"The French nation, however, deeming it unsafe to rest on any such frail contingency as voluntary enlistment, has wisely, as well as justly, decreed that her maritime districts and commercial marine shall be subject to thesame obligationto serve their country as the other classes of the community; and, accordingly, by the laws of France, every boy who goes to sea is required to register his name on the 'Inscription Marine.' After one year's probation, he enters into the class of 'Mousses' until he is sixteen, when he becomes a 'novice' or apprentice till eighteen, when he is classed as a marine or seaman, andhe is thenceforward at the service of the state till he is fifty years of age. Besides this, about 1/20 of the general conscription throughout the inland provinces are by law liable to serve in the navy. By the above arrangements, it appears that between the year 1835 and 1844, both inclusive, 55,517 seamen answered the calls of the annualLevée permanente, and, moreover, that very nearlythe wholeof the French merchant seamen, amounting altogether to upwards of 100,000 men, must have passed successively through the royal navy."Under this admirable system—which, while it flatters the passions, cultivates the mind, and comfortably provides for the sailor,—the French nation are prepared, by beat of drum, to march from their various quarters to their respective ships,compagnies permanentesof well-trained gunner seamen; and thus, at a moment's warning, even in time of peace, to complete the manning ofsixteen sail of the line."—Sir Francis Head, 184, 185.
"The French nation, however, deeming it unsafe to rest on any such frail contingency as voluntary enlistment, has wisely, as well as justly, decreed that her maritime districts and commercial marine shall be subject to thesame obligationto serve their country as the other classes of the community; and, accordingly, by the laws of France, every boy who goes to sea is required to register his name on the 'Inscription Marine.' After one year's probation, he enters into the class of 'Mousses' until he is sixteen, when he becomes a 'novice' or apprentice till eighteen, when he is classed as a marine or seaman, andhe is thenceforward at the service of the state till he is fifty years of age. Besides this, about 1/20 of the general conscription throughout the inland provinces are by law liable to serve in the navy. By the above arrangements, it appears that between the year 1835 and 1844, both inclusive, 55,517 seamen answered the calls of the annualLevée permanente, and, moreover, that very nearlythe wholeof the French merchant seamen, amounting altogether to upwards of 100,000 men, must have passed successively through the royal navy.
"Under this admirable system—which, while it flatters the passions, cultivates the mind, and comfortably provides for the sailor,—the French nation are prepared, by beat of drum, to march from their various quarters to their respective ships,compagnies permanentesof well-trained gunner seamen; and thus, at a moment's warning, even in time of peace, to complete the manning ofsixteen sail of the line."—Sir Francis Head, 184, 185.
It is no exaggeration, therefore, but the simple truth, to say, that France and Russia could, in ten days from the time that their respective ambassadors left London, appear with a fleet ofthirty ships of the line and forty frigates or war-steamers in the Channel, with which they could with ease blockade the Thames, Portsmouth, and Plymouth, where not more, at the very utmost, than eight or ten line-of-battle ships, and ten or twelve war-steamers, most of them only half manned, could be collected to oppose them. We have no doubt the crews of this diminutive fleet would do their duty as nobly as they did at the Nile and Trafalgar; but we shudder at the thought of the national blindness and infatuation which would expose them, and with them the existence of England as an independent nation, to such fearful odds.
In any such conflict, it is by the forces which cansuddenly be rendered availablethat everything will be determined. It may be quite true that England possesses resources in the vast extent of her mercantile navy and steam-vessels, and the undaunted character of her seamen, which, in anyprolongedcontest, would give her the same superiority which she maintained throughout the last war; but it is not the less true, that this contingent ultimate superiority would be of no avail to avert disaster—it maybe conquest—if the enemy, by having their forces better in hand, and availablein the outset, were in a situation to gain an advantage which could never be recovered from in the commencement. It is impossible to overestimate the shock to credit, and ruin to the best interests of the empire, which would arise from a blockade of our harbours even for a single fortnight. Of what would it avail us that we had six noble sail of the line, and double that number of war-steamers in the Mediterranean, and as many scattered through the world, from China to California, if the Thames, the Mersey, and the Clyde, were blockaded by hostile fleets, and Portsmouth and Plymouth could only furnish five or six half-manned line-of-battle ships to raise the blockade? Russia hasno colonies; France, next to none: thus the whole naval forces of both these Powers could be brought to bear, without deduction or defalcation of any sort, on Great Britain, more than half of whose navy is necessarily scattered over the globe. Our distant fleets would, in such a crisis, avail us as little as an army of pawns, with bishops and knights, would a chess-player who had received checkmate.
In the next place, these considerations become doubly powerful when it is recollected how very peculiar and tardy is the mode ofcollecting men, which alone is now thought of in the British navy. It is not generally known by landsmen—though hereafter they may come to know it to their cost—that in England at present there isneither any standing royal naval force, nor any compulsory means of levying it. By our great naval establishment and right of impressing seamen, we had, practically speaking, both during the war: but these days are past. The navy sailors are changed as ships come into harbour, and the right of impressment has virtually become obsolete. When a ship, after two or three years' service, comes into port, she is immediatelypaid off, and a new set of sailors, wholly ignorant of war, are slowly got together by the next captain who gets that or a corresponding ship; who in their turn, when they begin to become expert at their new duties, are displaced to make way for a third body of untrained men! What should we say to a manufacturer, a merchant, or a general, who should conduct things in this manner? Yet, such as it is, it is the system of the British navy. This subject, of vital importance, has been so well illustrated by two gallant naval officers, that we cannot do better than quote their admirable observations on it.
"A ship," says Admiral Bowles, "is required to relieve another for foreign service. She is selected, reported ready for commission, the captain and officers are appointed, and then volunteers are advertised for. They come in slowly and uncertainly. If the ship is a large one, the men will not enter until the heaviest part of the work of fitting is completed: the equipment proceeds slowly and carelessly, because energy and rapidity are impracticable; but even then, those who enter first feel they are unfairly worked, and the seeds of discontent and desertion are sown at the very commencement of their service."Three, or sometimes four, months thus pass away, before the ship's complement is complete; and, in the meanwhile, little progress is made in discipline or instruction. She at last sails for her destination, and relieves a ship which, having been three or four years on active service is, or ought to be, in a high state of efficiency; but on its arrival in England it is dismantled, the officers and crew are paid off and discharged, and we thus proceed, on the plan of perpetually creating and as perpetually destroying, what we have with so much labour and expense endeavoured to obtain—an effective ship of war."[8]
"A ship," says Admiral Bowles, "is required to relieve another for foreign service. She is selected, reported ready for commission, the captain and officers are appointed, and then volunteers are advertised for. They come in slowly and uncertainly. If the ship is a large one, the men will not enter until the heaviest part of the work of fitting is completed: the equipment proceeds slowly and carelessly, because energy and rapidity are impracticable; but even then, those who enter first feel they are unfairly worked, and the seeds of discontent and desertion are sown at the very commencement of their service.
"Three, or sometimes four, months thus pass away, before the ship's complement is complete; and, in the meanwhile, little progress is made in discipline or instruction. She at last sails for her destination, and relieves a ship which, having been three or four years on active service is, or ought to be, in a high state of efficiency; but on its arrival in England it is dismantled, the officers and crew are paid off and discharged, and we thus proceed, on the plan of perpetually creating and as perpetually destroying, what we have with so much labour and expense endeavoured to obtain—an effective ship of war."[8]
Captain Plunkett adds his valuable testimony to the same effect:—
"Voluntary enlistment may be considered entirely inapplicable to cases of emergency. There are no means of calculating how long ships would be manning, if, as would necessarily happen in cases of emergency, their crews were not increased by men recently paid off from other ships. In peace, there are usuallyas many shipspaid off as commissioned in a year; and thus the men who leave one ship join another. But, even with this aid,the average time occupied by general line-of-battle ships in completing their crews, we find to have been above five months. In 1835-6, when we commissioned several ships of line at once, they weresix months waiting for seamen, and were then very ill manned. We may safely suppose that, were ten sail of the line commissioned at this moment, and did circumstances not admit of paying others off, we should not see them manned in less thaneightmonths. We may therefore say that, for any case of emergency, simple volunteering will fail,as it always has failed. We may expedite the material fitting of a fleet; we may move ships about our harbours, put their masts in, and call them 'demonstration' or 'advance ships!' we may even fit them for sea—for the dockyard men can do all that—but, when fitted,there they must remainfor months waiting for seamen. Foreign powers are quite aware of this, for it is the duty of their consuls at our ports to inform their governments, and they must laugh at the demonstration by which John Bull plays a trick upon—Himself!"It is a matter of official avowal, and, we may add, of personal and painful recollection, that, in 1840, we were unable to collect a few hundred seamen to make a show of preparation.... When England was vainly trying to scrape together a few hundred seamen, France had (incompagnies permanentes) upwards of 3000 ready in the Atlantic ports, and probably not less at Toulon."It is a fact as surprising as it is discreditable to England, thatRussia could send thirty sail of the line to sea before England could send three."It is scarcely an exaggeration to say, we mightbuilda ship in the time required tomanone."
"Voluntary enlistment may be considered entirely inapplicable to cases of emergency. There are no means of calculating how long ships would be manning, if, as would necessarily happen in cases of emergency, their crews were not increased by men recently paid off from other ships. In peace, there are usuallyas many shipspaid off as commissioned in a year; and thus the men who leave one ship join another. But, even with this aid,the average time occupied by general line-of-battle ships in completing their crews, we find to have been above five months. In 1835-6, when we commissioned several ships of line at once, they weresix months waiting for seamen, and were then very ill manned. We may safely suppose that, were ten sail of the line commissioned at this moment, and did circumstances not admit of paying others off, we should not see them manned in less thaneightmonths. We may therefore say that, for any case of emergency, simple volunteering will fail,as it always has failed. We may expedite the material fitting of a fleet; we may move ships about our harbours, put their masts in, and call them 'demonstration' or 'advance ships!' we may even fit them for sea—for the dockyard men can do all that—but, when fitted,there they must remainfor months waiting for seamen. Foreign powers are quite aware of this, for it is the duty of their consuls at our ports to inform their governments, and they must laugh at the demonstration by which John Bull plays a trick upon—Himself!
"It is a matter of official avowal, and, we may add, of personal and painful recollection, that, in 1840, we were unable to collect a few hundred seamen to make a show of preparation.... When England was vainly trying to scrape together a few hundred seamen, France had (incompagnies permanentes) upwards of 3000 ready in the Atlantic ports, and probably not less at Toulon.
"It is a fact as surprising as it is discreditable to England, thatRussia could send thirty sail of the line to sea before England could send three.
"It is scarcely an exaggeration to say, we mightbuilda ship in the time required tomanone."
We add not a word of comment on these admirable passages. Further illustration were worse than useless, after such words coming from such quarters.
It is often said that all fears of invasion are ridiculous, after the failure of Napoleon, who had 130,000 of the finest troops in the world to effect it. TheTimes, with its usual ability, makes the most of this argument. We accept the challenge: and, if we are not much mistaken, that able journal will have no reason to congratulate itself on having referred to that period for support of its argument:—
1. The regular land forces of France at that period were 450,000 men: about the same as they are now. But now that Power has, in addition, 2,000,000 well-trained National Guards in arms, which, by rendering her territory wellnigh unassailable, leaves her whole regular force available for foreign expedition.
2. England had then 160,000 regular troops on foot, including 30,000 of the army of reserve, raised in the preceding years, of whom about 100,000 were in the British Islands. In 1808, the Duke of York reported to Government that, without detriment to any necessary home service, 60,000 regulars could be spared for the Peninsula; and in 1809 she had 80,000 in active warfare—viz., 40,000 at Walcheren, 30,000 in Spain, and 10,000 in Sicily.
3. In addition to this, she had 80,000 militia, quite equal to troops of the line, in Great Britain and Ireland, besides 300,000 volunteers in arms, tolerably drilled and full of spirit.
4. She had 83 ships of the line in commission, and 230 in all the royal dockyards, and 508 vessels of war bore the royal flag.
5. She had a system of impressment in active operation, which in effect gave the Admiralty the command, on an emergency, of the whole sailors in the mercantile navy of Great Britain, as they successively came into harbour: and the magnitude of the royal navy was such, and its attractions—especially the hopes of prize-money and glory—so powerful, that the sailors of the fleet were as much astanding forceas Napoleon's grenadiers.
6. Austria and Russia were then in close alliance, offensive and defensive, with Great Britain, and 80,000 Muscovites, under Kutusoff, were hastening through Poland and Moravia to join 90,000 Austrians, who were on the Inn, threatening to invade Bavaria.
7. So instant was the danger, and so pressing the approach of a contest with the two greatest military powers on the Continent, that Napoleon was obliged to count not only by weeks butby days; and he had only just time enough to close the war, as he himself said, by "a clap of thunder on the Thames,before he would be called on to combat for his existence on the Danube."
Such were the circumstances under which Napoleon then undertook his long meditated and deeply laid project for the invasion and conquest of Great Britain. His plan was to decoy Lord Nelson away to the West Indies by a feigned expedition of the combined Toulon and Cadiz fleets, and for them suddenly to return, join the Ferrol squadron, pick up those of Rochefort and l'Orient, unite with that of Brest, and with the united force, which would be sixty sail of the line, proceed into the Channel, where it was calculated there would only be twenty or twenty-five to oppose them; and, with this overwhelming force, cover the embarkation of the 130,000 men whom he had collected on the coast of the Channel. The plan was not original on the part of Napoleon, though he had the whole merit of the organisation of the stupendous armament which was to carry it into execution. The design was originally submitted, in 1782, by M. de Bouillé to Louis XVI., and Rodney's victory alone prevented it from being attempted at that time. France's designs in this respect are fixed and unalterable: they were the same under the mild and pacific Louis as the implacable Napoleon, and suggested as ably by the chivalrous and loyal-hearted de Bouillé, the author of the flight of the Royal family to Varennes, as by the regicide Talleyrand, or the republican Décrès.[9]
Such was Napoleon's plan, formed on that of M. de Bouillé; and, vast and complicated as it was, it all but succeeded. Indeed, its failure was owing to a combination of circumstances so extraordinary that they can never be expected to recur again; and even these are to be ascribed rather to the good providence of God, than to anything done by man to counteract it.
Nelson's fleet of ten line-of-battle ships pursued the combined fleet of twenty from Cadiz to the West Indies; but they had four weeks the start of him: and upon arriving there in the beginning of June, he received intelligence that they had set sail ten days before for Europe. Instantly divining their plan, he—without losing an hour—despatched several fast-sailing brigs to warn the Admiralty of their approach. One of these, theCurieux, which bore the fortunes of England on its sails, outstripped all its competitors, and even outsailed the combined fleet, so as to arrive at Portsmouth on the 9th July. Without losing an hour, the Admiralty sent orders by telegraph to Admiral Calder to join the Rochefort blockading squadron, and stand out to sea, in order to intercept the enemy on his return to the European seas. He did so; and with fifteen sail of the line met the combined fleet of twenty, on the 15th July: engaged them, took two ships of the line, and drove the fleet back into Ferrol; where, however, he was too weak to blockade them, as their junction with the squadron there raised their force to thirty ships of the line.
Though this was a severe check, it did not altogether disconcert Napoleon. He sent orders to Villeneuve to set sail from Ferrol, and join the Rochefort and Brest squadrons which were ready to receive him, and which would have raised the combined fleet to fifty-five line-of-battle ships, then to make straight for the Channel, where Napoleon, with one hundred and thirty thousand men, and fifteen hundred gun-boats and lesser craft, lay ready to embark. On the 21st August, the Brest squadron, consisting of twenty-one sail of the line, under Gantheaume, stood out to sea. Every eye was strained looking to the south, where Villeneuve with thirty-five line-of-battle ships, was expected to appear. What prevented the junction, and defeated this admirablylaid plan, which had thus obtained complete success so far as it had gone—for Nelson was still a long way off, his fleet having been wholly worn-out by their long voyage, and obliged to go into Gibraltar to refit? It was this: Villeneuve set sail from Ferrol with 29 sail of the line, on the 11th August, but instead of proceeding to the north—in conformity with his orders—to join Gantheaume off Brest,he steered for Cadiz, which he reached in safety on the 21st of August, the very day on which he had been expected at Brest, without meeting with Sir Robert Calder, who had fallen back into the Bay of Biscay. For this disobedience of orders, Napoleon afterwards brought Villeneuve to a court-martial, by which he was condemned.
This unaccountable disobedience of orders entirely defeated Napoleon's scheme, for Austria was now on, the verge of invading Bavaria. He accordingly at once changed his plan; and, as he could no longer hope for a naval superiority in the Channel, before the Austrian invasion took place, directed all his forces to repel the combined Austrian and Russian forces in Bavaria and Italy. On September 1, his whole army received orders to march from the heights of Boulogne to the banks of the Danube. On the 20th October, Mack defiled, with thirty thousand men as prisoners before him, on the heights of Ulm; and on the day after—October 21—Nelson defeated Villeneuve at Trafalgar, took nineteen ships of the line, and ruined seven more. Between that battle and the subsequent one of Sir R. Strachan, thirty ships of the line were taken or destroyed; all hope of invasion for the remainder of the war was at an end; and "ships, colonies, and commerce" had irrevocably passed to Napoleon's enemies.
Such was the extraordinary and apparently providential combination of circumstances which defeated this great plan of Napoleon for the invasion of this country—a plan which, he repeatedly said, was the best combined and most deeply laid of any he had ever formed in his life. Its failure was owing to accident, or some overruling cause which cannot be again relied on. Had theCurieuxnot made the shortest passage ever then known, from Antigua—twenty-four days; had Villeneuve reached the Channel unexpectedly on the 20th or 21st July, as he would have done but for its arrival—had he even sailed for Brest on the 11th August, as ordered,instead of to Cadiz, the invasion would in all human probability have taken place. What its result would have been is a very different question. With a hundred and eighty thousand regular troops and militia in arms in the British Islands, besides three hundred thousand volunteers, the conflict must at least have been a very desperate one. But what would it be now, when the French and Russians have greater land forces to invade us; when their naval superiority, at least in the outset of the contest, would be much more decisive; and, with a much more divided and discontented population at home, we could only—at the very utmost—oppose them with fifty thousand effective men in both islands, in the field.
It is often said by persons who know nothing of war, either by study or experience, that "if the French invaded us, we would all rise up and crush them." Setting aside what need not be said to any man who knows anything of the subject—the utter inadequacy of an unarmed, untrained, and undisciplined body of men, however individually brave, to repel the attack of a powerful regular army—we shall by one word settle this matter of the nation rising up. It would rise up, and we know what it would do. Themost influential part of it, at least in the towns, who now rule the state, would run away. We do not mean run away from the field; for, truly, very few of those who now raise the cry for economy and disarming would be found there. We mean they would counsel, and, in fact, insist on submission. Many brave men would doubtless be found in the towns, and multitudes in the country, who would be eager at the posts of danger; but the great bulk of the wealthy and influential classes, at least in the great cities, would loudly call out for an accommodation on any terms. They would surrenderthe fleets, dismantle Portsmouth and Plymouth, cede Gibraltar and Malta—anything to stop the crisis. They would do so for the same reason that they now so earnestly counsel disbanding the troops and selling the ships of the line, and under the influence of a much more cogent necessity—in order to be able to continue without interruption the making of money. Peace, peace! would be the universal cry, at least among the rich in the towns, as it was in Paris in 1814. There would be no thought of imitating the burning of Moscow, or renewing the sacrifice of Numantia. The feeling among the vast majority of the manufacturing and mercantile classes would be—"What is the use of fighting and prolonging so terrible a crisis? Our workmen are starving, our harbours are blockaded, our trade is gone, we are evidently overmatched; let us on any terms get out of the contest, and sit quietly on our cotton bags, to make money by weaving cloth for our conquerors."
We have said enough, we think, to make every thoughtful and impartial mind contemplate with the most serious disquietude the prospect which is before us, under our present system of cheapening everything, and, as a necessary consequence, reducing the national armaments to a pitiable degree of weakness in the midst of general hostility, and the greatest possible increase of available forces on the part of all our neighbours, rivals, and enemies. But let us suppose that we areentirely wrongin all we have hitherto advanced—that there is not the slightest danger of an invasion or blockade from foreign powers, or that our home forces are so considerable as to render any such attempt on their part utterly hopeless. There are three other circumstances, the direct effects of our present Free Trade policy, any one of which is fully adequate in no distant period to destroy our independence, and from the combined operation of which nothing but national subjugation and ultimate ruin can be anticipated.
The first is the extraordinary and appalling increase which, since Free Trade was introduced, has taken place in the proportion of the daily food of our population which is furnished byforeign states. Before the great change in our policy began, the nation had been rendered, practically speaking, self-supporting. The importation of wheat, for the five years from 1830 to 1835, was only 398,000 quarters; and even during the five bad years in succession, from 1836 to 1841, the average importation was only 1,700,000 quarters. From 1830 to 1840, the average importation of wheat and flour was only 907,000 quarters.[10]But since the great change of 1846, the state of matters has been so completely changed that it is now notorious that, in ordinary years, the importations cannot be expected to be ever less than 9,000,000 or 10,000,000 quarters of grain, about 5,000,000 quarters of which consists of wheat.[11]The importation in the single month of July last, in the face of prices about 42s. the quarter, was no less than 1,700,000 quarters of all sortsof grain;[12]and in the month ending November 5, with prices about 39s. 9d. the quarter of wheat, the importation was:—
—Price, 39s. 9d. quarter of wheat.
The average of prices for the last twelve weeks has been 39s. 9d. the quarter; but the importation goes on without the least diminution, and accordingly theMark Lane Expressof December 28, 1850, observes,—
"In the commencement of the year now about to terminate, an opinion was very prevalent that prices of grain (more especially those of wheat) had been somewhat unduly depressed; and it was then thought that, even with Free Trade, the value of the article would not for any lengthened period be kept down below the cost of production in this country. The experience of the last twelve months has, however, proved that this idea was erroneous; for, with a crop very much inferior to that of 1849, quotations have, on the whole, ruled lower, the average price for the kingdom for the year 1850 being only about 40s., whilst that for the preceding twelve months was 44s. 4d. per quarter. This fact is, we think, sufficientto convince all parties that, so long as the laws of import remain as they now stand, a higher range of prices than that we have had since our ports have been thrown open cannot be safely reckoned on. The experiment has now had two years' trial; the first was one in which a considerable failure of the potato crop took place in England and Ireland; and this season we have had a deficient harvest of almost all descriptions of grain over the whole of Great Britain. If, under these circumstances, foreign growers have found no difficulty in furnishing supplies so extensive as to keep down prices here at a point at which farmers have been unable to obtain a fair return for their industry and interest for the capital employed, we can hardly calculate on more remunerating rates during fair average seasons. Under certain combinations of circumstances prices may, perhaps, at times be somewhat higher; but viewing the matter on the broad principle, we feel satisfied that, with Free Trade, the producers of wheat will rarely receive equal to 5s. per bushel for their crop."
"In the commencement of the year now about to terminate, an opinion was very prevalent that prices of grain (more especially those of wheat) had been somewhat unduly depressed; and it was then thought that, even with Free Trade, the value of the article would not for any lengthened period be kept down below the cost of production in this country. The experience of the last twelve months has, however, proved that this idea was erroneous; for, with a crop very much inferior to that of 1849, quotations have, on the whole, ruled lower, the average price for the kingdom for the year 1850 being only about 40s., whilst that for the preceding twelve months was 44s. 4d. per quarter. This fact is, we think, sufficientto convince all parties that, so long as the laws of import remain as they now stand, a higher range of prices than that we have had since our ports have been thrown open cannot be safely reckoned on. The experiment has now had two years' trial; the first was one in which a considerable failure of the potato crop took place in England and Ireland; and this season we have had a deficient harvest of almost all descriptions of grain over the whole of Great Britain. If, under these circumstances, foreign growers have found no difficulty in furnishing supplies so extensive as to keep down prices here at a point at which farmers have been unable to obtain a fair return for their industry and interest for the capital employed, we can hardly calculate on more remunerating rates during fair average seasons. Under certain combinations of circumstances prices may, perhaps, at times be somewhat higher; but viewing the matter on the broad principle, we feel satisfied that, with Free Trade, the producers of wheat will rarely receive equal to 5s. per bushel for their crop."
Accordingly, so notorious has this fact become, and so familiar have the public become with it, that it has become a common-place remark, which is making the round of all the newspapers without exciting any attention, that the food of 7,000,000 of our people has come to depend on supplies from foreign countries. In fact a much larger proportion than this, of the wheaten food of the country, comes from abroad; for the total wheat consumed in Great Britain and Ireland is under 15,000,000 quarters, and the importation of wheat is from 4,000,000 to 5,000,000 quarters, which is about a third. And of the correspondingdecreasein our own production of grain, a decisive proof has been afforded by the decline since 1846 in wheat grown in Ireland, the only part of the empire where such returns are made, which has stood thus:—
Now, assuming—as experience warrants us in doing—this state of matters to be permanent, and the growth of wheat in the British Islands to be progressively superseded by importations from abroad, how is thenational independenceto be maintained, when afourth of our peoplehave come to depend on foreign supplies for theirdaily food? Nearly all this grain, be it recollected, comes from two countries only—Russia, or Poland which it governs, and America. If these two powers are desirous of beating down the naval superiority, or ruining the commerce and manufactures of Great Britain, they need not fit out a ship of the line, or embark a battalion to effect their purpose; they have only to pass aNon-Intercourse Act, as they both did in 1811, and wheat will at once rise to 120s. the quarter in this country; and in three months we must haul down our colours, and submit to any terms they may choose to dictate.
In another respect our state of dependence is still greater, for we rest almost entirely on the supplies obtained from asinglestate. No one need be told that five-sixths, often nine-tenths, of the supply of cotton consumed in our manufactures come from America, and that seven or eight hundred thousand persons are directly or indirectly employed in the operations which take place upon it. Suppose America wishes to bully us, to make us abandon Canada or Jamaica for example, she has no need to go to war. She has only to stop the export of cotton for six months, and the whole of our manufacturing counties are starving or in rebellion; while atemporarycessation of profit is the only inconvenience they experience on the other side of the Atlantic. Can we call ourselves independent in such circumstances? We might have been independent: Jamaica, Demerara, and India,mighthave furnished cotton enough for all our wants. Why, then, do they not do so? The mania of cheapening everything has done it all. We have ruined the West Indies by emancipating the negroes, and then admitting foreign sugar all but on the same terms as our own, and therefore cotton cannot be raised to a profit in those rich islands—forcontinuouslabour, of which the emancipated negroes are incapable, is indispensable to its production. In the East Indies, the cultivation of cotton has not been able to make any material progress, because the mania of Free Trade lets in American cotton, grown at half the expense, without protection. We have sold our independence, not like Esau, for a mess of pottage, but for a bale of cotton.
In the next place, the progressive and rapid decrease in our shipping, and increase of the foreign employed in carrying on our trade, since the Navigation Laws were repealed, is so great that from that quarter also the utmost danger to our independence may be anticipated. We need not remind our readers how often and earnestly we have predicted that this effect must take place; and we shall now proceed to show how completely, to the very letter, these prognostics have been verified:—
The shipping returns of the Board of Trade, for the month ending the 5th of November, present the following results:—
Tonnage for the month ending Nov. 5.
—Times, Dec. 7, 1850.
The general results for the ten months, from January 1, 1850, when the repeal of the Navigation Laws took effect, to October 31, are as follows, and have been thus admirably stated by Mr Young:—
"In the year 1840, the total amount of tonnage entered inwards, in the foreign trade of the United Kingdom, was 4,105,207 tons, of which 2,307,367 were British, and 1,297,840 foreign. In 1845, the British tonnage had advanced to 3,669,853, and the foreign to 1,353,735, making an aggregate of 5,023,588 tons. In 1849, the British entries were 4,390,375, the foreign 1,680,894—together 6,071,269 tons. Thus, in ten years, with a growing commerce, but under protection, British tonnage had progressively increased 1,583,008 tons, or 56-1/3 per cent.; and foreign 383,054 tons, or 29½ per cent. Atthis point, protection was withdrawn. Free navigation has now been ten months in operation, and the following is the result:—"The aggregate inward entries during the ten months ended the 5th of November 1849, were 5,081,592 tons, of which 3,651,589 were British, and 1,430,003 foreign. During the corresponding ten months ending the 5th of November of the present year, the aggregate entries are 5,114,064 tons, the British being 3,365,033, and the foreign 1,749,031. Thus, comparing the first ten months after the repeal of the Navigation Laws with the corresponding ten months of the preceding year, when those laws were in operation, we find that British tonnagehas decreased within this brief period no less than 286,556, or 8-1/10 per cent, while foreign tonnage has increased to the enormous extent of 319,028 tons, or 22-3/10 per cent, the whole entries having advanced only 32,472 tons—thus showing that our maritime commerce has not been augmented in any appreciable degree by the alteration, but that it has simply changed hands. The foreigner has taken what we have madly surrendered. I may add, that never was the state, and never were the prospects, of shipowners so gloomy. Freights in all parts of the world are unprecedentedly low, and, for the first time within my recollection, ships are actually returning from the British West Indies in ballast."Could I regard the whole subject with less of humiliating apprehension for my country, I might derive satisfaction from the confirmation of many predictions on which I have formerly ventured, afforded by an analysis of the return from which the melancholy result I have exhibited is taken. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Prussia, and Germany—countries whose rivalry you have repeatedly derided as undeserving of attention—have increased in the ten months from 502,454 tons to 796,200 tons, or 58-4/10 per cent. But I forbear. While all Europe bristles with bayonets, the loom and the spindle seem to be regarded as the chosen defences of this now the most unwarlike nation on the face of the earth. Wellington, and Ellesmere, and Napier have in vain essayed to arouse England to solicitude for her national defences; and till some imminently impending alarm shall awaken my countrymen to a sense of the insecurity in which they are unconsciously reposing, I almost dread they will accept the unworthy advice recently tendered to them by the unadorned oracle of Free Trade, to run every risk rather than incur any expense. It is thus that, under the illusory expectation of the most infinitesimally minute reduction in the freight of imported commodities, the hazard of leaving our navy unmanned is overlooked or disregarded."
"In the year 1840, the total amount of tonnage entered inwards, in the foreign trade of the United Kingdom, was 4,105,207 tons, of which 2,307,367 were British, and 1,297,840 foreign. In 1845, the British tonnage had advanced to 3,669,853, and the foreign to 1,353,735, making an aggregate of 5,023,588 tons. In 1849, the British entries were 4,390,375, the foreign 1,680,894—together 6,071,269 tons. Thus, in ten years, with a growing commerce, but under protection, British tonnage had progressively increased 1,583,008 tons, or 56-1/3 per cent.; and foreign 383,054 tons, or 29½ per cent. Atthis point, protection was withdrawn. Free navigation has now been ten months in operation, and the following is the result:—
"The aggregate inward entries during the ten months ended the 5th of November 1849, were 5,081,592 tons, of which 3,651,589 were British, and 1,430,003 foreign. During the corresponding ten months ending the 5th of November of the present year, the aggregate entries are 5,114,064 tons, the British being 3,365,033, and the foreign 1,749,031. Thus, comparing the first ten months after the repeal of the Navigation Laws with the corresponding ten months of the preceding year, when those laws were in operation, we find that British tonnagehas decreased within this brief period no less than 286,556, or 8-1/10 per cent, while foreign tonnage has increased to the enormous extent of 319,028 tons, or 22-3/10 per cent, the whole entries having advanced only 32,472 tons—thus showing that our maritime commerce has not been augmented in any appreciable degree by the alteration, but that it has simply changed hands. The foreigner has taken what we have madly surrendered. I may add, that never was the state, and never were the prospects, of shipowners so gloomy. Freights in all parts of the world are unprecedentedly low, and, for the first time within my recollection, ships are actually returning from the British West Indies in ballast.
"Could I regard the whole subject with less of humiliating apprehension for my country, I might derive satisfaction from the confirmation of many predictions on which I have formerly ventured, afforded by an analysis of the return from which the melancholy result I have exhibited is taken. Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Prussia, and Germany—countries whose rivalry you have repeatedly derided as undeserving of attention—have increased in the ten months from 502,454 tons to 796,200 tons, or 58-4/10 per cent. But I forbear. While all Europe bristles with bayonets, the loom and the spindle seem to be regarded as the chosen defences of this now the most unwarlike nation on the face of the earth. Wellington, and Ellesmere, and Napier have in vain essayed to arouse England to solicitude for her national defences; and till some imminently impending alarm shall awaken my countrymen to a sense of the insecurity in which they are unconsciously reposing, I almost dread they will accept the unworthy advice recently tendered to them by the unadorned oracle of Free Trade, to run every risk rather than incur any expense. It is thus that, under the illusory expectation of the most infinitesimally minute reduction in the freight of imported commodities, the hazard of leaving our navy unmanned is overlooked or disregarded."
In the single harbour of Liverpool, the decrease of British shipping, in the year 1850, has beenno less than100,000tons; while the foreign has swelled from 56,400 to 126,700.[14]If such has been the result in less than one year, what may be anticipated if the system continues three or four years longer? It is quite evident that the foreign tonnage employed in conducting our trade will come to exceed the British, and then, of course, our independence and maritime superiority are alike at an end.
The Free-Traders, in answer to this appalling statement, say that the entries outward exhibit a different and less unfavourable result. Without referring to the authority of Mr Huskisson, who stated what is well-known to all men practically engaged with the subject, that the outward entries afford no correct data for judging of trade returns, it may be sufficient to remark that the difference is mainly owing, in the present instance, to the prodigious multitude of ouremigrantsto America, the shipping employed in conveying whom is estimated at 240,000 tons. The Free-Traders first, by their final measures, drive some 300,000 of our industrious inhabitants out of the country annually, in quest of the employment which they have lost at home, and then they rest on the tonnage required to convey them away, in order to conceal the effect of Free Trade in shipping on our mercantile marine! They are welcome to the whole benefit which they can derive from the double effect of Free Trade, first on our people, and then on our shipping.
These considerations become the more forcible when it is considered, in the third place, what immediate and imminent risk there is that either our principal colonies will ere long declare themselves independent, or thatthey will be abandoned without a struggle by our Free-Trade rulers. Now, the tonnage between Great Britain and Canada is about 1,200,000 tons, and to the West Indies somewhat above 170,000. Fourteen hundred thousand British tons are taken up with our trade to thesetwo colonies alone; and if they become independent states, that tonnage will, to the extent of more than a half, slip from our grasp—as they have the materials of shipbuilding at their door, which we have not. Eight or nine hundred thousand tons will by that change at once be severed from the British Empire and added to the foreign tonnage employed in carrying on our trade, which is now about 2,200,000 tons. That will raise it to above 3,000,000 tons, or fully a half of our whole tonnage, foreign and British—which is, in round numbers, about 6,000,000 tons. The intention of Government to abandon our colonies to themselves has been now openly announced. Earl Grey's declaration of his resolution to withdraw all our troops, except a mere handful, from Australia, is obviously the first step in the general abandonment of the colonies to their own resources, and, of course, their speedy disjunction from the British Empire. As the separation of Canada and the West Indies is an event which may ere long be looked for—not less from the universal discontents of the colonies, who have lost by Free Trade their only interest in upholding the connection with the British Empire, than from the growing disinclination of our Free Trade rulers to continue much longer the burdens and expense consequent on their government—it is evident that, the moment it happens, the foreign ships employed in carrying on our trade will outnumber the British. From that moment the nursery for our seamen, and with it the means of maintaining our maritime superiority and national independence, are at an end. And as this separation will, to all human appearance, take place the moment that we are involved in a European war—which, with the aggressive policy of our Foreign Minister, may any day be looked for—this is perhaps the most immediate and threatening danger which menaces the British Empire.
When the magnitude and variety of the perils which Free Trade and the cheapening system have brought upon the British empire are taken into consideration, it may appear extraordinary that the foreign powers,who are perfectly aware of it all, do not at once step forward and secure for themselves the rich prize which we so invitingly tender to their grasp. But the reason is not difficult to be discerned. They know what England once was, and they see whither, under the new system, she is tending. They anticipate our subjugation, or at least our abrogation of the rank and pretensions of an independent power, at no distant period, from our own acts, without their interfering in the matter at all. They are fearful, if they move too soon, of committing the same fault which the Pope has recently done, on the suggestion of Cardinal Wiseman. They are afraid of opening the eyes of the nation, by any overt act, to the dangers accumulating around them, before it is so thoroughly debilitated by the new system that any resistance would be hopeless, and therefore will never be attempted. They hope, and with reason, to see us ruined and cast down by our own acts, without their firing a shot. Their feeling is analogous to Napoleon's on the morning of the battle of Austerlitz, when the Allies were making their fatal cross-march in front of the heads of his columns, and exposing their flank to his attack. When urged by his generals to give the signal for an immediate advance, he replied—"Wait! when the enemy is making a false movement, which will prove fatal if continued, it is not our part to interrupt him in it."
What, then, is the advantage which the Free-Traders have to set off against these obvious and appalling dangers, past, present, and to come, with which their policy is attended? It is this, and this only—that the manufacturing towns are prosperous, and that our exports are increasing. They point with exultation to the following statement:—
"The aggregate value of our exports, during the first ten months of the present year, has been L.55,038,206, against L.49,398,648 in the like period of 1849,showing an increase of L.5,639,558, which has occurred in the following order:Month endingIncrease.Decrease.££February5,858,285—March5,556,746—April5,418,089—May5,1,398,232—June5,1,604,623—July5,427,090—August5,—334,858Sept.5,—279,961Oct.10,807,742—Nov.5,183,570——Times, Nov. 10."
"The aggregate value of our exports, during the first ten months of the present year, has been L.55,038,206, against L.49,398,648 in the like period of 1849,showing an increase of L.5,639,558, which has occurred in the following order:
—Times, Nov. 10."
Now, let it be supposed that this increase, which will amount to less than L.7,000,000 in our exports in the whole year, is all to be set down to the credit of Free Trade. Let us suppose that Californian gold, which has given so unparalleled a stimulus to America, and the lowering the discounts of the Bank of England to 2½ per cent—which has done so much, as it always does, to vivify industry and raise prices at home—and the pacification of Germany by Muscovite influences or bayonets, which have again, after the lapse of two years, opened the Continental markets to our produce, have had nothing at all to do with this increase in our exports,—what, after all, does it amount to, and what, on striking the balance of profit and loss of Free Trade, has the nation lost or gained by its adoption?
It has increased our exports by L.7,000,000 at the very utmost; and as the total produce of our manufactures is about L.180,000,000, this is an addition ofa twenty-fifth part. It has made four or five hundred thousand persons employed in the export manufactures prosperous for the time, and increased, by five or six hundred thousand pounds in the last year, the incomes of some eighty or a hundred mill-owners or millionnaires.
Per contra.1. It has lowered the value of agricultural produce of every kind fully twenty-five per cent, and that in the face of a harvest very deficient in the south of England. As the value of that produce, prior to the Free-Trade changes, was about L.300,000,000 a-year, it hascut L.75,000,000 off the remuneration for agricultural industry over the two islands.
2. It has cut as much off the funds available to the purchase of articles of our manufacture in the home market; for if the land, which pays above half the income tax, is impoverished, how are the purchasers at home to find funds to buy goods?
3. It has totally destroyed the West Indies—colonies which, before the new system began, raised produce to the value of L.22,000,000, and remitted at least L.5,000,000 annually, in the shape of rent, profits, and taxes, to this country.
4. It has induced such ruin in Ireland, that the annual emigration, which chiefly comes from that agricultural country, last year (1849) reached 300,000 souls, and this year, it is understood, will be still greater.[15]This is as great a chasm in our population as the Moscow retreat, or the Leipsic campaign, made in that of France; but it excites no sort of attention, or rather the pressure of unemployed labour is felt to be so excessive, that it is looked on rather as a blessing. TheTimesobserves, on January 1, 1851:—
"We see the population of Ireland flowing off to the United States in one continuous and unfailing stream, at a rate that in twenty years, if uninterrupted,will reduce them to a third of their present numbers. We see at the same time an increasing emigration from this island. England has so long been accustomed to regard excess of population as the only danger, that she will be slow to weigh as seriously as perhaps she oughtthis rapid subtraction of her sinew and bone, and consequent diminution of physical strength. It is impossible, however, that so considerable a change should be attended with unmixed advantage, or that human forethought should be able to compass all the results. The census of next spring may invite attention to a subject, the very magnitude of which may soon command our anxiety."
"We see the population of Ireland flowing off to the United States in one continuous and unfailing stream, at a rate that in twenty years, if uninterrupted,will reduce them to a third of their present numbers. We see at the same time an increasing emigration from this island. England has so long been accustomed to regard excess of population as the only danger, that she will be slow to weigh as seriously as perhaps she oughtthis rapid subtraction of her sinew and bone, and consequent diminution of physical strength. It is impossible, however, that so considerable a change should be attended with unmixed advantage, or that human forethought should be able to compass all the results. The census of next spring may invite attention to a subject, the very magnitude of which may soon command our anxiety."
5. It has totally ruined the West Highlands of Scotland, which dependon two staples—kelp and black cattle—the first of which has been destroyed by free trade in barilla, and the second ruined by free trade in cattle, for the benefit of our manufacturing towns, and sent their cottars in starving bands to Glasgow, already overwhelmed by above L.100,000 a-year of poor-rates.
6. It has so seriously affected the internal resources of the country, that, with a foreign trade prosperous beyond what has been seen since 1845, the revenue is only L.165,000 more than it was in the preceding year, which was one of great depression; and the last quarter has produced L.110,000 less than the corresponding quarter of 1849.
7. It has so lowered theincomesof people in the country, that although the number of travellers by railways has greatly increased, and the total receipts of the lines have been swelled by L.1,700,000 since last year, the mileagehas decreased-proving, that thegeneraltraffic of the country bears no adequate proportion to its railway lines. It stands thus,—
—Times.
which is afallof L.55 a mile in the midst of our boasted prosperous export trade.
Such are theadvantages, in consideration of which the nation has embarked on a course of policy which so evidently, and in so many ways, threatens our independence. It is class government which has done it all—the determination to make the sovereign worth two sovereigns, and a day's labour to the poor man worth one shilling to him instead of two, which has induced dangers in every quarter, which threaten the existence of Great Britain. Why is it that we are constrained—though Government are perfectly aware of the danger, and the Duke of Wellington has repeatedly pointed it out—to have a military and naval force evidently incommensurate to the wants of our vast empire, and unable to defend it from the hostility which our foreign policy does so much to provoke? Simply because we have surrendered the government of the country to a moneyed oligarchy, who are resolved,coute qui coute, to cheapen everything, because it enhances the value of their realised wealth, and because the measures of that oligarchy have cut down Queen Victoria's income from £100,000,000—as it might have been, andis now, in real weight upon the country[16]—to £50,000,000; just as they have reduced the income of the poor needlewomen from 9d. a-day to 4-1/2d. Why is it that we are constrained, openly and avowedly, to abandon our colonies to their own resources? Only because the cheapening system and Free Trade have so paralysed and weakened our resources, that, like the Romans, if we would protect at all the heart of the empire, we must forthwith abandon its extremities.
Why are we evidently and undeniably losing the empire of the seas, by the rapid and portentous increase of the foreign and decline of the English shipping, in carrying on our own trade? Only because freights must, it is thought, be cheapened as well as everything else; and the independence of the country is a trifling consideration to a fall of a farthing in the pound, in the transport of some articles, for the benefit of the Manchester trader. Why are the West Indies utterly ruined, and the annual importation of slaves into Cuba and Brazil doubled,[17]and discontent so universally spread through our colonies, that beyond all doubt, in the first reverse, they will break off from the mother country, if not previously thrown off by it? Merely to carry out the dogma of Free Trade, and lower sugar, watered by the blood of the slaves, a penny or twopence a poundto the British consumer. Why have we brought 7,000,000 of our people, in three years, to depend for their daily food on foreign supplies, and put ourselves entirely at the mercy of thetwo statesfrom which nearly all that food comes? Only to enrich the Manchester manufacturers, and appease the cry for cheap bread, by enabling them to beat down the wages of labour from 1s. 6d. to 1s. a-day. Why are poor-rates—measured in the true way, by quarters of grain—heavier in this year of boasted prosperity than they were in any former year of admitted adversity? Because, in every department of industry, we have beat down native by letting in a flood of foreign industry. Why are 300,000 industrious citizens annually driven into exile, and Ireland threatened with a depopulation the most rapid and extraordinary which has been witnessed in the world since the declining days of the Roman empire? Because we would lower wheat from 56s. to 39s. a quarter; and thereby we have extinguished the profits of cultivation in a portion of our empire containing 8,000,000 of inhabitants, but so exclusively agricultural that its exports of manufactures are only £230,000 a-year. It is one principle—the cheapening system—devised by the moneyed and manufacturing oligarchy, and calculated for their exclusive benefit, which has done the whole.
Is there, then, no remedy for these various, accumulating, and most threatening evils? Must we sit down with our hands across, supinely witnessing the progressive dangers and certain ultimate destruction of the empire, merely because the measures inducing all these perils are supported by the moneyed and manufacturing oligarchy who have got the command of the House of Commons? We are far from thinking that this is the case; but if we would avert, or even mitigate our dangers, we must set ourselves first to remedy the most pressing. Of these, the most serious, beyond all question, are to be found in our unprotected state,—for they may destroy us as a nation in a month, after some fresh freak of Lord Palmerston's has embroiled us with some of the great European powers. In regard to other matters, and the general commercial policy, the danger, though not the less real, is not so immediate, and experience may perhaps enlighten the country before it is too late. But it is otherwise with our external dangers: they are instant and terrible. The means of resisting them are perfectly simple—they will be felt as a burden by none; on the contrary, they are calculated, at the same time that they provide for our national defence, to mitigate the greater part of the domestic evils under which the people labour.
Government tell us that they have a surplus of L.3,000,000 this year in their hands. We hope it is so, and that it will not prove, like other surpluses, greater on paper than in reality. But let it be assumed that it is as large as is represented.That surplus, judiciously applied, would save the country!It would raise our armaments to such a point as, with the advantages of our insular situation, and long-established warlike fame, would prevent all thoughts of invasion on the part of our enemies. It would give us 100,000 regular troops, with those we already have—100,000 militia, occasionally called out—and 25 ships of the line, with those already in commission, to defend the British shores. It is true, the continuance of the Income Tax cannot be relied on—nor should the country submit to it any longer; for a tax which is paid exclusively by 147,000 persons out of 28,000,000, is so obviously unjust, that its further retention is probably impossible. Additional direct taxation upon the affluent classes is obviously out of the question, for the chasms made in the incomes of those depending on land, who pay three-fourths of it, are such that it would prove totally unproductive. What, then, is to be done to uphold the public revenue at its present amount, or even prevent its sinking so as to increase instead of diminishing our helpless and unprotected state? An obvious expedient remains. Imitate the conduct of America and Prussia, France and Russia, and all countries who have any regard either to their national independence, or the social welfare of their inhabitants. Lay a moderate duty upon all importations, whether of rude or manufactured articles. In America it is 30 per cent, and constitutes nearly their sole source of revenue: in Prussia it is practically 40 or 50 per cent. By this means nearlyhalf the tax is paid by foreigners—for competition forces them to sell the articles taxed cheaper than their ordinary price, with the addition of the tax. It is spread over so vast a surface among consumers, that its weight is not felt; being mixed up with the price of the article sold, its weight is not perceived. We pay in this way half the taxes of America, Germany, and all the countries to whom we chiefly export our manufactures. Let us return them the compliment, and adopt a system which will make them pay the half of ours. The whole, or nearly the whole, of the Income Tax, which now produces L.5,400,000 a-year, would by this change be spent in increased purchases in the home market, and sensibly relieve its sinking state. This change would at once obviate our external dangers—for it would enable Government, without sensibly burdening the country, to maintain the national armaments on such a scale as to bid defiance to foreign attack. We shall see in our succeeding paper whether it would not, at the same time, be an effectual remedy, and the only one that would be practicable, to the most serious part of our domestic evils.