=Source.=--_The Political Life of George Canning_, by A. G.
Stapleton. London, 1831. Vol. III. pp. 16-22.
Mr. Huskisson felt therefore, when he came to the Board of Trade,
that although much had been done, yet more remained to do, and he
proceeded fearlessly, yet at the same time most cautiously, in
relaxing those restrictions on our commerce, which if preserved
were calculated to render almost nugatory the concessions already
made.
Accordingly during the sessions of 1823, 1824, and 1825, different
Acts were introduced by Mr. Huskisson for doing away with the
discriminating duties; but in order that foreign nations might not
impose new, or increase old discriminating duties, at the very
moment when we were abandoning ours, a power was reserved to the
King in Council to enforce the payment of additional duties upon
the ships of all foreign countries, in the event of the treatment
which British ships should meet with in their ports, not being
reciprocal to that, which their ships were to meet with, in the
ports of the United Kingdom.
In 1826 a new rule of navigation, exclusively applicable to the
Mediterranean, was established. Goods, the productions of Asia and
Africa, which should find their way to ports in Europe within that
sea by internal routes, and not by the Atlantick Ocean, were made
importable from those ports in British ships: thus erecting the
Mediterranean and its surrounding shores, as it were, into a fifth
quarter of the globe.
Mr. Huskisson also revised and altered the list of "enumerated
articles." When that list was first constructed it was intended
to consist of commodities of extensive importation; in process of
time some of the articles contained in the list had nearly ceased
to be imported, while their places were supplied by other articles
which were omitted. The list was therefore reconstructed upon the
principle of its original intention.
In 1825 the general consolidation of the Laws of the Customs
was effected by Mr. Hume,[3] under the favouring auspices of
the Board of Trade and Treasury. The difficulty and vastness of
this undertaking was only surpassed by its importance. From the
reign of the first Edward up to the present times, these laws had
accumulated to the enormous number of fifteen hundred--frequently
contradictory, and made without reference to each other, they were
only understood by the initiated few, and required the devotion
of a whole life to their study, at once to comprehend, and to
obey them. They were unintelligible to the merchants, while they
perplexed and harassed all their proceedings. This chaos of
Legislation was compressed by Mr. Hume into Eleven Acts (a sort
of Code Napoleon), with an order, a clearness, and a precision
whereby even the least talented of our mercantile men are now
enabled to consult the laws of the Customs with facility, and to
take them with safety for their guide. These effects, upon which
for their advantages to commerce Mr. Huskisson several times
expatiated with exultation, would alone make this consolidation a
most important era in our fiscal policy; but advantage was likewise
taken of the opportunity to introduce into the Laws themselves
some memorable changes, in conformity with the spirit of those
principles of commercial intercourse, on which the Government had
determined to act. Not only were duties of importance considerably
reduced, but those on numerous minor articles were lowered. During
the war the rates of the Tariff had been so increased, for the
single purpose of revenue, that they had become for the most part
inapplicable to a state of peace, and required general revision.
This revision was regulated by the following principles: First,
those duties were reduced, the heaviness of which tended to lessen,
rather than to increase their total product. Secondly, the duties
on raw materials, and on various articles useful in manufactures,
were lowered to little more than nominal sums. Thirdly, protecting
duties of extravagant amount were reduced to that point, at which
the consumer was fairly entitled to relief, either by the increased
industry of the home manufacture, or by access to other sources of
supply. And, lastly, the comforts and the tastes of the publick,
and the advantage of their retail suppliers, were consulted by
the removal of duties which prevented the introduction, or most
unnecessarily abridged, the use of many articles without benefit to
any party whatever.
By the system founded on these principles, there has not only
been distributed amongst a numerous population a great increase
of employment, but its diffusion has been greater in proportion,
than its increase. It is also very remarkable, that those trades
which have been prominent in complaining of foreign competition
have neither suffered more in diminution of profits, nor increased
less in extent of business, than those which have been able to hold
foreign competition at defiance.
Besides this consolidation of the Customs' Laws which took place
in 1825, an Act was passed in the session of that year, whereby
many commercial advantages were conferred on the Colonies, beyond
those contained in Mr. Robinson's two acts of 1822; Mr. Huskisson
laying down as the fundamental principle on which his alterations
were founded--a principle deduced from past experience with respect
both to _Ireland and to our Colonies_--that "so far as the Colonies
themselves were concerned, their prosperity was cramped and impeded
by a system of exclusion and monopoly; and that whatever tended
to increase the prosperity of the Colonies could not fail, in the
long run, to advance, in an equal degree, the general interests
of the parent state." By these Acts, not only articles of first
necessity, but goods of all descriptions, with very few exceptions,
were allowed to be imported from all countries, either in British
ships, or in ships of the country of their production; and the
goods of the Colonies were allowed to be exported in any ships to
any foreign country whatever. The only part of the Colonial system
which was persevered in, was that which excludes foreign ships
from carrying goods from one British place to another; "so that by
this arrangement was preserved the foundation of our Navigation
Laws--all intercourse between the mother-country and the Colonies,
whether direct or circuitous, and all intercourse of the Colonies
with each other, being considered as a coasting trade to be
reserved entirely and absolutely for ourselves."
The admission of foreign ships, however, was not unconditional:
it was made to depend upon reciprocal or equivalent liberality
towards our trade and navigation on the part of the countries
profiting by the advantages of it; but a power was given to the
King in Council to relax the rigour of the Law, if occasion should,
in any particular cases, seem to require it. By the same act, the
privileges of warehousing were extended to the chief trading ports
of the Colonies; a measure, which was well adapted to promote the
creation of _entrepôts_ in those places, for the general barter
trade of that quarter of the globe.
Independently of all these measures of internal legislation,
Treaties of Commerce, founded on the principles of reciprocity,
were negotiated with Prussia, Denmark, Sweden, the Hanse Towns,
three of the new States of Spanish America, and lastly with France.
In the case of Prussia, the power with whom the first of these
Treaties was made, it may be said that, it was fairly forced upon
this country. It certainly was not the wish of our Government
unnecessarily to stir the question. But "the Prussian ship-owners
were all going to ruin," and the Prussian Government very wisely
resolved not to give to British ships privileges which the British
Government denied to Prussian ships. When once foreign powers
began to adopt that course, against which we could not justly
remonstrate, it has been already shewn that the only safe and wise
way was to meet it with concession. Prussia having therefore thus
attained her object, to have manifested any unwillingness to treat
other powers on the same footing, would have been inconsistent
with the principle of our navigation law, which, acting upon
the principle "divide et impera," was more anxious for an equal
distribution of foreign shipping, than for its diminution.