Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/619



I shall take care to let you know later the precise date when the sittings of the Council will open.

Believe me and the Conseil Général,. (Copy.) Inclosure 2 in No. 73. Mr. Lindsay, M.P., to M. Fleury.

8, Austin Friars, London, 23rd June, 1862.

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I have read with no ordinary interest the letter you did me the honour to address me on the 17th instant, and I shall be happy to forward the object your Government has in view by every means in my power. So far as I am concerned, you have merely to name the time when my presence is again required in Paris. In regard to other witnesses, the publication of your letter to me would enable you to obtain a greater amount and variety of evidence than could possibly be obtained through my own unaided exertions. I am glad your Government has decided upon an open inquiry, for thus all the important facts bearing upon the subject can be brought to light. The knowledge of these facts will greatly facilitate the inquiry about to be instituted. For instance, I dare say your Shipowners think (as our Shipowners thought in 1849) that any material relaxation of the Navigation Laws of France would ruin them. The arguments used against the repeal of our laws in 1849 were very plausible, but not very profound; for what are the facts? The repeal of our Navigation Laws came into operation on the 1st January, 1850; the aggregate tonnage of the merchant navy of the British empire at that time was 4,232,962 tons. It had risen from 2,681,276 tons in 1815. So that the increase, under the guardian care of the State, had in the previous thirty-five years been 1,551,686 tons. That increase was then considered very great; and, as we could not look into futurity, much stress was laid upon the argument that if protection were removed from British shipping, any increase would in future be monopolised by the ships of foreign nations. But the Legislature had other interests to consider besides that to which I belong. Protection was, therefore, swept away, and Shipowners were left to depend upon their own exertions, instead of depending upon the State. Their desponding was great, but so far from being "ruined,"