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ART. V.-Report of the Select Committee on British Shipping, together with Minutes of Evidence. 1844.

We place this Parliamentary Report at the head of our present article, not for the purpose of presuming to anticipate the well selected Committee from which it emanated, in making a general statement to the nation of the results deducible from the evidence collected, but for the sole purpose of venturing to offer a few of our own opinions on the grave interests intrusted to the Committee's consideration. We would entreat the public to pay a far closer attention than it has hitherto afforded to this question, should any measure proceed through the legislature, for although these matters are of that importance and magnitude, which all must be, on which the existence of the British Empire depends, yet the apathy with which the great bulk of the nation regards them is becoming alarming. That the royal navy is the main dependence, the bulwark, the pride, the last refuge of this sea-girt Isle, and of its Colonial Empire, is what every one knows and boasts of; but whether it is that people take for granted that all and every thing belonging to the navy is well conducted, and in the best possible mode, because they know and feel that it ought to be; and that they are ready, and are made, to pay the best possible price for a naval supremacy or that the national prestige is so confident that the British navy must be the best, always and everywhere-but so it is, that let a couple of (not naval) members of parliament meet on the afternoon before a naval debate, and let one, possibly of "Young England's" scions, ask the other "Are you going down to the house to-night?" "Not I, indeed; it is only the navy estimates and Jose Humé," would be the most probable reply; and as to the affairs of the mercantile navy, viz. of that, upon which the royal navy depends, and without which it could not exist through five years of war, why the great bulk of the English nation know and care just as much about it as the "noblest pisantry in the world" know and care about repeal and a parliament in College-Green. Now we think this apathy and ignorance very deplorable, for we are certain, that of the general principles on which the royal navy and mercantile shipping ought to be conducted, the British community would be a very competent judge, if it would but lend its attention to them-and that for want of public investigation both are misconducted, and the fruitful source of considerable and culpable abuse.

With the royal navy it is not at present our intention to further meddle than as connected with the mercantile we reserve the former for some future occasions; and notwithstanding the repulsive dryness of the subject, we take the latter now, because the mercantile is, as we have already said, that upon which the royal navy depends for life, and without which it could not exist for five years in war; and because, by an irresistible corollary, the British nation is strong or weak in her royal navy in proportion as the mercantile navy is extensive or contracted, in comparison with that of her rivals on the ocean for the fleet in commission in peace will never bring forward one twentieth portion of the crews it would require in war; and let any one read, on such respectable authority as that of Mr. George Frederick Young, that "in comparison with the mercantile marine of our probable naval rivals-France and America-the British stands on a lower proportional ratio than it did twenty years ago," and no argument will be wanting to prove that if this be so, it is become a question which concerns every body, and which deserves at least a thorough investigation.

Relying on this popular attraction to their cause, the British shipping interests have again brought their cry of depression and distress before parliament; again a Committee has sat to hear and investigate their statements. The number of witnesses examined was very great, their character unexceptionable; the selection very careful,-witness the names of George Frederick Young, Somes (the elect for Dartmouth), Gladstone, Chapman, Kendall, Wilcox-the attention and patience and impartiality exhibited by the Committee still more striking. No Report however has yet been made the Committee found it impossible to complete their investigation, and merely printed the evidence, with a suggestion that they should be re-appointed: we therefore can only avail ourselves of that evidence, such as it is.

The ship-owners then allege, that they are in a state of deplorable distress beyond all precedent, and almost without hope of recovery. It is admitted that the late demand for guano, and the discovery of that nest-egg, Ichaboe, has indeed caused some slight improvement (about 600 ships for the time are engaged in that trade); but then guano is shrinking very fast, and generally speaking, this branch of our national commerce, that is, the British mercantile marine, is alleged to be on the very verge of bankruptcy; and the statements urged, backed by the returns produced, are verily serious.

*

* The guano has nearly been all carried away from Ichaboe, and an attempt is therefore made to raise the price; but there is a good deal at Mercury Island, and on the islands east of the Cape of Good Hope, besides the store in the "old original shop," the Pacific.

The operative causes of this proclaimed calamity are said to be chiefly the following:

It is asserted, that our North-American colonies, possessing inexhaustible resources of fir timber, and, at certain periods of the year, of very cheap labour, have the means of running up ships so very inexpensively, that although the vessels are very ill-constructed, very unsafe, and very short-lived, yet they do carry off the prize, viz., the cargoes; because they can afford so much cheaper freightage; that they have almost entirely driven the British merchantmen from the North-American trade, and are seriously injuring him in foreign, more especially Brazilian and Pacific ports; indeed, the various costs of tonnage in the respective countries goes very far to, of itself, prove the truth of the complaint. For while ships at Sunderland cost 167., at Newcastle, 187., and in the River Thames, 201. a ton, complete for sea, colonial ships have been built, the best at 101. a ton; inferior, though good enough to get freight, at 31. 10s. ! a ton; and have been sold for that at Liverpool! The conclusion from these figures seems to follow very powerfully.-Then again it is stated, that the foreign seamen, especially those from the north of Europe, are from the master to the cabin-boy, so much cheaper salaried, live on so much cheaper food, their ships are so much more steadily conducted, that in Northern marine (the Baltic trade) they must under-bid the British ship-owners; indeed, Mr. Somes, himself a British seaman, and almost the largest ship-owner, stated, that he would prefer a Swede to a British sailor, because of the Swede's quietness, and steady conduct.

Again it is urged, that the River Thames ship-builders are in a peculiarly unfortunate predicament; for while in other ports, such as Newcastle, Greenock, Sunderland, shipwrights receive only from 3s. 6d. to 4s. a-day, in the River Thames yards, a combination of workmen, which nothing can defeat, compels the payment to every man of them, whether good or bad, skilful or ignorant, old or young, industrious or lazy, of never less than 6s. a-day; that this compulsory law has been enforced for years, and that submit the builders must, for nothing can defeat it. It is further urged, that the Northern and Southern whaleoil fishing trade is taken from us by the industrious Americans, against whom we could no longer struggle with profit; that peace in India and China has dismissed transports,-stoppage to Australian emigration, the emigrant ships; the duty on coal (this of course is over) was detrimental, and the distress to which small ship-owners are reduced, having compelled them to accept unremunerating (credat!) freights, has of course deprived the wealthier of their fair profit.

Before we proceed any further with these complaints, we beg

at once to notice that of the evils to the shipping resulting from the combination of shipwrights in the River Thames to keep up their wages. The fact of the combination cannot be denied, still less that it enhances the price of ships there; but we are not so convinced that this ought without demur to be received as argument on behalf of the ship-owners, as they seem confident of its force. In the first place, if the ship-owners really are desirous of possessing economically-built good ships, though they affect to despise the Sunderland * yards, nevertheless their own evidence proves that Newcastle, Plymouth, Liverpool, Greenock build excellent ships of the class A. 1, at wages uninfluenced by the River Thames combination. But as to this combination itself. We cannot persuade ourselves to look upon it as the invincible agent it is reported to be. Mr. G. F. Young, indeed, himself a river builder, says, "That having been engaged in the shipping interest for nearly 25 years"-"that he had known two-thirds of the whole body of shipwrights in the port of London wholly unemployed, and in a state bordering on starvation, yet no change whatever has during the 25 years taken place in shipwright's labour. The rate of wages was 6s. a day in 1820, and the rate of wages is 6s. per diem now, and never has varied, and that, notwithstanding the most strenuous efforts made by ship-owners, who pay ultimately, and by ship-builders, who pay immediately, to reduce the wages of labour to what is considered a fair level with the cost of the men's subsistence ;" and Mr. Somes says"The great disadvantage of London is, we have the Union; some men can earn their 10s. a day, but you are compelled to take the inferior, who are not worth 10d. a day; and if you knock one of these men off, the whole of the men knock off; we have no chance of competing with the out-ports." But still, and notwithstanding all this, we are not yet convinced.

To say nothing of the practical futility of all attempts forcibly to put down combination for wages by workmen, there can be no doubt that in a free country, artificers of every sort and denomination have a right to unite in estimating their own labour as high as they choose, and to regulate it to what hours they choose. The repeal, in 1824, of the combination laws, was, in the strictest sense, consistent with state policy and public liberty. But then, there liberty to the workmen stops; they may combine, but they must take the chance and consequence of defeat. Equally have the masters a right to combine against them, and to regulate the wages they choose to give. We

* We beg to say that we are by no means among those who decry the Sunderland ships; for, to our certain knowledge, they can and do build ships there of the very first-rate excellence, and at reasonable prices. It is doubtless very true that being unemployed, they do also construct cheaper avowedly of less valuable materials, &c.

therefore say, let the builder bring to London workmen from the out-ports; an excellent example has been most successfully set them at the New Houses of Parliament by Messrs. Grissell and Peto, and we do of our own knowledge assert, that now, at this very moment that we are writing this article, there are at Plymouth, Glasgow, indeed at most of the out-ports, hundreds of excellent shipwrights, artificers with muscular strength, abilities, and character to qualify them for leading men of the gangs of the royal yards, into which nothing but over-supply of workmen there prevents their admission, who are now working for the pay of common country carpenters, and who would jump at the employ we suggest, and be found honest and trusty in it; and let the Thames builders remember that to a question on the subject of labour in 1803 by the Admiralty to the Thames builders, they replied, 46 shipwrights and one boy could build a 74-gun ship, viz., 1757 tons in a year. Then let the present builders resort to this source of labour. If the London unionists should feel disposed to interfere with the men imported from the out-ports, the same advice to them also is offered, viz., to remember that with the right to combine for themselves the liberty ceases; no man may lawfully dictate to another what terms he shall accept for his own labour; and that the history of the proceedings against the Bermondsey club, some of whose members found themselves in Maidstone gaol, should be a warning, to them. And should any illegal, unfair attempt be made to interrupt the imported men, then let the merchant-builders immediately apply to the government for aid, and most confidently may they rely, that the example which more than once Lord St. Vincent and Lord Melville set, of ordering the gangs from the royal yards to finish off the work contracted for by the public-spirited merchant-builder, would be promptly followed by the present Admiralty, to the utter discomfiture of such tyranny, and to the certain approbation of the country. But not "six weeks," nor six months only, must the merchant-builder stand out; for years, and as often as need be, must he be firm, and assuredly he will conquer, for the out-port supply of labour is superabundant.

Now we fear the river builders will consider us rather impudent for presuming to teach them the resources of their own trade; but as we happen to know that in America, when, during the war with Great Britain, shipwrights were scarce, but the spirit and energy of independence was fierce, some of their finest frigates were constructed by rough and hardly to be called carpenters, who used with their adze to dub down the timbers by a line, which the few shipwrights at hand, made "overlookers," had chalked out for them; and, as we also know, that under a somewhat very nearly similar guidance, the apprentice boys of Plymouth Dock-yard