PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
C.O.
Reference -
885
1 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC-
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which had been opened to United States' vessels by the British Government in the manner therein prescribed, and so far repealing the "Act con- cerning Navigation."
Finally, a British Order in Council of 5th No- vember, 1830, was issued, repealing the Orders in Council of 21st July, 1823, 27th July, 1826, and 16th July, 1827, and authorizing United States' vessels to import into British Posses- sions abroad any produce of the United States, from those States, and to export goods from the British Possessions abroad to any foreign country whatever.
It may not be amiss at this point once more to notice the evils to which the restrictions of our old colonial system exposed our dependen- cies. Some striking illustrations of them will be found in the memorials laid before the Govern- ment on the part of the West Indians at the period at which we have now arrived. Their calculations of the amount of injury inflicted on them by the interruption of the trade with the United States are very curious and instructive. The following quotation is, however, of more immediate interest. It is taken from a "State- ment extracted from various communications received from the House of Assembly of Jamaica," laid before the Committee of the House of Commons in 1850-31 on the commercial, financial, and political state of the West Indies. It will be remembered that this was written before the abolition of slavery, and before the admis- sion of East India sugar to free competition with
that of the West Indies.
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"
By the colonial system, established by Eng-
land for her own aggrandisement, British ship-
ping and British seamen are exclusively employed in our commerce; no article of European growth
or manufacture can be purchased unless imported from the mother-country [this restriction is now removed], which obtains the benefit of the car- rying trade for our supply and double freights, the colonies being burdened with the increase of charge. The whole of our produce is by the same system sent in British shipping to the mar-
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The inhabit-
kets of the mother-country ants of Jamaica conceive that they are entitled to advantages in return for this code of prohi- bition, restraint, and taxation. The privilege of exclusively supplying the mother-country with our staple commodities is the equivalent which has had the sanction of long time and mutual recognition, and a ratification which has been designated as more solemn than any which an Act of Parliament could confer."
Thus, even under a system of close protection, the pressure of the colonial system was severely felt. That protection is now withdrawn; but though the colonial system has been much modi fied, many of its restrictions are still retained. The complaint of Lord Harris, that foreign ves- sels are in many cases excluded from Trinidad, and that the price of necessary supplies is con- sequently enhanced, is precisely the complaint of the West Indians in 1830; the same in kind, though the grievance is undoubtedly less in degree.
We have now traced the colonial system from
its rise under the Commonwealth to its breaking up through the force of circumstances conse. quent on the great alterations made by the rise of the several independent republics of North and South America. By the fall of this system
a prop was withdrawn from our Navigation Laws: we could no longer regard the retaliation of foreign Powers with indifference, nor afford to cripple our trade by keeping up the restric- tions which we had previously maintained at the expense of our colonies.
Meanwhile these latter objections, which are as old as Queen Elizabeth's time, or older, were beginning to acquire new strength. The cessa. tion of the war brought forward our foreign rivals. Our superiority on the seas became less valuable to us, and it became possible, or ap- peared to have become so, for foreigners to take the trade of their own countries away from our ships, by imposing sufficient discri- minating duties in favour of their own. This Prussia actually threatened to do. Had she done it, she would certainly have injured both