let us find the means of trans- desire it, to our colonial possessions, is well worthy porting these healthy workmen to our colonial set-of the most serious consideration. It must be evitlements, and we shall confer as great a blessing dent to every one who considers the extraordinary upon them as we shall give a relief to the parent reduction which has taken place in our naval force state. Are we disquieted by the rapid progress of during the last thirty years, and which has brought corruption in our great towns, and alarmed at the it down from two hundred and forty ships of the line enormous mass of female profligacy which, like a to eighty, that we have fallen now into an economigangrene, infests these great marts of pleasure and cal and commercial generation; and that the rulers opulence? Let us look to the Colonies, and there of the state, and the democratic constituencies who we shall find states in which the population is ad-direct the rulers, are entirely governed by that pasvancing with incredible rapidity, but in which the sion for present economy, and that disregard of greatest existing evil is, the undue and frightful pre-fature objects, which is the invariable characteristic ponderance of the male sex; and all that is wanting of the masses of mankind. No surprise need be exto complete their means of increase is, that the pro- cited at a democratic community being influenced by portion should be righted by the transfer to distant such want of foresight, when all the eloquence of shores of part of the female population which now Demosthenes was unable to persuade the most enencumbers the British isles. Are the means to trans-lightened of the states of antiquity to take any steps port these numerous and indigent classes to these to ward off the danger arising from the invasion of distant regions awanting, and has individual emigra- Philip of Macedon; and all the wisdom of Washtion hitherto been liable to the reproach that it re-ington, was unable to communicate to the greatest moves the better class of our citizens who could do republic of modern times, sufficient strength or forefor themselves, and leaves the poorest who encum-sight to prevent its capital being taken, and its ber the land? The British navy lies between, and arsenals pillaged, by a British division not four means exist of transporting, at hardly any expense thousand strong. It is of the last importance, thereto the parent state, all that can ever be required of fore, to discover some method by which the increase our working population from that part of the empire of the navy, evidently essential to our national inwhich they overburden, to that to which they will dependence, and to avert the horrors of the actual prove a blessing. Gentlemen, I agree with my elo-blockade of our harbours, may be rendered popular quent and esteemed friend, Dr. M'Leod, that it is with the masses of the people. That these masses astonishing the attention of Government has not ere would make the most strenuous exertions to support this been turned to this subject. And why, I would the independence of the British fiag, if a war actually ask, may not part, at least, of the British navy he broke out, may be considered as certain; but will constantly employed in transporting emigrants of all they be equally ready to make those efforts during classes to our Colouial possessions? Why should peace, and when the danger is as yet distant, which two hundred vessels of different sizes, that are now are requisite both to insure its success and shorten its duration? Experience proves that they will not; examine our maritime and commercial situation, we for, though menaced by maritime dangers of every shall find many causes for serious alarm, and many kind, they have, in the last five-and-twenty years, reasons for concluding that our policy in these relet the royal navy sink down one-third of what it was spects has hitherto been mainly directed to fruitless or during the war, and one-half what it was before its unattainable objects; and that, in their prosecution, we commencement. The only mode, therefore, that is have overlooked or neglected the certain elements of apparently practicable of bringing up the royal navy strength lying in our own bosom in the growth of our to a level at all commensurate either with the colonial empire. If we look to our exports and tonnage strength of the state or the dangers with which it is returns, we shall see that our maritime resources for threatened, is by giving the masses some present the last forty years have been far from keeping pace and personal object of advantage, which is to be with our commercial growth, and that our exports to gained by the expense requisite for its increase. the countries whom we have made the greatest sacriNow, no object would be so generally popular, or fices to propitiate, have been constantly and rapidly universally felt to be important, as that which declining, while those to our colonies, for whose infurnished the means of gratuitous emigration to a terests we have done so little, have been as constantlarge proportion of our surplus working population. ly and rapidly increasing; and that it is the growth Every class in the country, every part of the empire, of the latter which has concealed and counterbalanced would at once feel the benefit of such an arrange- the decay of the former. Let us look at our total exment: the poor, by the safe and easy means of ports, imports, and tonnage in the present time, as emigration that would be afforded them to countries compared with what they were during the peace of where their condition would at once become prosper- Amiens. They stood as follows:— ous; the landholders, in the diminution of the numExports. Imports. Tonnage. ber of paupers and the burden of poor-rates, which 1802, L. 38,309,980 L. 29,826,210 L. 2,167,000 would be occasioned; the manufacturers, in the vast 1838, 105,170,549 61,268,320 2,890,601 increase in the colonial market for their produce which would be opened up; the colonies, in the "Thus, gentlemen, you see, that while from 1802 boundless supply of robust and efficient labourers to 1838, that is in six-and-thirty years, our exports with which they would be furnished. The increase have advanced from 38 to 105, that is about 280 per in the population, now so much the object of con- cent, and our imports from 29 to 61, that is about cern to the mother country, would cease to be re- 210 per cent., our whole tonnage has only ingarded with any disquietude; it would be considered creased from 21 to 28, that is about 33 per cent. This broad and decisive fact is calculated only as the harbinger of the increased growth of our colonial possessions, and an increased vent for our to excite the most serious alarm in every rational produce for our colonial wants. The British navy bosom, as to the maintenance in future of the mawould really become the chain which holds together ritime superiority of Great Britain. For who has the far distant parts of its immense dominion; the carried the remainder of our merchandise abroad, and means of uniting them in peace-the force to protect wafted the remainder of our imports to our shores? them in war; and the prosperity and extension of Somebody must have done it. The conclusion is the far and distant parts of the empire, acting and unavoidable that it was done in great part by foreign reacting upon each other, would tend only to aug- states, that is, by vessels and seamen that may any ment their mutual and highly beneficial dependence on each other, and to increase the strength of the naval force which was to protect alike all parts of the empire. The British commercial policy, ever since the reciprocity system began; may be characterised in two words" Colonial Neglect and European Propitiation." As this system has now been in operation for sixteen years, ample time has been afforded to demonstrate, by experience, its effects, whether for good or for evil. The following statement of the effect of this system, which commenced in 1823, was made by Mr. Alison at the Glasgow dinner above referred to: day be ranged against us by our enemies. And, gen- 1802, 1802, 1838, FOREIGN. Vessels. Tons. . 3472 447,611 8679 1,211,066 "Standing as I do in the midst of this great commercial city, second to none, after the metropolis, in the British empire, I need not say that we are people mainly dependent on commerce and maritime strength; and we have only to look around us, and "Thus, while the British tonnage in the last thircontemplate the narrow extent of these islands, com- ty-six years has advanced from sixteen to twentypared with the vast population already crowded with- seven, the foreign employed in conducting our trade in their shores, to feel convinced that any serious and have advanced from 44 to 121, that is nearly tripled. permanent obstruction to our foreign commerce, or This, gentlemen, is the general result; and unquesdecline in our maritime power, would not only be at- tionably it is sufficiently alarming to every one who tended with the greatest danger to our independence, considers how essential our maritime superiorty is to but fraught with a degree of wide-spread misery, our foreign commerce; and what would be the conperhaps unparalelled even in the long annals of hu-dition of the British population if the empire of the man suffering. But, gentlemen, when we minutely seas were wrested from it, and the Thames, the from 18 to 23 per ct. rica increased With British colonies in AmeWith Uuited American States " 6 to 9 66 With India "34 to 5 66 66 Clyde, and the Mersey, were blockaded by hostile fleets? But the particulars of our trade with separate countries are far more instructive, because they demonstrate, in the clearest manner, where it is that the decay of our trade and shipping is going on, and where the counterpoising sources of strength and reThese facts may be considered as decisive against vival are to be found. It appears from Mr. Porter's the reciprocity system, so far as the maritime inParliamentary Tables, that since 1823, when the re-terests of the empire are concerned. They prove, ciprocity system commenced, our tonnage with the beyond the possibility of doubt, after the most ample countries with whom the reciprocity treaties were opportunity of trying the system by experience has concluded has been decreasing in the most alarming been given, that under the recipocrity system the manner, while no increase whatever has taken place British flag is gradually becoming extinct in the during the same period in the amount of the goods which they take off our hands. The British and foreign shipping employed in the trade with Prussia, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, since 1820, have stood as follows: 44 to 624 558 to 785 Danish, Ships. British. American. Tons. Ships. Tons. 86,383 524 trade with Continental Europe; and that if it is continued for ten or fifteen years longer, our whole traffic with Europe will be carried on in the vessels of foreign states. Indeed, it is evident, from the extraordinarily rapid growth of foreign shipping in carrying on the British commerce, that if the present system continues many years longer, the foreign sailors and tonnage employed in carrying on our commercial intercourse, at least with the States of Europe, will be greater than our own; that is to say, we shall have nursed up a race of foreign seamen in our own harbours, and in conducting our own trade, superior in number to those of the British islandsin other words, sharpened, and put into the enemy's hands, the dagger which may at any moment pierce us to the heart. Real reciprocity with these countries would evidently have consisted in stipalating, that in consideration of our admitting some article in which they had advantages over us, on the same terins as they admitted ours that they should do the same with some article of our manufacture in which we had the advantage, and they had the worst of it by nature. But we never 1836, 226 226,483 thought of doing this but contented ourselves with "Thus you see, gentlemen, that while our com- surrendering to them the whole advantages which merce with Northern Europe is almost entirely pass-the navigation laws gave to our shipping, without ing into the hands of foreigners, nearly three-fourths ever stipulating even the smallest corresponding of that with America is at this moment in the hands alvantage in favour of our cotton, hardware, or of the inhabitants of that country! It is easy to see, woollen goods, in which we had by nature the start that if we had no commercial intercourse but with of them. The consequence has been that our own such foreign and independent states, we should by shipping employed in carrying on the trade with these the very extension of our export of manufactures, be nations has been almost destroyed, while no benefit nursing up a foreign, and possibly hostile, commer- whatever has been gained in our exports to these cial navy, which would ere long wrest from us the nations by the sacrifice. This decisively appears empire of the seas. It is needless to go farther into from comparing our exports to the powers with details; for the following is the general result of the whom we concluded recipocrity treaties for the last change which the tonnage of our foreign commerce ten years, during which time, in consequence of the with all parts of the world has undergone during the action of these treaties, our shipping with them has last thirty-six years. been dwindling away to nothing. The following table exhibits the value of our exports to the Baltic powers, in 1827 and 1828, and 1835 and 1836;— "The trade of Great Britain with all Europe has declined from 1802 to 1839, from 65 to 48 per ct. |