1829.] 



Ml: Sadler's Speech. 



445 



hours', sail ; and when our competitors 

 iu the latter can build their vessels at 

 half the price you can, man them at half 

 the wages, and victual them at less than 

 half the cost, — I say, under these circum- 

 stances, who does not see that the foreigner 

 will, in this competition, ultimately beat us 

 off our own element, and, in the mean time, 

 diminish the profits and lessen the wages 

 in every branch of the pursuit ? I am 

 aware that you are obliged to employ the 

 ships you already own, and the hands, 

 especially apprentices, you are bound for 

 the present to support, and to increase the 

 activity of that employment in order, 

 thougli unsuccessfully, to compensate the 

 diminution of profit — a proof of prosperity 

 as it respects your particular branches of 

 business, as well as those of tlie manufac- 

 turers, according to the economists. But, 

 it requires no gift of prophecy to foretell 

 ruin to that calling, whatever be its nature, 

 which no longer affords a profitable return 

 to the capital of the master — nor sufficient 

 employment and adequate wages to the 

 workman. 



How the documents are managed or 

 made up which profess to demonstrate an 

 increase of tonnage to an enormous amount 

 since the period of peace, I hardly know. 

 Perhaps not only the coasters but the steam 

 vessels of the kingdom, numerous and large, 

 and repeating their voyages with such sur- 

 prising frequency, may be occasionally added 

 to the amounts, swelling therefore the ton- 

 nage in an extraordinary degree ; though 

 it is evident these vessels, valuable as they 

 are in many respects, have hardly any more 

 to do with the shipping trade, properly 

 speaking, excepting, as I have heard some 

 one assert, to injure it, and tlie royal navy 

 with it, than sc many stage coaches ; one 

 part of their trade being the accommodation 

 of absentees and of Irish labourers. But 

 from one of the returns presented last ses- 

 sion of parliament it appears that British 

 hhipping has diminished, comparing 1828 

 with 1814, to the extent of 7C9 ships, 

 27>%74y tons, and, what is still more to be 

 lamented, 23,244 men, a diminution of a 

 most melancholy nature, instead of an in- 

 crease of 2(( per cent., which the increase 

 of the population woidd have warranted us 

 to expect. By otlier official reports, as 

 <|uoted by Mr. Kobinson, the member for 

 M'orcestcr, who s])oke in favour of the pe- 

 tition from tlie Imndrcd of Blackburn, whicli 

 I had tlie honour to present, it appears, for 

 the three preceding years, ending January, 

 1827. 1828, and 182i», the number of the 

 VfsscLs built ill those years respectively were 

 I7I!>, 144(1, and 1I2.'>. Then as to their 

 tonnage, that exhibited a decrease to this 

 extent, 207,088, 183,!>4«, and 128,702, 

 the amount of ihc former of the three years 

 exceeding tlie latter by the appalling dif- 

 ference of above 00 per cent. This state- 

 ment, I am told, comports with your cxpc- 

 -riencc, though it may be contradicted by 



certain documents put forth for the purpose 

 of out-facing the general distress of this 

 important business. But if, in these pub- 

 lic reports, such enormous discrepancies 

 occur, is not that an imperative reason for 

 a public inquiry, which the advocates of the 

 new system have strenuously refused ? Their 

 conduct of itself decides the question, and 

 speaks volumes. 



But, gentlemen, I saw the other day, in 

 a personal attack upon myself by a jour- 

 nalist, the British shipping classed amongst 

 those to which the epithet " trivial" wa.s 

 applied. No terms which I have at com- 

 mand can sufficiently repreliend such an 

 assertion, either as to its falsehood or its 

 folly. From the time of our great Alfred, 

 who was alike the founder of the British 

 constitution and of our fleet, and who so 

 far extended his patronage of it as to confer 

 the privilege of nobility upon him who 

 should cross the ocean a given number of 

 times, even on mercantile pursuits ; — from 

 the time of Alfred, I say, down to a very 

 late period, the encoiuragement and support 

 of the shipping of England has been made 

 a matter of supreme concernment. Since 

 its creation, however, its most effectual en- 

 couragement was probably the Navigation 

 Act, that Magna Charta of English ship- 

 ping which was one of those laws that 

 Mr. Fox eulogised so highly, and the spirit 

 and intent of which Mr. Pitt supported and 

 extended with all his influence, however 

 its letter was modified. Even Adam Smith, 

 wh\) wrote at a period when England had 

 hardly ceased to be an exporter of the ne- 

 cessaries of Ufe, and when consequently 

 free trade was not the proposition it now is, 

 but the very reverse — even Adam Smith 

 asserted the Navigation Act to be dictated 

 by " the most dehberate wisdom." That 

 act formed an essential part of the naval 

 constitution of England, if I may so speak ; 

 it was on the faith of that sacred engage- 

 ment, for sacred it had become in the sight 

 of successive generations of Englishmen, 

 that you, gentlemen, embarked your pro- 

 perty, which is now much of it sacrificed 

 and lost by as direct an act of spohation as 

 if the same power had seized a portion of 

 your estates, wliich you hold only under 

 the same sanction — that of the law. But, 

 gentlemen, it is not your interests alone 

 which have been sacrificed. — No ; in those 

 the royal navy of England has been 

 touched ; at the very mention of »vhich, he 

 is no Briton whose heart does not glow 

 with feelings of exultation, mingled how- 

 ever, at present, I fear, with those of ajijire- 

 hension and regret. That navy, which is 

 the shield of England's defence, and the 

 arm of her strength, which has preserved her 

 in the profouiidest peace, when a world was 

 leagued against her, whicli s\ve])t the ocean 

 of her enemies, and poined u]ion their re- 

 motest shores her irresistible (lumders — 

 that force without which her military arm 

 Would be utterly powerless, excepting when 



