CO885-(1-2) — Page 244

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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE

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885

111111C.O.

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1 PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON

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our commerce and our navigation very much, though no doubt she would have injured her own also. We could not afford to let her do So. Indeed our commercial interests already required an expansion, not a contraction, of facilities. Our Navigation Law, as it then stood, not only restricted the importation of European produce in foreign ships, but in British ships too. A variety of articles could not be imported, even in British ships, except from the place of their origin; and many articles could not be imported from Germany or the Netherlands at all. Therefore our mer- chants could not complete their cargoes Assorted goods at those ports which had become the entrepôts of merchandise on the continent, but had to make circuitous voyages, picking up a little here and a little there. All these considerations rendered great change in our law necessary. The changes actually made, and which have in great part been already described, are spread over a period of thirty years, from the American Treaty of 1794 to the consolidation of the Customs Laws in 1825. They were made as occasion required; but it may be convenient to regard them together, and speak of them as a whole. Their general effect was as follows.

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Our colonial system was converted from a system of exclusion and monopoly, into a sys tem of protection. The colonies were allowed to draw their supplies whence they pleased, though with high duties to favour British pro- duce, and to send their own produce where they pleased, though high duties in its favour at- tracted it to British markets. Their trade with the mother-country, and with each other, was confined to British ships. Their trade with foreigners was opened also to the ships of the country with which they traded, subject, how- ever, to several limitations and restrictions.

Our own trade with Asia, Africa, and America, was thrown open to the ships of the countries with which we traded, and some of the restric- tions theretofore laid on British ships were taken

off.

Our trade with Europe was wholly opened

The Colonial Case.

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to British ships; and the ships of the countries with which we traded, or from which our im- ports originally came, were admitted to share

in it.

Lastly, we adopted the system of Reciprocity Treaties and equal duties.

This has been upon the whole our system for the last twenty years. It is now breaking up, from the following causes:

1st. Because we have pretty nearly abandoned

the system of colonial protection.

2nd. Because most of our reciprocity treaties

are open for revision, and foreigners want better terms, or they will retaliate upon us.

3rd. Because we have effected a breach in our European system, which cannot but be extended. 4th. Because the standing grievance of injury

to commerce is more and more felt under the. system of free trade which we have recently adopted.

III. Case for further alterations. The nature of the necessity which at present exists for some alteration of our law may be col- lected from the concluding observations under the last head. The case is also stated pretty fully in a paper printed for the use of the Cabinet

in October last. It divides itself into what may be called the Colonial Case, the Foreign Case, and the Case of our General Commerce.

The case of our colonies, shortly stated, is this. We call upon them to compete with foreigners in our markets, while we burden them with restrictions which hinder them from com- peting advantageously. This is not an imaginary grievance, it is one of which the colonists loudly complain. Canada, Trinidad, Jamaica, South Australia, and Ceylon. have, either directly, or through persons connected with them, remon strated against the pressure of the Navigation Laws. The introduction of the Free Trade system has made these laws intolerable to our colonies, and has rendered it imperative on us to alter them.

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