Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/622



with articles of which your people may be greatly in want, but the differential duties which the laws of France levy are so high on these articles (because they happen to be in English ships) that they cannot be landed, consequently they are carried through the Straits of Gibraltar, and across the Bay of Biscay to Southampton, and from thence by rail to London, and there shipped in either English or French bottoms to some port in France. Could anything be more absurd? The price your people pay for this folly is well illustrated by the startling fact that in 1860 France imported from the United Kingdom 8,000,000 lbs. of silk, 4,000,000 lbs. of coffee, 16,000,000 lbs. of wool, and 116,000 cwt. of cotton, not an ounce of any of these articles having been produced in this country.

For the protection and "benefit" of your Shipowners, which is purely imaginary, as I will show, your people were compelled to pay greatly enhanced prices upon an enormous quantity of articles necessary for their existence.

A few facts will now suffice to prove that your Shipowners have not profited by protection any more than our Shipowners when they were under the guardian care of the State.

Your coasting trade is confined strictly to French vessels. The vessels of all other nations are actually prohibited from entering it. In that trade there were entered and cleared in 1850, 2,447,556 tons of shipping. In 1860, 2,917,823 tons were entered and cleared. In your trade with the United Kingdom your Shipowners have had to contend on equal terms with the owners of British shipping, yet what are the results? In 1850 there were entered and cleared in that trade 594,640 tons of French shipping, cargoes, and ballast, but in 1860 the entrances and clearances of your own shipping in the same trade had increased to 1,017,617 tons. Thus, while the vessels in your closely protected trade increased 20 per cent., those engaged in the unprotected trade were nearly doubled!

I fear I weary you with figures, but allow me to give one more instance of the pernicious effects of a protective policy on both English and French shipping, as shown by a return of the tonnage of ships built for or otherwise added to the merchant navies of the United Kingdom and France in the following years. (See Table, p. 595.)

These figures speak for themselves. The comparative annual progress of the shipping of both countries was not worthy of notice during the first period, when both were protected by the