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CHAPTER XIII.

Scarcity of shipping at the commencement of the Crimean WarRepeal of the manning clause-Government refuses to issue letters of marque-Great increase of ship-building and high freightsReaction-Transport service (notes)—Depression in the United States-The Great Republic-Disastrous years of 1857 and 1858Many banks stop payment-Shipowners' Society still attribute their disasters to the repeal of the Navigation Laws-Meeting of Shipowners, December 15th, 1858-Their proposal-Resolution moved by Mr. G. F. Young-Mr. Lindsay moves for Committee of InquiryWell-drawn petition of the Shipowners-Foreign governments and the amount of their reciprocity-French trade-Spanish tradePortuguese trade-Belgian trade-British ships in French and Spanish ports-Coasting trade - Non-reciprocating countries— Presumed advantage of the Panama route-Question discussed— Was the depression due to the withdrawal of Protection?-Board of Trade report and returns-English and foreign tonnage-Sailing vessels and steamers in home and foreign trades-Shipping accounts, 1858-Foreign and Colonial trades-Probable causes of the depression in England and America-American jealousy and competition -Inconclusive reasoning of Board of Trade-Government proposes to remove burdens on British shipping-Compulsory reciprocity no longer obtainable-Real value of the Coasting trade of the United States-Magnanimity of England in throwing open her Coasting trade unconditionally not appreciated by the Americans.

Scarcity of THE spring of 1852 ushered in the dawn of brighter days for the disconsolate and "ruined" British shipowner: he could then, at least, obtain, with prudent management, a moderate remuneration on his capital, Crimean but there was no actual scarcity of tonnage until 1854.

commencement of

the

War.

Freights, as we have seen, had no doubt materially risen in the interval, because we had hesitated to increase the number of our ships, while foreigners, with the exception of the Americans, had refrained from rushing into the trade we had opened for them to the alarming extent anticipated. Consequently, there was, hardly, tonnage enough to meet the requirements of commerce created by the abolition of our Navigation Laws, still less to satisfy the sudden demands which arose when, in March 1854, England and France declared war against Russia. Suitable vessels could not then be found in sufficient numbers to send forth, with the requisite despatch, the allied armies and their supplies to the scene of action; nor, I must add, could British seamen be obtained to man with expedition our ships of war. Govern- Repeal of ment, therefore, threw open our Coasting trade, and ning repealed the once famous manning clause, which, however, neither increased, on the average, the number of foreigners we had hitherto been allowed to employ in our ships, nor deteriorated the number and quality of British seamen, though aiding, at the time, the more expeditious equipment of our fleets.

the man

clause.

But a much more important step affecting the interests of maritime commerce and the progress of mankind was taken in 1854. On the declaration of that unfortunate war, her Majesty in Council, in order to preserve the commerce of neutrals from unnecessary obstruction, waived the belligerent rights Governappertaining to the Crown by the law of nations, by declining to issue letters of marque or by confiscating letters of neutral property on board of Russian ships, or neutral marque. ships with Russian property on board, provided such

VOL. III.

2 A

ment re

issue

Great increase of

ing and

high freights.

goods were not contraband of war. She, however, reserved the right of blockade; a reservation by which I may remind my readers, her Majesty's subjects were, commercially, by far the greatest sufferers.1

The extraordinary demands for shipping on the ship-build-outbreak of war led to their production with still more extraordinary rapidity, and furnished, at the same time, the most convincing proofs that we had within ourselves resources far beyond all other nations for meeting the emergency of war, without the necessity of keeping up a large and expensive standing navy, especially as such a navy must always be in a state of transition. The high rates of freight then offered for transports, ranging from 20s. to 30s. a register-ton per month for sailing vessels, and from 35s. to 65s. per gross register-ton for steamers, produced not merely all the vessels required for our own transport service,3 but, also, for the wants of France, whose armies without our aid could not have been conveyed to the Crimea."

1 See ante, vol. ii. note, page 312.

2 Timber freights from Quebec rose from 30s. per load, the ordinary rate, to 55s. Coal freights to Constantinople advanced from 207, to 707. per keel of twenty-one tons four cwt.; and freights from India, which had previously ranged from 50s. to 80s., ran up as high as 180s. per ton.

3 The new law of admeasurement, which came into operation on the 1st of January, 1855, while it produced great improvement in the models of our ships, had the important advantage of creating very little difference in the gross tonnage of the Empire, on which so many dues are levied, and thus rendered unnecessary any change in the longestablished scale of charges, which in many cases would have been altogether impracticable. For instance, 1100 vessels, large and small, which were taken promiscuously, measuring under the old law 248,842 tons, were found under the new law to measure 231,277 tons, showing a difference of only 7 per cent.

4 My own firm had somewhere about 100,000 tons of shipping (a large proportion of which consisted of steam-vessels) under our management

With such rapidity, indeed, were sailing ships produced, that the supply not merely soon overtook, but greatly exceeded the demand; the consequence, of course, being a great reaction in prices. Steamvessels, in the construction of which there had been a large amount of speculation, likewise felt ere long the depression, and before the close of 1855 the rates for these had fallen to 40s. and 35s. per ton per month the surplus steamers, however, found their way, in the end, to the advantage of all concerned, into trades formerly carried on by sailing vessels.

Although the Russian war had created at first an Reaction.

engaged as transports for the Government of France. It was then that I for the first time met the Emperor. I had occasion to visit Marseilles with regard to the fitting of some of these ships, and, on my return to Paris, I had an interview with Marshal Vaillant, the then Minister of War, which led to an audience with his Majesty. I daresay the Emperor had sent for me to confirm, or otherwise, certain calculations of his own which he had been making as to the number of ships requisite to transport a given number of men, and so forth; for, after a long audience, I remarked at parting, "Sire, you had no need to send for me, as you know more about ships and their capacity than I do." The fact is, he was thoroughly master of the subject, and could tell me to a man the number of troops to be placed on a given ship, and to an animal the number of horses a ship of 1000 tons could or should carry from Marseilles to Kaemish; the space required for each, and for their fodder and water, the height of deck requisite to allow for the toss of the head; and the important, but not generally known fact, that though a horse must feel its own weight on its own legs at sea, it must also be slung, for if it lie down the chances are that it will not be able to get up again. At least, if the Emperor did not know all about these things when I entered the Tuileries, he was the most apt scholar I ever met, for he knew all about them before I left. I mention this circumstance because this audience, subsequently, enabled me to render some assistance in a matter of far greater importance to both France and England and to mankind, to which I shall hereafter refer, viz.: the change in the French navigation laws, which is more to the purpose of this work, than the transport of troops and horses to a field of slaughter.

unusual demand for vessels of every description, and had given an extraordinary impulse to ship-building, prudent shipowners soon foresaw that so sudden a rush of prosperity could not long endure without as sudden a revulsion, and "that it was fallacious to suppose that the same demand would continue even while the war lasted."

Nor was it less apparent that the number of vessels engaged by Government exceeded what was actually required for the prosecution of the war, and that, if hostilities continued, the number would be materially reduced as soon as something like an organised system had been established. Such, indeed, proved

1 Annual circular of W. S. Lindsay & Co. for 1854, quoted in Tooke's 'History of Prices.'

2 When war was declared, the greater portion of the work of engaging transports devolved upon the Civil Lord of the Admiralty; and though, perhaps, few men could have been found more competent for the duty than Captain (now Admiral Sir Alexander) Milne, who then filled that office, it was impossible for any one man to get through the work he was expected to do, especially with the system, or rather want of all system, which then prevailed. From my knowledge of what took place, I have no hesitation in saying that everything relating to the engagement of the requisite number of ships, and to the transport of troops and stores to the Crimea, was a huge chaos; and I fear some serious disaster would have ensued had the pluck and genius of the nation not come to the rescue in the mode of conducting affairs at home, as well as, so far as I could ascertain, in the field of action abroad. At home, there was certainly no organisation, so far as regards the transport service, or, at best, it was of the most imperfect description. Stores were shipped without bills of parcels, and, frequently, without bills of lading; and the current stories, at the time, of the shipload of boots and shoes which lay at anchor in Balaclava harbour unknown to our authorities, while the troops were bootless and shoeless; of the tops of mess tables sent to the Crimea without the legs, and of the guns without carriages, were no exaggerations. The Admiralty, it is true, were responsible for the transport of the troops; but the Civil Lord, by whom it was represented, had no control over shipments by either the Ordnance or by the Medical Departments. A case came under my own knowledge which would be ludicrous were it not melancholy.

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