Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/623



laws of the respective countries. You made a start when between 1849 and 1850 our Navigation Laws were repealed, but when the impetus which that repeal gave to our commerce came into play, and when our Shipowners felt that they had to depend upon themselves, and not upon the State, we shot ahead at an amazing rate during the second period, while the annual increase of your shipping remained stationary.

+++-+ ++-++++ ++-++++
 * To the United Kingdom.||    To France.      |
 * |  Tons.   ||          |   Tons.  |
 * In 1842 |  129,929  || In 1842  |  30,923  |
 * " 1849  |  117,953  || "  1849  |  32,223  |
 * " 1850  |  133,695  || "  1850  |  43,474  |
 * " 1860  |  211,968  || "  1860  |  43,192  |

When in Paris last month, I had occasion to converse with many of your merchants and others in regard to the effect produced by the recent commercial treaty. They were satisfied, but they felt that something more was wanted, though they could not exactly say what it was. Now, though both countries have every reason to be much satisfied with that treaty, the want is to me very apparent. Free navigation must accompany freedom of commerce. The ramifications of commerce are so numerous and the competition so close that the slightest hindrance to its natural flow, or the smallest increase of freight, either retards, paralyses, or destroys vast branches of it. The trade which your people are now carrying on with England and its colonies and possessions is greatly retarded by the restrictions of the Navigation Laws. The produce of France which.we buy is not in all cases paid for by the produce or manufactures of this country. We wish you to take in exchange for your wines and for the other productions of France which we require, and you desire in many cases to receive in payment for those productions, the produce of our colonies and possessions; but your Navigation Laws raise, as I have shown, the price of all such importations, so as to affect, most unfavourably for your people, the conditions of exchange, and, consequently, our commercial intercourse with each other is much more limited than it would be under a system of free navigation. I most sincerely trust that these restrictions may soon be removed; I do so, not merely on account of my country