Section 3.—_and Be It Further Enacted_, That the Liability of the

owner or owners of any ship or vessel for any embezzlement, loss, or distinction by the master, officers, mariners, passengers, or any other person or persons of any property, goods, or merchandise shipped or put on board of such ship or vessel, or for any loss, damage, or injury by collision, or for any act, matter, or thing, loss, damage, or forfeiture, done, occasioned, or incurred without the privity or knowledge of such owner or owners, shall in no case exceed the amount or value of the interest of such owner or owners respectively in such ship or vessel, and her freight then pending.

IX. Statutes at Large, ch. xliii., page 635.

(M. 1266.)

Manor House, Shepperton, Middlesex, 26th February, 1867.

SIR,

I have to acknowledge receipt of your letter of yesterday’s date, with copy of a despatch and inclosures, received through the Foreign Office from her Majesty’s Minister at Washington. By these documents it would appear that the laws of the United States of America, so far as regards the responsibility of British Shipowners in their courts, are the same as they were in 1860, and that, practically, our responsibility is there still unlimited. This is a very unsatisfactory state of things, and, as I have already explained to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, might produce the most disastrous results to some of our Shipowners in their intercourse with the United States. I, therefore, trust that the Board of Trade may be induced to use its best efforts to obtain as soon as possible a convention, whereby our ships frequenting the ports of the United States may, so far as regards responsibility, be placed upon the same footing as we have now placed in all our courts the vessels belonging to that country.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

W. S. LINDSAY.

To the ASSISTANT SECRETARY, Marine Department, Board of Trade.

(M. 1766.)

Board of Trade, Whitehall, 6th March, 1867.

SIR,

I am directed by the Board of Trade to acknowledge the receipt of your letter of the 26th ultimo, stating, with reference to the question of the liability of British Shipowners in the United States, that that liability appears to be practically unlimited, and trusting that this Board may take steps to obtain complete reciprocity.

In reply, I am to point out to you that the principle of limited liability has been adopted in the Federal Courts, and is applied in all the Federal Courts of the United States—i.e. in all Admiralty and Vice Admiralty Courts, to foreign as well as American ships.

It seems true, however, that an injured person may possibly maintain an action against the owner of an offending vessel in a State Court, and it must depend on the law of each State in that case, whether the measure of damages would be limited. But not to mention the difficulty of first ascertaining, and procuring the alteration of the law of each State, it is to be observed that to maintain such action the owner of the offending vessel must be found within the jurisdiction of the State Court. This, in fact, amounts to a practical limitation, seeing that he has all the advantages of limited liability so long as he keeps away from the United States, or is not to be found within the jurisdiction of the court in question.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

THOMAS GRAY.

To W. S. LINDSAY, Esq., Manor House, Shepperton, Middlesex.

(M. 1766.)

Shepperton, Middlesex, 14th March, 1867.

SIR,

I have to acknowledge receipt of your letter of the 6th inst., but it is very little satisfaction to know that the principle of limited liability is applied in all the Federal Courts of the United States to British Shipowners, whilst in all the State Courts of that country their responsibility is altogether unlimited. To say that they have the advantages of limited liability, so long as they keep away from the ports of that country, is to suggest that if we wish to avoid unlimited responsibility, we must renounce our carrying-trade with America.

The Board of Trade would also appear to be under the impression that there is so little chance of any serious claim ever being made, that the alteration of the law of the States is of little consequence to us, and that it is not worthy of the trouble it would involve; but a case in point has just come under my notice which signally illustrates the force of the remonstrative observations I have ventured to make.

The screw steam-ship Keder, belonging to Messrs. G. and I. Burns, of Glasgow, and their partners, sailed from New York 31st August, 1864, and on the following day came into collision with the Czarina, an American barque, of from 500 to 600 tons, which had on board a cargo of sulphur, shumac, and fruit. The Czarina was abandoned in a sinking state. As the evidence shows that the Keder was not to blame, the owners of that vessel hoped that nothing more would be heard of the matter; but only a few days ago they received a letter from Sir Edward Cunard, their correspondent at New York, stating that he had just been called upon to give bond for one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, on account of the cargo of the Czarina, and adding that he had also been called upon to give bond for the vessel, though the amount in the latter case is not mentioned. It is estimated that the value put on the Czarina and cargo will be something like 40,000l. Supposing the Keder to be in fault, her liability, according to British law, would be restricted to 8l. per ton of her own gross tonnage, viz. 14,264l., whereas, according to the law of the State of New York, she may be held liable in this case for 40,000l., being more than double her value; and if the Czarina and cargo had been more valuable than they are stated to be, the liability of the owner of the Keder would of course have been correspondingly increased. In a word, it would have been practically without limit.

I am aware that there may be some difficulty in obtaining an alteration of the law, but this ought not to be any obstacle when the interests at stake are so very large and of so grave a character. If the proper representation is made, I think the Government of the United States cannot now hesitate to place our vessels in all their courts on the same terms as we have recently placed their vessels in all our courts, and if the executive is prepared to enter into a convention, having that object in view, it will no doubt be confirmed by Congress.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,

W. S. LINDSAY.

To the ASSISTANT SECRETARY, Marine Department, Board of Trade.

Note.—This correspondence was not at all satisfactory to me, but as I was then in a very precarious state of health, I sent copies of it to Mr. John Burns, whose firm (the Cunard Company) was more deeply interested in the matter to which it refers than any other. He followed it up with his usual energy and ability, and through his exertions the responsibility of British Shipowners has now been limited in the States, as well as in the Federal Courts of the United States of America, to the same extent as the Shipowners of that country would be held liable in an action, through loss at sea by collision or otherwise, brought against them in this country. See Parliamentary Papers, ‘British Ships in American Waters,’ No. 236, 17th May, 1871; and ‘United States Liability of Shipowners’ Collision,’ No. 173, 18th May, 1874.

W. S. L.

APPENDIX No. 4.

(Copy.)

(Inclosure in No. 53.)

MR. LINDSAY to HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH.

Paris, 10th January, 1861.

SIRE,

In accordance with your Majesty’s desire, expressed at the interview with which you honoured me this morning, I may here recapitulate the facts which I then brought under your notice.

In the early part of last session of Parliament I brought under the consideration of the House of Commons the following resolution:—

“That an humble address be presented to her Majesty praying that she may be graciously pleased to enter into negotiations with the Emperor of the French with the view of making a treaty for the reciprocal abrogation of all discriminating duties levied upon the vessels and their cargoes of either of the two nations in the ports of the other, and for procuring such alterations in the Navigation Laws of France as may tend to facilitate the commercial intercourse and strengthen the friendly relations between England and France.”

That resolution received the unanimous approval of both Houses of Parliament, and was submitted for your Majesty’s consideration through his Excellency Earl Cowley in the usual form. And, now I have to thank your Majesty very cordially for granting me an audience together with his Lordship, so that I might explain more fully the object of that resolution in its relation to the maritime commerce of France. Sire, the Navigation Laws of France may be divided into five distinct heads:—

1st. The coasting trade, which is confined entirely to French ships, all other vessels entering it being, I believe, liable with their cargoes to confiscation, with the exception of Spanish vessels employed on a particular branch of that trade.

2ndly. The colonial trade, that is, the trade between the colonies and possessions of France and the mother country, which is also confined entirely to the ships of France.

3rdly. The foreign trade, as, for instance, the trade between France and America, or between France and the Brazils, and other foreign countries, which is confined to the ships of France and those of the respective nations with which France has entered into treaties of reciprocity.

4thly. The direct trade with England, which comprises commerce carried on between the ports of Great Britain and the ports of France. This trade is confined to the vessels of England, and France, and the ships of the respective countries are, with some slight exception, placed on the same footing in the ports of either country.

5thly. The direct trade between France and the colonies and possessions of Great Britain, which, practically, is confined to the ships of France, as the differential duties, to which I shall hereafter refer, on nearly every article of produce are so high as against English ships that they are prevented from entering the trade.

Now, it is a remarkable fact that in those branches of trade where French shipping is placed in competition with the shipping of other nations, it is making more progress than in those branches of trade where it is protected, at an enormous cost to the people of France. Indeed, the French shipping employed in those carefully protected branches of commerce has, as appears by the returns, in some instances actually declined. But this state of things is not confined merely to the shipping of France. It has been so throughout all time and with all nations. I shall endeavour to illustrate this to your Majesty by reference to the official returns of the progress of shipping belonging to my own country. Going as far back as 1720, I find that there cleared outwards from the ports of Great Britain, 430,000 tons of British shipping.

In 1810 the clearances amounted to 1,600,000 tons.

Ten years afterwards, in 1820, they had only increased to 1,670,000 tons, but in 1850 they had reached 4,700,000 tons.

That increase, however great, is nevertheless small when compared with the increase which took place after Great Britain, in 1850, swept away the last remnants of her Navigation Laws, and threw open her ports unreservedly to the ships of the world. In 1858, the clearances of British ships outwards employed in the over-sea trade, to which these returns alone have reference, reached 6,400,000 tons.

Thus it appears that in ninety years of the closest protection, when we guarded our ships with the most unusual care, and protected them in every branch of our trade to the detriment of our revenue, and by increased taxation upon the people, our shipping increased only 1,170,000 tons; whereas, in thirty years of partial free-trade, during which we entered into treaties of reciprocity with almost every nation, our shipping increased 3,000,000 tons, and in eight years of perfect free trade, that is, from 1850, when our Navigation Laws were entirely repealed, our shipping increased 1,740,000 tons, or, in round numbers, 600,000 tons more than it increased in ninety years of the closest protection. But it may be well to compare the relative progress of French and British shipping. By comparing the tonnage owned by the respective countries in 1838 and 1858, your Majesty will find that in the last twenty years France has increased her sailing vessels by 370,000 tons, and her steam ships by 50,000 tons. But England, during the same period, has increased her sailing vessels by no less than 2,800,000 tons, and her steam ships by 400,000 tons. Thus the Shipowners of England, who are left to depend upon their own energies and their own resources, are moving onwards at a rate eight times greater than that of the Shipowners of France, who, by means of protection, are taught to depend upon the State instead of upon themselves and upon the vast natural resources which their country affords. It is a mistake to suppose, as many persons do, that France has not facilities for carrying on a great maritime commerce. Her seaboard is almost as great as our own; she has no less than 150 leagues of coast in the Channel, 130 leagues on the Atlantic, and 90 leagues of coast on the Mediterranean. Along her seaboard there are many fine harbours, some of them easy of access, and at points convenient to the great markets of the world. I need hardly mention the position of Havre as affording great facilities for carrying on a large commerce with the United States and the continent of America, generally, nor that of Marseilles, in its contiguity with India, and the vast commerce of the East. But allow me to direct your Majesty’s attention to a remarkable contrast which may be drawn between two great branches of the trade of your own dominions. While your shipping is comparatively at a standstill, your special commerce is increasing with considerable rapidity, for I find that in ten years, from 1827 to 1836, the increase was 10,000,000 francs; from 1837 to 1846, 15,000,000 francs, but from 1847 to 1856 the increase was 22,000,000 francs in that particular branch of commerce, which is confined entirely to the produce and manufactures of France. To carry on this important and steadily increasing trade your Majesty is obliged to depend very materially upon the shipping of other countries, for I find that in 1858, while the total entries at French ports amounted to 4,162,000 tons, no less than 2,550,000 tons consisted of foreign shipping.

It is hardly possible to conceive the amount of money which the people of France are annually paying in, as it appears, a vain attempt, to encourage its shipping: I use the word “vain” because it is clear, if the experience of other nations, or the experience of your own nation is of any value, that all the money paid to “encourage shipping” is actually lost, for French ships, with all this protection, do not increase at the same rate as other nations, or at the same rates in the branches of your own trade, where they are guarded with unusual care, as they do in those branches where they are thrown into competition with the shipping of other countries. It would be impossible to ascertain the loss the people of France annually sustain, directly and indirectly, through the operation of its Navigation Laws. I have, however, analysed it in one small branch of trade. In 1858, there cleared from the Island of Mauritius, 180,000 tons of shipping. The trade which that island carries on with France is, through the operation of the differential duties, confined to the vessels of France. In a word, they have a monopoly of it. Analysing the commercial circulars issued at that island, I find that the excess of freight paid at the Mauritius to French ships for “a market,” or for the ports of France, amounted in that year to 300,000l. more than the people of England paid for a similar quantity of sugar imported from the Mauritius.

I have mentioned to your Majesty the differential duties still in force, but which in practice are unproductive to the revenue, because, as you will see by the following scale, they are so great that merchants are prohibited from shipping in any other than French bottoms. For instance, sugar pays a duty of 68s. per 100 kilogrammes if imported in French vessels, but 84s. if in English, from any of our colonies and possessions. Coffee in French ships is charged 48s. per 100 kilogrammes, and 84s. if in English vessels. Tobacco, if imported in French ships, pays 4s. per kilogramme, but double that duty if imported in English vessels. Other articles, the produce of our Eastern possessions, are taxed in somewhat similar proportions, so that your Majesty will see that your merchants and manufacturers are thus practically prohibited from using any other than French vessels to convey whatever produce they may require from the colonies and possessions of Great Britain.

Your Majesty has just concluded a Treaty of Commerce with England, which I feel certain will benefit alike the people of Great Britain and of France, and no doubt develop the trade of the respective countries to a far greater extent than many persons suppose; above all, it cannot fail to strengthen the friendly relations now happily existing between the Governments of the two countries, and which I most sincerely trust may long continue. That treaty will, however, be seriously clogged in its operations, unless there is a change in the Navigation Laws of France. I shall endeavour to show how.

The produce and manufactures of France will not, in all cases, be paid for either in coin or by the produce and manufactures of Great Britain, but in many instances by the produce of India, Australia, and Canada. Yet, by the French Navigation Laws, that produce which your own people require, cannot be imported into France in the ships belonging to those parties who buy the produce and the manufactures of France. No nation, as your Majesty is well aware, can produce all that is necessary to employ, to feed, and to clothe her own people. All nations must, to a greater or less extent, depend upon other countries for those necessary articles of existence. France, to keep her people employed, must have the wools of Australia and the timber of Canada, as well as various descriptions of raw materials which India alone affords, or produces in greater abundance and at lower prices, than other countries. Nevertheless, the Navigation Laws of France prevent those articles which are required for the very existence of the people of France from being imported in the ships of the country whose possessions produce them. India, as your Majesty is aware, has, within the last two years, become virtually, since the abolition of the charter of the East India Company, an integral part of the British Empire: therefore I trust your Majesty will see the justice as well as the policy of at least placing the shipping of England and France engaged in that trade on the same footing as they have been for many years in the trade between those two countries. Such a change would entail no loss of revenue, nor would it, I conceive, require more than your Majesty’s decree to effect. This change, in my humble judgment, is indeed necessary on even more urgent grounds than the development of the Commercial Treaty which has recently been concluded. The shipping of the world has just passed through an ordeal of great depression. The losses which Shipowners of all countries have sustained during the last four years have been so great, that capital has, to a considerable extent, ceased to flow in that direction, so much so that, by returns now before me, I find that the tonnage built during the year 1860 in the United States, in Canada, in New Brunswick, in Norway, in England, and in other great producing countries, falls far short of what it was either in 1859, or in any one of the previous years of depression. But, on the other hand, the general commerce of the world has, during that period, increased enormously. For instance, by our Board of Trade returns, the imports of cotton into Great Britain, which amounted to about 8,000,000 cwt. in the eleven months ending November 30, 1859, exceeded 10,000,000 cwt. in the eleven months ending November 30, 1860.

I need not call your Majesty’s attention to the vast increase in the imports of grain, or to the remarkable increase in the exports of manufactures, or to the greatly extended consumption of coal at remote stations. In a word, while the bulky articles which require ships for their conveyance to distant parts of the world have enormously increased, the shipping of the world has been comparatively stationary during the past year, and the many losses and disasters at sea during 1860 have tended materially to diminish the already scanty supply of shipping necessary to conduct the oversea trade of the world. All this will, without doubt, right itself in time, but it will take one year, if not two years, to do so. In the mean time, it might so happen that the artisans of France may be thrown out of employment for the want of French ships to bring them those raw materials necessary to keep them employed; or, what will amount to nearly the same, the increased cost to the manufacturer of the raw material, through the laws of France compelling him to bring it in her ships, might be so great that he would be unable to compete in price with his rivals in other countries, and, consequently, be obliged to close his mills or his workshops, as the case might be, for want of remunerative employment.

Might I, therefore, venture to impress upon your Majesty the desirability, I may even say the necessity, of at least placing the carrying-trade between France and the possessions of Great Britain on the same footing as it now exists between the mother countries. Your people would be immense gainers by this change, and your Shipowners would not suffer, for, independent altogether of the facts which I have stated in regard to the advantages which they, as carriers, derive above all others from the policy of Free-trade, there will be for the next twelve months at least ample employment for the shipping of all nations. I cannot close this, I fear too lengthy a letter, without calling to your Majesty’s attention a remarkable instance of the injury which even the Shipowners of that great maritime country, the United States, sustain by protection. While in 1856, 1857, and 1858, the tonnage owned in England increased 335,000 tons, the tonnage of America in those same years actually decreased 67,000 tons.

In a recent visit which I made to that country, I did not fail, in the many opportunities afforded me, to impress upon its Shipowners that they were more interested in the removal of all barriers to free intercourse than any other class of the community; for, as those barriers which they still maintain along their coast retard their commerce, and consequently limit the exchange of the different articles produced in the various districts, the employment of their vessels must necessarily be more curtailed than it would otherwise be if greater facilities were afforded for the transmission of those articles which one district produces in greater abundance than another.

To those maritime questions I have long devoted my attention, and I have often been struck at the circuitous course which ships, by the laws which nations adopted, have been obliged to follow. The ocean was meant to be free to mankind, but one nation by its laws dictates the course which the ships of other nations must follow; another nation, by way of retaliation, lays down the only course which it will allow its competitors to adopt. Thus we see ships, for instance, allowed to follow one track with cargo, but compelled to return by the same track, in ballast. We see the wool which your own people require, instead of being imported, as it ought to be, direct from Australia to the ports of France, sent, by the Navigation Laws of France, to the ports of England, and from thence imported at greatly enhanced prices to the consumers. It is the same with the produce of India. Those lines of steamers belonging to England, which run weekly from Calcutta and Bombay, and all the great ports of the East to Great Britain, passing Marseilles and the other seaports of France, are not allowed to land, for the use of its people, the very articles of which they may be in urgent want. All experience has proved that while those restrictions do great injury to the commerce of all nations, they inflict the largest amount of injury upon the people of the nation that imposes them.

The feeble efforts of so humble an individual as myself, may be of little avail in the removal of those pernicious restrictions, but I will never cease those efforts till the ocean, which was meant for the use of mankind in general, is as free as the waves which roll over it, and the gale which hurries them along. And if your Majesty would grant me your powerful aid by making one step in the direction I have so imperfectly ventured to point out, I feel that other nations will follow the example of a Sovereign so enlightened and so exalted, and thus I may live to see the object I have so anxiously in view crowned with success.

I have, &c.,

(Signed) W. S. LINDSAY.

APPENDIX No. 5.

(Translation.)

Inclosure 1 in No. 73.

M. Fleury to Mr. Lindsay, M.P.

Londres, 17th June, 1862.

SIR,

The ‘Moniteur’ of the 2nd of May last published a report submitted to the Emperor by the Minister of Agriculture, Commerce, and Public Works, relative to the state of the French mercantile marine and the law by which it is governed.

In conformity with the suggestion of this report, which has been approved by his Majesty, the Conseil Supérieur of Commerce is instructed to prosecute an inquiry for the purpose of furnishing the Imperial Government with the data which it needs in order to enable it to judge between the diversity of opinion which has arisen on this grave question.

In the inquiry, as in that which has been presented on the reform of our Customs legislation, it will be advantageous that the principal maritime places in Foreign States should be represented, and the statements of their representatives heard side by side with those of French merchants and Shipowners. This is why the Minister of Foreign Affairs invites me to inform those principally interested here that the Conseil Supérieur will begin its sittings about the 10th of next month.

M. Thouvenel adds that in case, as he hopes, the merchants of London, appreciating the importance of the questions to be raised in this inquiry, will express their intention to respond to the invitation of the French Ministry, I should communicate their names to him, so that he may invite them to present themselves at the Ministry of Agriculture, Commerce, and Public Works, Department of Foreign Commerce, Rue de Tarennes 78b. M. Rouher will take the necessary measures that they may be summoned before the Upper Council with all due promptitude.

I think, Sir, I cannot do better than communicate this invitation to you, requesting you to inform me whether it will be agreeable to you to accede to it yourself. I shall, moreover, be much obliged by your communicating with the merchants or Shipowners in the City, and forwarding to me the names of such as may wish to take advantage of it. I shall take care to let you know later the precise date when the sittings of the Council will open.

Believe me and the Conseil Général,

FLEURY.

(Copy.)

Inclosure 2 in No. 73.

Mr. Lindsay, M.P., to M. Fleury.

8, Austin Friars, London, 23rd June, 1862.

SIR,

I have read with no ordinary interest the letter you did me the honour to address me on the 17th instant, and I shall be happy to forward the object your Government has in view by every means in my power. So far as I am concerned, you have merely to name the time when my presence is again required in Paris. In regard to other witnesses, the publication of your letter to me would enable you to obtain a greater amount and variety of evidence than could possibly be obtained through my own unaided exertions. I am glad your Government has decided upon an open inquiry, for thus all the important facts bearing upon the subject can be brought to light. The knowledge of these facts will greatly facilitate the inquiry about to be instituted. For instance, I dare say your Shipowners think (as our Shipowners thought in 1849) that any material relaxation of the Navigation Laws of France would ruin them. The arguments used against the repeal of our laws in 1849 were very plausible, but not very profound; for what are the facts? The repeal of our Navigation Laws came into operation on the 1st January, 1850; the aggregate tonnage of the merchant navy of the British empire at that time was 4,232,962 tons. It had risen from 2,681,276 tons in 1815. So that the increase, under the guardian care of the State, had in the previous thirty-five years been 1,551,686 tons. That increase was then considered very great; and, as we could not look into futurity, much stress was laid upon the argument that if protection were removed from British shipping, any increase would in future be monopolised by the ships of foreign nations. But the Legislature had other interests to consider besides that to which I belong. Protection was, therefore, swept away, and Shipowners were left to depend upon their own exertions, instead of depending upon the State. Their desponding was great, but so far from being “ruined,” they are richer now than ever they were at any former period, if I may judge of their wealth by the extraordinary increase of our shipping. On the 1st January, 1860 (ten years after all protection had been removed), we owned 5,710,968 tons. Thus, in ten years of Free-trade our increase was about as great as it had been in thirty-five years of protection; but the increase in the amount of business carried on in British ships is even more remarkable. Here are the facts:

In 1842, there were entered and cleared at our ports of British shipping 6,669,995 tons; 1850, 9,442,544 tons; 1861, 15,420,532 tons; the increase being 2,772,549 tons during nine years of protection, and 5,977,988 tons during eleven years of Free-trade.

In 1812 we built 129,929 tons of shipping; in 1849 only 117,953 tons. In 1850, we built 133,695 tons, and in 1861, 310,900 tons; showing an annual decrease between the former periods of 11,976 tons, but an annual increase between the latter of 177,205 tons.

The reason of these extraordinary results is obvious. Shipping is not the parent, it is the child of commerce. If your Government apply to its merchant shipping the principles we have adopted, you will find that the results will be very much the same, for these principles are applicable to all countries. Shipping has no creative power in itself, like land, or manufactures, or minerals; it depends, entirely, upon other interests for its existence. If a country produced what was necessary for its own wants and no more, it would not require any ships. If France had no commerce with other countries, and no trade along its own shores, there would be no employment for its shipping in its own trade. Now, though France has, I daresay, within herself the means of producing what other nations require to nearly as great an extent as the United Kingdom, and, though she requires as much or even more from other countries than we do, yet her sea-borne commerce is very limited as compared with her resources and her powers of consumption. Turning to the ‘Tableau Général du Commerce de la France,’ I find that, in 1860, the entrances and clearances with cargoes only in your foreign and colonial trades, and the entrances in your coasting trade, including the ships of France and of every nation trading with her, amounted to 9,773,865 tons, whereas, in the same year, it required 37,841,329 tons of shipping to transport the cargoes which entered and cleared from the ports of the United Kingdom. But, curiously enough, though the ships of all nations are allowed to enter our ports (and our consumers invite them to do so), there was, in 1860, in our foreign trade, only 4,294,444 tons of foreign shipping with cargoes as against 5,760,537 tons of British shipping; whereas, in your foreign trade, in the same year, there was 2,348,261 tons of foreign shipping with cargoes as against 1,663,615 tons of your own.

It is, thus, evident that any restriction you impose on the freedom of intercourse with other countries, while it curtails the operations of your merchants, likewise enhances the price of the raw material to your manufacturers; and while it increases the cost of the commodity to your people, curtails the employment of your Shipowners. But, even if those restrictions and differential duties (which you still maintain without any advantage to the revenue) benefited your Shipowners, which they do not, why should your merchants and manufacturers, and landowners and farmers, and, above all, your hardworking people, be made to suffer, so that your Shipowners might be enriched? So long as all the producing classes were protected, the Shipowners might have had some right to say that, as they were obliged to pay, for the benefit, real or imaginary of others, enhanced prices for all articles of consumption, they were consequently entitled to some compensating protection; but, since the recent relaxations of the French tariff, and, now that the producing classes are exposed to the competition of other countries, these classes have unquestionably a right to insist on free navigation.

No doubt your Shipowners will consider, as ours did, that their class was entitled to claim peculiar privileges, because the merchant service is the legitimate nursery of the seamen for the navy necessary for the protection of the State; but we have 20,000 more seamen now in our merchant service than we had in 1849. Free intercourse with other countries gave increased employment to our shipping, and therefore we required more seamen. So it will be with your country when you adopt a similar policy.

But, however fallacious the arguments have proved which were used against the repeal of our Navigation Laws, it is hardly possible to conceive anything so pernicious and absurd as the law itself which you still maintain. By way of illustration, may I direct your attention to the line of steamers trading between Southampton and the various ports in India, viâ the Mediterranean? These vessels pass Marseilles every week laden with articles of which your people may be greatly in want, but the differential duties which the laws of France levy are so high on these articles (because they happen to be in English ships) that they cannot be landed, consequently they are carried through the Straits of Gibraltar, and across the Bay of Biscay to Southampton, and from thence by rail to London, and there shipped in either English or French bottoms to some port in France. Could anything be more absurd? The price your people pay for this folly is well illustrated by the startling fact that in 1860 France imported from the United Kingdom 8,000,000 lbs. of silk, 4,000,000 lbs. of coffee, 16,000,000 lbs. of wool, and 116,000 cwt. of cotton, not an ounce of any of these articles having been produced in this country.

For the protection and “benefit” of your Shipowners, which is purely imaginary, as I will show, your people were compelled to pay greatly enhanced prices upon an enormous quantity of articles necessary for their existence.

A few facts will now suffice to prove that your Shipowners have not profited by protection any more than our Shipowners when they were under the guardian care of the State.

Your coasting trade is confined strictly to French vessels. The vessels of all other nations are actually prohibited from entering it. In that trade there were entered and cleared in 1850, 2,447,556 tons of shipping. In 1860, 2,917,823 tons were entered and cleared. In your trade with the United Kingdom your Shipowners have had to contend on equal terms with the owners of British shipping, yet what are the results? In 1850 there were entered and cleared in that trade 594,640 tons of French shipping, cargoes, and ballast, but in 1860 the entrances and clearances of your own shipping in the same trade had increased to 1,017,617 tons. Thus, while the vessels in your closely protected trade increased 20 per cent., those engaged in the unprotected trade were nearly doubled!

I fear I weary you with figures, but allow me to give one more instance of the pernicious effects of a protective policy on both English and French shipping, as shown by a return of the tonnage of ships built for or otherwise added to the merchant navies of the United Kingdom and France in the following years. (See Table, p. 595.)

These figures speak for themselves. The comparative annual progress of the shipping of both countries was not worthy of notice during the first period, when both were protected by the laws of the respective countries. You made a start when between 1849 and 1850 our Navigation Laws were repealed, but when the impetus which that repeal gave to our commerce came into play, and when our Shipowners felt that they had to depend upon themselves, and not upon the State, we shot ahead at an amazing rate during the second period, while the annual increase of your shipping remained stationary.

+----------------------++---------------------+ |To the United Kingdom.|| To France. | +----------+-----------++----------+----------+ | | Tons. || | Tons. | | In 1842 | 129,929 || In 1842 | 30,923 | | ” 1849 | 117,953 || ” 1849 | 32,223 | | ” 1850 | 133,695 || ” 1850 | 43,474 | | ” 1860 | 211,968 || ” 1860 | 43,192 | +----------+-----------++----------+----------+

When in Paris last month, I had occasion to converse with many of your merchants and others in regard to the effect produced by the recent commercial treaty. They were satisfied, but they felt that something more was wanted, though they could not exactly say what it was. Now, though both countries have every reason to be much satisfied with that treaty, the want is to me very apparent. Free navigation must accompany freedom of commerce. The ramifications of commerce are so numerous and the competition so close that the slightest hindrance to its natural flow, or the smallest increase of freight, either retards, paralyses, or destroys vast branches of it. The trade which your people are now carrying on with England and its colonies and possessions is greatly retarded by the restrictions of the Navigation Laws. The produce of France which we buy is not in all cases paid for by the produce or manufactures of this country. We wish you to take in exchange for your wines and for the other productions of France which we require, and you desire in many cases to receive in payment for those productions, the produce of our colonies and possessions; but your Navigation Laws raise, as I have shown, the price of all such importations, so as to affect, most unfavourably for your people, the conditions of exchange, and, consequently, our commercial intercourse with each other is much more limited than it would be under a system of free navigation. I most sincerely trust that these restrictions may soon be removed; I do so, not merely on account of my countrymen, but for the benefit of your people, who will be large gainers by the change.

We were the first nation, I regret to say, to raise barriers to free intercourse with other nations. It was Great Britain which first set up laws to dictate the course which the ships of other nations should follow upon the ocean meant to be free for the use of mankind.

We maintained that wretched policy for centuries to the injury of others, but not to our own gain.

At last we discovered that the poverty of our neighbours did not enrich ourselves. Twelve years ago we changed our policy, and I have given you an outline of the happy results. Your country is still pursuing the same mistaken policy, but I think the day is not far distant when your enlightened Monarch will sweep away all the ancient barriers which hamper his commerce, and thus give to his people that freedom of intercourse which, while it tends to promote peace and goodwill, cannot fail to develop to an extent hitherto unknown the vast natural resources of your country.

I am, &c.,

(Signed) W. S. LINDSAY.

APPENDIX No. 6.

Letter to the Commercial Association, Lisbon.

Braganza Hotel, Lisbon, 28th January, 1863.

SIR,

My engagements have been such that it has not been in my power till now to answer your letter of the 20th instant. I have, however, in the interval been endeavouring to obtain statistical information in regard to the amount of tonnage belonging to this country, and the entrances and clearances of ships at its ports. I have obtained that information so far as regards the commerce of Lisbon and Oporto, but I cannot find that any returns are published of the general commerce of Portugal or of its shipping. I am therefore unable to offer an opinion to the members of your association respecting the effect produced upon your shipping, and on the sea-borne commerce, by your navigation and commercial laws. The trade of Lisbon, however, so far as the entries inwards and outwards are concerned, shows little or no increase these last six years.

Considering the geographical position of Portugal and its natural resources, you seem to have more to gain by free intercourse with other nations than most other countries. The magnificent Tagus offers facilities which few harbours in Europe possess. Yet, with these great natural advantages, you do not appear to be doing one-half the amount of trade you might do, and I believe this arises in a great measure from the restrictive nature of your Navigation Laws, and the cumbrous, slow, and harassing character of your Customs’ regulations.

England maintained somewhat similar Navigation Laws up to 1869. At that time the aggregate tonnage of the merchant navy of the British Empire was 4,232,962 tons. It had risen from 2,681,276 tons in 1815, showing an increase of 1,551,686 tons in thirty-five years of Protection, and it was, therefore, argued by many persons that the repeal of those laws, while it would benefit the Shipowners of other nations, would be suicidal to our own. But our leading statesmen were of a very different opinion. They felt that it was for the interest of the people of Great Britain to have the freest possible intercourse with all nations; to import what they required, and export what they had to sell at the lowest cost; and, as shipping is not the parent but merely the child of commerce, they foresaw that it must increase with the increased intercourse with other nations. The result has proved the wisdom of their opinions. A reference to our Board of Trade returns (a copy of which I will send to you on my return to England) shows the enormous increase of our commerce, and the consequent increase of the wealth and prosperity of our people.

Since the 1st of January, 1850, ships of all nations have been allowed to enter and leave our ports, and to trade to our colonies and possessions on the same terms in all respects as our own vessels. And while our people have been large gainers by the repeal of the Navigation Laws, an Act which that year came into operation, our Shipowners have been greatly benefited, for in 1860 we owned 5,710,968 tons of shipping, showing an increase in ten years of Free-trade nearly as great as the increase during thirty-five years of Protection.

But the increase in the amount of business carried on in British ships to and from the ports of Great Britain is even more remarkable.

In 1842 there were entered and cleared at our ports of British shipping, 6,669,995 tons.

In 1850 there were entered and cleared at our ports of British shipping, 9,442,544 tons.

In 1861 there were entered and cleared at our ports of British shipping, 15,420,532 tons.

The increase being 2,772,549 tons during nine years of Protection, while it was no less than 5,977,988 tons during eleven years of Free-trade.

But experience has proved that restrictive laws are injurious to all countries which maintain them. It is verified in your our own case. See what the trade of the Tagus has become to that of the Thames or Mersey, though the former affords much greater natural facilities for shipping and commerce. It has long been apparent in Spain; and though the wealth and great natural resources of that country are now in course of development by means of railway communication, its intercourse with other countries is still very limited, and must remain so while they continue to maintain high differential duties, which yield little or no revenue, and seriously curtail their intercourse with the world.

Even France is a striking example of the loss a nation sustains by endeavouring by means of Protection to shut herself up within herself.

It is thus evident that every restriction a country imposes upon its freedom of intercourse with other countries—while it curtails the operations of its merchants, and enhances the price of the raw material to its manufacturers, increasing also the cost of the commodity to the people—must necessarily curtail the employment of its Shipowners.

These restrictive laws often compel merchants to buy what they require, at greatly enhanced prices, articles not produced in the country from whence they are imported; as is the case in your importations from England of cotton, sugar, coffee, hemp, jute, silk, foreign wool, and numerous other articles, all arising in a great measure from the fact that the differential duties imposed by your Navigation Laws oblige you to import foreign manufactures or produce, either in your own ships or in the ships of the country where the articles were produced. Consequently the people of Portugal pay much higher prices than we do for almost every article they require to import from other countries, for the exclusive benefit of your Shipowners, who do not increase the number of their vessels. But these restrictive laws retard the natural progress of commerce in ways too numerous to mention within the limits of a letter, and they are as absurd as they are pernicious. Their absurdity becomes apparent when you ask yourself the question, why should the merchants of either France or Portugal not be allowed, when it suits their purpose, to import direct, in any ships they please, the produce of Europe, Asia, Africa, or America, instead of importing it through England or through any other country where it is not grown?

France, as you are aware, has recently made great changes in her commercial tariff, and ere long she will, I daresay, make as great changes in her Navigation Laws. I can offer no opinion to your Chamber of Commerce beyond advising its members in the interests of their country to urge the Legislature by petitions and by every constitutional means within their power to remove every restriction in your Customs’ regulations not absolutely necessary for the protection of the revenue, to reduce the duties upon all articles of large consumption, to abolish all differential duties which yield little or no revenue, and to repeal your Navigation Laws, which do the people great injury, and do not benefit your Shipowners except in rare instances.

I am thoroughly convinced that by some such changes as these much of your ancient greatness and grandeur would be restored. Unwise laws, combined with other matters too delicate for me to name, have done perhaps more to retard your progress than the loss of your possessions in the East, or your severance from the Brazils. Indeed, had Portugal adopted Free-trade measures at the time of that severance she would have retained the bulk of the Brazilian commerce; but your Protection laws set up barriers at all your ports, through which very few ships but your own could enter—they drove trade from your cities, and the very bread from the mouths of your children. No wonder that the glory of Portugal passed away; and that your merchants, who were, indeed, princes in the days of Vasco de Gama, are now almost unknown in the markets of Europe.

Even, in spite of your restrictive laws, the natural facilities of the Tagus are still so great and so many that vessels from the Brazils are beginning to make it their port of call, and if the changes I have ventured to name are carried into effect, I am certain that Lisbon, from its position, is destined to carry on a very extensive traffic with the world. It may even become one of the great entrepôts for the supply of many of the European markets, as the railways now in course of construction will afford facilities for conveying its imports, not merely to the interior of Portugal and to Spain, but also to more distant parts of Europe.

It is, indeed, sad to look, as I now do, from the window of my hotel upon the beautiful but lifeless Tagus—to think what it is by nature, what it was in commerce, and what it might be under wise and liberal laws. The future is in the hands of your own people, and the members of your chamber might become instruments of great good by the dissemination of statistical and other information bearing upon the questions on which you have invited my opinion. You have happily a free press, which will enable your chamber to do so to great advantage. I return to England to-morrow. When I reach home I shall forward to you copies of the works you desire to possess, as also other publications which may be of service to you. Much useful information might also be obtained from the various ministers and consuls resident in this city; and I am sure they will only be too happy to assist you in the laudable object you have in view, for the countries they represent, especially England and France, are deeply interested in every measure tending to create greater intercourse between your country and their own.

I am, Sir, Your very obedient and faithful servant,

W. S. LINDSAY.

To A. J. P. SERZEDELLO, junior, Esq., &c. &c. &c., Secretary to the Commercial Association, Lisbon.

APPENDIX No. 7.

Summary of the Acts passed for the Regulation of Passenger Ships.

The first separate Act for regulating passenger ships was the 43 Geo. 3, cap. 56. By this Act the number of passengers to be carried in any British vessel was limited to one person, including the crew, for every two tons of the unladen part of the ship, and in foreign ships two persons for every five tons. Vessels to North America were required to be victualled for twelve weeks, so as to afford a daily allowance for each person of ½ lb. of meat, 1½ lb. of biscuit or oatmeal, with ½ pint of molasses, and 1 gallon of water. Regulations were prescribed for mustering the passengers and for promoting cleanliness on the voyage, and a surgeon was to be carried. The master and surgeon were obliged to give bond in the sum of 100l. severally to keep a true journal, which journal was, on the return of the vessel, to be delivered to the officer of Customs and verified on oath. Bond was likewise to be given by the owners or master for the seaworthiness of the ship and the delivery of the passengers at their destined ports. An abstract of the Act was to be hung up on board.

Some slight amendments of detail were made in this law in 1813 by the 53 Geo. 3, cap. 36; and in the year 1816 it was further amended by the