foreign trade, and said the former was "worth all foreign trade put together." But his observations on this bead are as much forgotten by the majority of our legislators as those he made on the great wisdom of our Navigation Laws, as the only security for our national independence.

Mr. McGregor said in debate on the same subject, that " he admitted our naval strength had co-existed with the Navigation Laws, but he denied that they were cause and effect. They had about as much to do with each other as the height of the Pyramids had with the floods of the Nile."* We agree with the honourable member for Glasgow in one part of this observation. The Navigation Laws have had as much to do with our maritime prosperity as the Pyramids had with the floods of the Nile; and we will tell the ex-secretary of the board of trade what the relation was--it was that of cause and effect. Mr. M'Gregor is too well informed not to know that there exists in Cairo a Nilometer, and that, during the' period of the inundation, the spirits of the people and the animation of commerce rise and fall with the rise or fall of the prolific stream. It is no wonder they do so, for it is the source of life and prosperity to the whole community. Raised by the power of the Pharaohs from the riches produced by the inundations of former times, the Pyramids are the Nilometer of antiquity, as much as the tower of Babel and the ruins of Babylon were the monument of the opulence of the plain

of Shinar; or as Waterloo Bridge is of the wealth produced by the favourable maritime situation of London, or York Cathedral of the agricultural riches of the plains of Yorkshire. In all these causes there is a relation between the natural advantages which produce the riches and the durable monument to the construction of which they lead, and that relation is that of cause and effect. We entirely concur with the member for Glasgow in thinking that the same connexion, and no other, subsists between the Navigation Laws and the maritime greatness of England as existed formerly between the Pyramids of Egypt, and the fertilizing floods which encircle their base.

To prove that these remarks are not made at random, but that the Navigation Laws really are the foundation of the maritime greatness of England, and that, when they are repealed, it must of necessity languish and ultimately expire, we subjoin three tables: one showing the progress of British as compared with foreign shipping, from 1801 to 1823, when the protection of the Navigation Laws was first infringed upon by the adoption of the reciprocity system with the Baltic powers; and another showing the comparative progress of our foreign and home shipping with Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Prussia, the countries with whom reciprocity treaties were first concluded, from 1823 to the end of 1847, when the reciprocity system had been a quarter of a century in operation.

and

SWEDEN.

NORWAY.

DENMARK.

PRUSSIA.

It appears from this most instructive table that, under the protection system, from 1801 to 1823, the British shipping employed in conducting our commerce had gained so decisively on the foreign employed in the same commerce, that it had increased from having been on an average of five years, at the commencement of the second, about two British tons to one foreign, to be, on the last five years, about four British tons to one foreign in other words, during these twenty-two years, the proportion of British to foreign shipping had doubled.

:

Turn now to the contrast afforded by the comparative progress of British and foreign shipping from 1823, when the reciprocity system was introduced with certain states, to 1847, when it was made universal by the suspension of the Navigation Laws in March of that year :

Year.

TOTAL.

Tons inward. Tons inward. British. Foreign. 1823 1,740,859 582,996 2,323,855 1824 1,797,320 759,441 2,556,761 1825 2,144,598 958,132 3,102,730 1826 1,950,630 694,116 2,644,746 1827 2,086,898 751,864 1,839,762 1828 2,094,357 634,620 2,728,977 1829 2,184,525 710,303 2,894,828 1830 2,180,042 758,828 2,938,870 1831 2,367,322 874,605 3,241,927 1832 2,185,980 639,979 2,825,959 1833 2,183,814 762,085 2,945,899 1834 2,298,263 833,905 3,132,168 1835 2,442,734 866,990 3,309,724 988,899 3,494,372

1836 2,505,473 1837 2,617,166 1,005,940 3,623,106 1838 2,785,387 1,211,666 3,997.053 1839 3,101,650 1,331,365 4,433,015 1840 3,197,501 | 1,460,294 | 4,657,795 1841 3,361,211 1,291,165 4,652,376 1842 3,294,725 1,205,303 4,500,028 1813 3,545,346 1,301,950 4,846,296 1844 3,647,463 1,402,138 | 5,049,601 1845 4,310,639 1,735,079 6,045,718 1846 4,294,733 1,806,282 6,101,015 1847 4,942,094 2,253,939 7,196,033

-PORTER's Progress of the Nation, 407, 2d ed.; and Parliamentary Papers, 3d April, 1848. Thus it appears that under the reciprocity system with some countries since 1823, and free trade in shipping with all in 1847, the foreign shipping employed in carrying on the British trade had so rapidly grown upon the British, that, while at the commence

ment of the period the British stood to the foreign as 174 to 58, or 3 to 1 exactly, at the close they stood as 49 to 22, or somewhat above 2 to 1 only. And observe the vast start of foreign shipping as compared with British, since free trade was introduced by Sir R: Peel, in 1846. For while the British tonnage was to the foreign in 1845 as 43 to 17, or as 2 to 1; in the year 1847 it was as 49 to 22, or 2 to 1 only. So rapid has been the growth of foreign shipping over British in eighteen months of general free trade. In ten years of such a system, it is easy to see that the foreign tonnage employed in carrying on our trade will be equal to the British; and then our national independence is gone for ever, for we have nursed up in our harbors a body of foreign seamen equal to our own.

But we have not yet done with the parliamentary returns. From the return 3d April 1818, it appears that the total tonnage, British and foreign, employed in carrying on our trade was

1847. Total British tonnage,

De duct British Colonial tonnage, Remains in trade with all the world except colonies,

So that, setting aside our colonial trade, the British tonnage is to the tonnage with all the rest of the world as 29 to 22, or as 4 to 3 only! Considering the rapid strides which, under the reciprocity system established only with a limited number of countries in 1823, the foreign shipping is making in encroachment upon the British, this fact affords room for the most serious reflections. It is clear, from the great advance of foreign over British shipping in the single year of temporary suspension of the Navigation Laws, under the pressure of famine in 1847-viz. from 1,735,679, to 2,253,979; while the British in the same period advanced only from 4,310,639, to 4,942,094,-that two or three years of free trade in shipping will bring the foreign vessels employed in conducting our trade, exclusive of those engaged in the colonial, to an equality with the British. The moment that period arrives, our maritime superiority, and with it our national independence, hang entirely on our our colonial trade, which, and which alone, strikes the balance at present in our favour. And yet, the colonial trade is the precise thing which it is the object of the repeal of the Navigation Laws to throw open to foreign nations! In their anxiety to cheapen every thing, the Free-traders would gladly expose our shipping interest engaged in the colonial trade to the same competition, which has already proved so disastrous to that part of it which is engaged in the trafic with foreign nations.

Observe how one false step in policy by nations, like one deviation from virtue in private life, leads by natural consequences to a repetition of errors and crimes, till irreparable ruin ensues. The agricultural interest at home was first attacked; and by the cry of cheap bread, and the weight of class legislation, its protection was taken away. The West India islands were the next victims; because, if the farmer in England raises his wheat with nothing but a nominal protection, it was plausible to say the West India planter must raise his sugar on the same terms. The ruinous

competition to which this exposed the West India planters naturally produced in them a desire to be liberated from any burdens to which they were subjected for the benefit of the mother country; and in this demand the Canadians, exposed to the competition of American grain, for a similar reason concurred. Thus the cry for cheap freights, originating in freetrade principles in England, came to be responded to from the British colonies on the other side of the Atlantic; and the Navigation Laws began to be repudiated by the colonies-the very thing which formerly it was their most anxious desire to uphold. The firm though unseen bond of mutual interest, founded on protective principles, which has hitherto held together the vast and widely separated dominions of the British empire, is dissolved. Being deprived of the benefit of protection, they very naturally wished to be relieved of its burdens. Such is the maze of error and danger into which we have been led by the sophistry of free trade; and such the way in which the greatest and best consolidated empires are first loosened, and then destroyed, by the delusions of those entrusted with their guidance.

The manner in which foreign shipping has encroached upon British, since the reciprocity system began in 1823, is clearly proved by the centesimal proportions of each, published by Mr. Porter, from 1820 to 1844, both inclusive.

It will be seen from the following table, that, since 1820, the centesimal proportion of British shipping employed in conducting our trade has declined from 78 to 72, while that of foreign nations has increased from 21 to 27. But this proportion, such as it is, is solely upheld by our colonial trade, which, as already shown, employs nearly 2,000,000 tons of our shipping. But for it, the encroachment of foreign on British shipping would appear in such alarming colours as to strike the most inconsiderate. It is the rapid growth of our colonial trade under the protective system which has alone concealed the ravages effected on it by free trade under the reciprocity.

clined (p. 410) from 65 to 52-38, while that of our colonies has increased thus,