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PUBLIC

RECORD OFFICE

Reference :-

TILLIC.O. 885

inim

ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE BE REPRODUCED PHOTOGRAPHIC- COPYRIGHT PHOTOGRAPH-NOT TO

PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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the foreigner may choose between three classes i 1. British; 2. colonial; and 3. ships of his own country. Thus if the British and colonial tonnage be 3,000,000, and the tonnage of the United States be 2,000,000, the American mer- chant has 5,000,000 tons at his command, while the Canadian has only 3,000,000.

b. But suppose the foreigner cannot get a ship that can legally take his cargo to England for consumption there, he can always get one that can take it there to be warehoused; whereas produce imported from a British colony in a foreign ship cannot even be warehoused, but is absolutely prohibited, and if imported would be seized and destroyed. The importance of the advantage thus given to foreigners, may be measured by the extent to which the privilege of warehousing is used.

e. We allow the foreigner, in all questions of nationality of vessels, the free right of naturaliz- ing aliens; so that a ship owned and navigated by persons of whatever extraction, naturalized in the United States, for instance, would be treated as a United States' ship. But a ship owned and navigated by persons naturalized in Canada, would not be recognized as Canadian. This is another advantage which we give to the foreigner, and it is one of which the United States, at least, freely avail themselves. A part of our law, which is still more unjust in this respect, is the clause which excludes Lascars from being India British scamen, except in certain voyages, could build and man ships for general trade very profitably; but we forbid it. We do more: we cripple her trade, even within the limits which we set to the use of the Lascars. Trade may be carried on between Calcutta and Mauritius in Indian ships, manned by Lascars, and such ships accordingly sail with emigrants to that island; but when they get there, they find

nothing to bring back. There is plenty of Mau- ritius produce, which they might profitably carry

to England; and from England they might return with cargoes to Calcutta; but the law prevents their making these voyages with a Las- back from car crew, so that they often have to go Mauritius to Calcutta in ballast, and make their

Foreign Relations.

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profit by charging higher freights for the convey- ance of the emigrants.

The ancient policy of this country was to debar our colonies from foreign trade, and to give them a monopoly of the home trade. The system was one that was infinitely injurious to them, as perhaps sufficiently appears from the historical summary already given, and one that provoked them to animosity against us, but it was one in which we at least gave them a quid pro quo, in the monopoly which we con- ceded to them in the home trade. But now, although we have absolutely taken away their monopoly, and have called on them to compete with foreigners in the home trade, not only on equal terms, but at a positive disadvan- tage, we nevertheless continue to debar them from their fair share of foreign trade. We forbid them to receive into their ports the ships of one- half of the world; we drive them to export their produce to the foreigner, rather than to us, and yet keep up restrictions which tend to make them import from us, rather than from the foreigners.

This is the Colonial case.

The case which arises out of the present state of our relations with foreign countries is two- fold:

1. Foreign nations have it in their power to defeat our object of securing the carrying trade to ourselves, by the imposition of countervailing restrictions on the employment of British ships, and this course they are not unlikely to pursue.

2. We have from time to time effected some partial relaxations in our law in favour of parti- cular nations, and our treaties with other nations are so worded as to render it evident that we shall be obliged to carry these relaxations still further, so as, in fact, to destroy the integrity of the law.

Under the first head it is necessary to prove, first, that our legislation may be defeated by counter legislation. We do not admit that foreigners can insure benefit to themsleves by enacting Navigation Laws, but we maintain that they have the power of injuring us,

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