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    CO M M E R C lAL,

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    THE SHIPPINGS INTEREST . Great complaints have of late been made by our shipowners , and they are next week to have a meeting in London to memorialise the Government for some kind of relief . Several of our contemporaries have discussed the subject , and those who are adverse to the view taken by the shipowners have shown that since the abolition of our navigation laws oar mercantile marine has increased in a manner quite unexampled . More ships have been built in a yearand more employed , than ever known

    , before . At the same time it is admitted , that from opening a trade which had before been restricted to our own ships , as was to be expected , foreign tonnage has increased somewhat more than our own tonnage . This , however , is the case in almost all countries—it is a necessary consequence of increased trade—and in some countries where restrictions are continued on . navigation the increase of foreign tonnage has actually been greater in proportion than here , and . in them there has been a positive decrease of native jtonnage .

    The statistics of our shipping supply unanswerable arguments against those who refer the present condition of the " shipping interest to the abolition of the navigation laws , and who complain of free trade , which has permitted such , a large increase in the quantities of goods to be carried , as depriving our shipping of employment . It is only doing our shipowners scant justice to say that what they complain of is less the free navigation which our laws permit than the restricted navigation which some other States yet maintain . What they chiefly

    appeal to the Government , for is that this restricted navigation shall be made free like our own , and they are only to be censured because they ask for the renewal of restrictions here as a means of coercing foreign Governments to grant freedom . They are not opponents of free trade so much as the advocates of a peculiar and very faulty means at variance with the principles ot free trade of procuring free trade with other countries . The

    sentiments of other nations we can influence by our opinions and our example ; we have no power to eoerce their Governments ; and the suffering shipowners axe led astray by a remnant of old restrictive legislation , when they propose a further recurrence to it to compel other Governments to adopt our freedom . We nave no expectation that we shall succeed in convincing them of their error , but we call their attention to some facts which are not merelv statistical .

    They complain of being excluded from the coasting trade of the "United States , between Portland in Maine , and San Francisco round Cape Horn , this being classed by our very ambitious cousins as a coasting trade . JTrom the complaints of our shipowners it might be supposed that the shipping of the Americans was flourishing , and that our shipping had been excluded from some great benefit . The latest arrival from the States , however , speaks of a " general depression in the shipping interest . " "SMp'building" says the New Tor / c Times , " has been suspended on this side of the water . " After the panic of last year " freights went down absurdly

    low . ' "A . . great many ships were then laid up , many have remained laid up / ' and the persons most experienced " see little or no immediate hope of revival / ' The American shipowners , then , who nave a monopoly of their own coasting trade , ate worse off than our shipowners , who have no such monopoly : and clearly , therefore , a similar monopoly , which some of our shipowners aak for , would not give them prosperity . Xet us try to explain how such monopolies injure them , and that to grant their prayer would bo to continue and'inoreaso their distress .

    Thoro is a general depression of the shipping interest in . Europe as well as in America . We bear complaints from JPronoe , Russia , and Norway ,. as well as from New Xoric , This general deprea » ion lias a cause as general—what is u P Muoh of the shipping of the world meets wlt > h equal ' favour ; in third markets . English , American , and IVench vessels , 'for example , enter the ports of Peru and the Brazils on equal terms . Shipping , then , is that portion ot the capital of different communities in which , the competition is most equal and certain ,

    The shipping of all countries carries indiscriminately for all , aud thus makes the rate of carriage and the proQfc to be obtained on it about the same for all . Whatever , consequently , affects the shipping of one country , affects in some degree the shipping of all other countries . It all shares a similar fate . " The Russian war , " says our American contemporary , " by removing for a considerable time from mercantile pursuits a large number of steaming and sailing vessels , enhanced the value of merchant ships , and created an active competition for the tonnage of all countries at extremely profitable

    rates . " It stimulated ship-building in IS 55 and 1 S 56 , iind gave no employment to ships in 1 S 57 and 1 S 5 S . The consequence of this unity of the shi pping of the world is , that it is all affected by the monopolies and restrictions and bouuties bestowed on shipping in each or any one state . But an invariable consequence of bounties to one class of shipping ana restrictions on another class , is to increase the supply of the favoured shipping beyond the real demand for them , or beyond the quantity of goods to be carried ; and as several , indeed almost all , Governments have given and yet give bounties on native , by restrictions on foreign ,

    shipping , the natural and general consequence is that shipping is everywhere on the average greater in amount than the goods to be carried , and like the once highly protected agriculture , is almost everywhere , and almost at all times , in a condition of suffering . and complaint . Great prosperity , however rapidly trade increase , is with shipping as it was with agriculture , the exception , not the rule . " In the United States , about seven or eight years ago , " says the authority alread y quoted , " and powerful steamers were being built which would speedily drive the British boats from the

    ocean . These prophecies have been signally refuted by experience . The steamers which have been driven out of the trade have not been British but American . " In . fact , these great steamers were built in the expectation that Cougucss would hire them or pay for them , as our Government had set the bad example of giving large sums to mail packets . Congress did for a season grant a subsidy to some lines , and it was to get hold of these expected Government bounties that the steamers were built in excess in the States , and

    monstrated that legislative meddling with it with all business , was always an evil . Far wjjf than their predecessors , those insincere ifteri—Protectionists in spirit and in heart—acted on thV erroneous principle they had condemned \ ftPr the public had become enlightened , and they h-5 professedly adopted the enlightenment , they vent back , dog like , to their vomit . They persisted in spite of all teaching , m regulating navigation To this hour , the shipping interest is in all respects a highly protected and regulated interest . Nominally , it has been made free , and exposed to the

    inevitable competition of foreign shipping , while it is placed in the fetters of very presuming dabblers in mercantile marine legislation . In spite of the lessons of two centuries the triflers of our day have thought themselves superior to Cromwell , and that they , by a . Navigation Act , could bestow care aud skill on seamen , and greatness on the nation . Thirdly , they did more than regulate the shipping : they patronised it . Somewhere about 1 S 33 , that profouudest of profound statesmen , Sir Charles ' Wood , then Secretary to the Admiralty , began the plan of giving large sums to our mail packets .

    At present not less than 800 , 000 / . a year is devoted to this purpose . It is not a fair reward for services done under competition . It is a sum given to keep certain companies going and doing certain work in a certain manner , which , under perfectly free competition , could be done much cheaper and better , though then " my lords / ' cither of the Treasury or the Admiralty , would have no control over the packets . Without dwelling- on the unfairness to other interests of an application of the public money to subserve the purposes of one class , we

    say that this kind of remuneration , more than necessary to procure required services , is au artificial stimulus to ship-building , ami , like the bounties referred to in other countries , helps to bring into existence more shipping than can at all times find employment . Shipowners arc guided by a desire to get the public money rather than by the quantities of goods and passengers to be earned . The rule is a false one , and < hey accordingly suffer . Shipping is now , as agriculture was , the chief . protected , regulated , and favoured interest , and as no legislation can prevent it being exposed to perfect competition abroad , it is now , as agriculture wasthe suffering interest .

    contributed every where to lower freights and lower the profit of shipping ; The Government of the United States , then , like the Governments of France , Spain , and other besotted Governments of Europe , have secured monopolies and granted bounties to their own shipping , and so have contributed to increase shipping unnecessarily and to bring on it its present distress . Has England done nothing of the same kind P Since our Tarming interest was relieved from protection it has become steadily prosperous . The

    shipping interest , supposed to be also relieved from protection , is now groaning and lamenting as much as ever the farmers did when , under the corn-law , the price of wheat went down tp 36 s . per quarter . The contrast is curious and might be an alarming anomaly for free trade , were it not the fact that our shipping has not been relieved from protection , but , like the shipping of tho other countries referred to , is still cockered and pampered into excess . First , the act for repealing tho Navigation Laws preserved in tho Reciprocity Clause , repeated in the Customs Consolidation Act , which now

    constitutes a navigation law , the principle of protection * and made the shipowners rely , as they have relied , on this clause being called into activity for thoir behoof , and they now rcquiro it to bo acted on . They havo never in consequence realised tho notion of perfectly frco competition . Secondly , the foolish , meddling Whig Ministers , urged on by ignorant writers , timid merchants , and old ship oaptains , all bred up to Protection , undorthe JNavigai ^ n lLaws , began , as soon as thoao laws were repealed , to make new laws for the mereaatiie marine , # hoy liavo never left it quiet for owe flingte session , of Parliament . Instead of following 1 out the prinxriple of allowing each trade and each business to regulate itself / by its own laws , liko the corn trade , they framed minute ana cumbrous regulating aots , and continued tho tutoage of our shipping as if it had novor'boon do *

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    London , Friday Evening . TnE corn trade , which hns been dull through the week , was without animation to-day . Buyers were very few . Tho price of wheat was the same as on Monday , barley was Gil . to la . cheaper , nnd ontj could be obtained for less money . We understand that , wheat ; is now malted to some oxtent , and used for making beer . . t In the other markets there were no alterations oi XIA IfllV' UVtlVA MIC ** 1 \^ L « l * lv | V iiviv «• ¥ — " a rate

    importance . Tho alteration in tho Bank ¦ ox discount has n 6 t affected them . Sugar and cotito were both unaltered in price . For tea the demni a continues good , and tho sales havo gone on « o « . Tho dulness of tho market for articles of consumption is not unfavourable to tho industrious classy and generally low prices imply that wages go furthor . As long ns tho markets do not so nr icclino as to stop imports , tho -advantage oftlioiow tne t

    price and dulnoss is nil on the side oi *» sumors . In our manufacturing districts—especiauv tho cotton and woollen districts— those vne " linen is manufactured arc not so well ott ; business ° steadily largo and prof ! table . There is " ° W "' J . tion . Tho raw materials arc comparatively abun dant , and tho demand for tho flnishod articles co » siderablo . Monoyed men complain that ) tHoy cm not employ money proatnbly , but generally , nob there is no exultation , thoro arc now very iou com P ytia ' Preite says , in its weekly commercial roviewj — ' The manufactories in Paris for such artkJofl ^ become in demand for tho season of the . now y have , durtiur the Insfc few days , been actiyoiy «

    ployed . " It does not appear by the Ban * o » - returns that trade haa made any addition * "L on it , and wo must thcreforo suppose that tno »> , noticed is very partial . Tho Mtaolng-lano nmrjjw have lately been characterised by increased « u » ne » B , and etooks show watorial . alminutlon . W

    Co M M E R C Lal,

    CO M M E R C lAL ,

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    1862 THE tEADEB . [ No . 455 , December 11 , 185 a .-

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    , GENERAL TRADE BEPORT .

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 11, 1858, page 1362, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2272/page/26/