§ MR. OSMOND WILLIAMS (Merionethshire)said he thought it important that the House should have an opportunity of discussing the effects of tariffs on out shipping industry at a time when many people in this country seemed ready to throw to the winds that fiscal system which had during the past fifty years benefited our shipping trade beyond all others, and who seemed to fail to realise that the shipping trade was the one industry which had the most to lose by the imposition of tariffs. In no department of trade had we more cogent examples of the baneful effect of tariffs, privileges, and restrictions of all kinds than in the history of the great ship-owning industry. Free trade had giver our shipbuilders access to the cheapest and best materials in the world. Tariffs must increase the cost of shipbuilding by adding both to the cost of material and wages. They had done so in America; they must do so here. The result in America had been to inflict great injury to their shipping industry, which at one time promised to rival that of this country. Who would say that tariffs were likely to increase the quantity of cargo to be carried? It had been pretty conclusively proved that the effect of all tariffs was to restrict trade and reduce both production and consumption. Let them remember too, that tariffs begot tariffs, and to be effectual they must ever increase.
What advantage had tariffs been to American shipowners? In the early sixties the ships of the United States filled the ports of England and France, The Stars and Stripes were seen jostling the Union Jack in every harbour of Europe, and the Baltimore clippers were the pride of the ports. Where were all those vessels now? Swept from the face of the waters as the tariff-reformers 1609 opposite had been swept from the House of Commons. Protection and tariffs had destroyed them, and enabled free-trade England to drive them from the harbours of the world. Contrast the decline of the American carrying trade with the wonderful prosperity of our own under free trade. In 1870 we owned 5,690,789 tons; in 1902, 10,054,770 tons, without counting ships owned in the Colonies. He did not know whether, when the right hon. Gentleman for West Birmingham visited Liverpool, he brought an unprejudiced eye to bear upon the spectacle of that great city. If so, he would have seen in its fine streets and great buildings and its wharves and docks and floating palaces a cloud of witnesses to the fruitful effects of free trade. There, on the banks of the Mersey, had grown up one of the finest cities of the Empire, a city which had grown up with the growth of our great shipping industry. During the course of his speeches there the right hon. Gentleman vainly endeavoured to reassure those who foresaw in protection the certain decline and downfall of that great industry. He might as well have tried to prove that the sun and stars would shine in the heavens at the same time. The Liverpool shipping, indeed the nation's shipping industry, had grown with its carrying trade, which in its turn had grown, for the sole and simple reason that Great Britain placed no check on the free flow of imports and exports. Ever since the United States drifted into protection her carrying trade had dwindled, and her shipping industry with it. The right hon. Gentleman knew, of course, that the same thing must happen in this country, that our busy and crowded, harbours would grow silent and deserted, and that the Union Jack, that now waved on every sea and to every breeze that blew, would grow A rarer and rarer spectacle on the great ocean highways. He knew, of course, that no towns would be more severely hit by protection than Liverpool and Birkenhead. Yet he tried to divert the thoughts of the Liverpool people by the suggestion that we might renew the navigation laws. Renew the navigation laws! What a mad suggestion! Why, we had achieved our present commercial superiority entirely since our fathers adopted the principles and practice of 1610 free trade and in particular had our shipping trade prospered enormously since we renounced the monopolies and privileges, and freed ourselves from the shackles of the old navigation laws in 1849; and yet this was the gentleman who said he wished to see this country part of a great Empire, united, strong, and prosperous. Well, he was not alone in that wish. Where they differed was as to the paths that led to prosperity, and as to the forms by which unity might best be preserved and consolidated.
It seemed to him that the first round of this fiscal fight, or fight of free imports in the country, had gone badly against the right hon. Gentleman. He had won nothing; he had brought powerful adherents to the camp of his enemies, and succeeded in shattering the unity of his friends; he had lost them seats and lost them credit; he had not improved the Prime Minister's position or furthered his career. Indeed, his disregard of the Prime Minister's difficulties gave the measure of his political methods in the inroads he had made on comradeship, Party ties, and plain national interests. What could be clearer than that the nation wanted rest after the war? But rest did not suit the right hon. Gentleman's book—with repose came reflection; and the right hon. Gentleman's last chance had been to keep up the unreal, heated atmosphere of the war. However, he was glad to think that great advantages to the Liberal cause had accrued from the right hon. Gentleman's breach, not only with the ablest and most experienced of his old colleagues, but with the flower of young Toryism and Unionism. If he had lost them, the men of the future, they had also no place in the Prime Minister's temporary encampment. The Unionist Party was split asunder on the most profound political differences that could divide a Party. The Prime Minister had told them that the question of free trade and protection would not be the issue at the next election. That was the same voice that told them in the 1900 election that the only question before the country was the war in South Africa. It was hardly wise to play that game again quite so soon.
You may fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can t fool all the people all the time.1611 The question of free trade or protection was not one that could be left open for a number of years, to be decided in a series of general elections, for all the world like a course of economic lectures. It must be settled at once. There was not a man inside or outside the House of Commons to-day who did not know that, come when it may, it would be not a defeat but a rout of Toryism. Under these circumstances, the position that the free-trade Unionists had taken up seemed to him inexplicable. Place and power, or any hopes of them, were gone irretrievably. Yet each man seemed to hope to save himself, and that hope but enfeebled his attachment to a Leader who was making his return to Parliament daily more impossible. Had they had the courage of their convictions, instead of being induced to vote on a false issue, on a mere quibble, which in their heart of hearts they must have despised, they could at any time during the last two years have ended with one blow the miserable dance of insincerity which was playing havoc with English trade and dividing English society. They could have ended the insolent farce of the Tariff Commission, with its self-appointed inquiry and its absurd Reports. They could then have shown that they really counted for something in politics. The Duke of Devonshire had long since given them a strong and emphatic lead. Surely they must see that if they continued the course of action they had hitherto maintained they would be ground to pieces between two Parties, and in the end, if not consigned to oblivion, at least go on adding to the burden of shame and failure with which they would have to meet the electors. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham, in a letter he wrote to the Member for Dulwich, once more told them that the Empire was "trembling in the balance," and that unless Great Britain taxed her food and her imports for the benefit of the Colonies, aninevitable separation of interests will weaken if not entirely destroy the bonds between us.This was the very ecstasy of separatist despair. There was no foundation for it whatever. The right hon. Member for West Birmingham's want of faith in the Imperial connection had been repudiated nowhere so warmly as in Canada, on 1612 whose behalf the crusade was started. Sir Wilfrid Laurier said—There are parties who hope to maintain the British Empire upon lines of restricted trade. If the British Empire is to be maintained, it can only be upon the most absolute freedom, political and commercial.Other colonising nations had tried to hold their Colonies as their peculiar preserves. England gave hers freedom and self-government. Surely that alone was enough to show what an entirely different front the British Empire would present to the world if it disestablished its free-trade policy and substituted that of the ring fence. Yet in the face of all this the right hon. Gentleman asked for a mandate to destroy that fiscal system which had made this country the market of the world, and to enter upon a policy that would bring us into ruinous contact with other countries and dissolve the ties of Empire. Instead of taxing the food of the people in the interest of Canadian farmers, who did not contribute a penny to our enormous burdens, and who would brook no interference with their own affairs, we should free the land and tax land values for the benefit of our large towns and our great municipalities. Instead of killing our industries by a cut-throat retaliation we should fight foreign competition with the only real weapon of Germany and America—education, free, national, unsectarian. Instead of protecting the trust-mongers, we should assure to labour the restitution of those elementary rights which Parliament gave and the Courts of law had taken away. With such policy at home, and the fulfilment of our moral obligations abroad, the avoidance of anti-foreign feeling and mischievous alliances, they might even build up the Empire on a deeper and firmer foundation. Our Colonies were not to be bought by bribes of gold, but by faith and pride in the Motherland, which was just and free and had the strength that came from those great and glorious attributes.
§ *COLONEL DENNY (Kilmarnock Burghs)said a fortnight ago, in rising to second such a Resolution as that proposed by the hon. Members for Merioneth he should probably have thought it courteous to his Leader and fair to the House to have made a reference to the 1613 fact that ho had to take a prominent position in doing something not in accordance with the whip which he had received in the morning. It was not now necessary. Changed circumstances had made it easier, as far as his feeling were concerned; his opening sentences as originally penned, had, he was afraid, been blown to the winds by the determination taken by the Leader of the House, a determination which he agreed with many of his friends might have been taken long ago, and they in the House were now free to get the reasoned opinion of the Members, opinions which the Leader of the House long ago gave them to understand they were at any rate at liberty to hold. The country learned last week and last night what the opinion of those who cared sufficiently to stay in the House was on the general question of fiscal reform but, if he recollected aright, the Prime Minister made some rather slighting allusions to the general nature of the discussion, and appeared to think that time was being very much wasted. He agreed with him as little as he agreed with the hon. Member for East Fife, who thought that at any rate in the country enough had been said on the subject. Free-traders must not underrate their opponents, but must keep alert and energetic for a long time to come. At the same time be quite appreciated what the Prime Minister said as to the disadvantage of a general discussion, and so he was more than pleased that it had fallen to his lot to second a Resolution which left the general and entered into the particular. They were now discussing the effect of import duties, not in the abstract, but in the concrete, not as they affected the country as a whole, but as they affected one or two trades in particular. Many of them still believed that it was necessary to educate the House and the country, so that they might realise the effect that any interference with our established fiscal system might have upon trades of gigantic importance to our well-being.
The hon. Member who moved the Motion had thoroughly thrashed out the question as far as he had gone, and he had only a very few thoughts to add. He had carefully examined the position; on 1614 the pros and cons of the question he had reasoned with himself and he had come to the conclusion that under no consideration could good accrue to shipping and its kindred industries of shipbuilding and engineering, and almost as certainly harm would result; and he would like to put a question to that most brilliant advocate of protection, his hon. friend the Secretary for the Board of Trade, and ask him to answer with that honesty he always showed when he was expressing his opinion on this or any other subject—did he, as an experienced man of business, one who had had to do in the great city of Glasgow with shipowning as well as shipbuilding, did he or did he not believe that these trades were bound to suffer, or at any rate could get no good from a change of our system? Some Gentlemen in the House might be astonished that they had in this Resolution taken not only shipping, but its kindred industries; but in that they were justified. They could not consider a workman apart from the tools he used; they could not consider a trade apart from its instruments of operation. Handicap a trade by fiscal regulations, when it depended entirely upon such raw materials as untaxed maize, cotton, or wool, and they would doubtless do it some harm; but handicap a trade whose raw material was an article every piece of which would be injuriously affected itself by a system of import duties, and a double wrong was committed, even if the industry was not actually ruined. He remembered a very pertinent inquiry made by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham—Are all other nations fools? Carlyle once made an allegation from which he obviously meant to exclude himself, and they could guess what he would have said if he had been alive now. But he welcomed that saying, because it gave them a direct invitation for debating this question, not only on the point of reason, where they prevailed, but from analogy, where they were in even as strong a position.
Let them take a few figures, and only a very few, showing the position occupied by this country now and in former years, and the position occupied by countries 1615 which had adopted protection, and then let them judge of what the right hon. Gentleman's proposals would mean to this country. They found that the great free-trade nations in shipping and its kindred industries were two in number—Germany and ourselves, with Norway following up in a similar way. Germany had no restriction of her coasting trade, no duty on ships or shipbuilding material, and therefore stood with Great Britain side by side in the argument. France, Italy, Austria, America, and Russia, all the great exponents of the right hon. Gentleman's policy, whom he evidently intended to exclude from the Carlyle characterisation, restricted the trade on their coasts, charged, generally speaking, duties on ships and materials, and all paid large subsidies, much larger in proportion than Germany, which again paid much less in proportion to ourselves, and, like ourselves, only for services rendered. He had obtained for greater accuracy a few figures from a registry—Lloyd's in fact—of the comparative tonnage of the world, and he was not including the Colonies; he took Great Britain per se. In 1900 13,000,000 tons represented Britain; 2,500,000 the United States; 2,500,000 Germany; 1,250,000 France; and under 1,000,000 Italy, Spain and Russia. From 1900 to 1904 the net gain to Britain had been more than 1,900,000 tons, allowing for discarding of all old vessels; for the United States, including the Great Lakes and restricted coasting trade the growth had been 1,200,000 tons; in Germany, which had no great lakes, which had no protected coast, and which had to compete like ourselves with all the rest of the world, the growth had been no less than about 35 per cent., or 800,000 tons; France, on the other hand, with all the terrible subsidies she paid, reaching in the case of building to almost as much in the way of subsidy as an East Coast builder here got for the bigger part of a ship's price, had only managed to struggle on from 1,240,000 tons to 1,600,000; Italy was only 180 tons over a million; Spain had only gained 164,000 tons; and Russia had only risen from 643,000 tons to 809,000 tons. The slow process of dissolution of this great Empire which had been going on should have made itself apparent in the most sensitive trade we had, namely, that of shipown- 1616 ing. There had been change, but not in the direction indicated by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, and there never would be so long as the great shipping trade was given freedom.
Where did it stand to gain by a protectionist policy? If the right hon. Gentleman were successful he would stop the import of manufactured goods into this country, and therefore foreigners would be unable to take our goods in repayment, so that we should lose both coming and going. If he were successful, the colonial preference scheme also was an illusion, because we had been plainly told by colonial ministers that the last thing they contemplated was an increase of British imports into any of the Colonies. On the other hand, shipowners stood to lose by the increase in the price of their tools. Any man in America would say, if asked, that he paid 30 per cent. more for his ships than we did, and that it cost him 50 per cent. more to run them. Then there were the Colonies. What did we pay in the Colonies to a stoker? A common fireman on board a colonial vessel earned as much in a much as many a second engineer on board a British steamer. £9 a month was the pay of a fireman in a fair-sized steamer in the Colonies. And why could that be maintained? Simply because protective legislation had come in, which insisted that no foreign vessel, which included a Britisher, not registered in the Colonies should trade from one port to another in the Colonies without coming under the same restrictions in every sense as the local-owned colonial vessel.
As to the effect of the rise in the price of tools, what would be the result to the shipbuilder? He might give an instance. Some little time ago he was asked to write an article for a review upon the effect of tariff reform on shipbuilding, and the first things he locked for were facts, so he made an examination into the costs in various countries. Some countries were out of it. Russia, for example, with all the raw material that the goodness of God could confer on a country, I with a population who would welcome the wages paid by us to the lowest class labourer as something beyond the dreams of avarice, had yet been unable 1617 to establish anything but Government shipbuilding yards in her country. Spain, which country had been making great efforts lately to increase her mercantile marine by purchase, was still unable to supply her wants from her own factories. We drew the most of the raw materials from Spain with which we made the pig-iron and plates for our ships; we drew our copper from Spain, our lead from Spain; and Spain took her ships from us. France, with subsidies for the mere building of a ship equal to the bigger part of the price of a ship in this country, was unable to compete. Why? Because every ounce of their raw material was protected, and they were unable to buy their material at prices which would allow them to build for anything but a subsidised or premium-paying line. And as for America, that country which, if the Creator could in any way be lavish, he had certainly not forgotten, where they made more pig-iron, drew more ore, brought up more coal, had more immigrants of the best possible class, than any country in the world, was unable to touch us by 30 to 40 per cent. And why? Because manufacturers were not always philanthropists; because though a man might give many charitable donations with the one hand, he was taking with the other money he had ground out of his unfortunate fellow-subjects. The following were the authentic figures which he obtained within one week from various parts of the world. We were paying for steel plates in Glasgow on a given day in the month of July, 1903, £5 7s. 6d. The price on the East Coast of England at that date was £5 12s. 6d. By arrangement with a celebrated German firm he obtained from them the price they were paying at that date, viz., £5 13s. 7d.; also by arrangement, which was a little difficult to carry out, but which was successful, he obtained from a reliable source in America what steelmakers were charging for the same article at the same time, and it was no less than £8 15s. He would leave the matter to the House; in fact, he would be willing to leave it to the Secretary of the Board of Trade. Did he or did he not recommend this alteration, and, if he did not, why not?
He would conclude by making a small allusion to the speech of his noble friend 1618 the Member for Greenwich. Unionist free-traders had had a rough time but many had had a much rougher time than he had. He could not accuse the tariff-reformers of great hostility in Scotland. He had no reason to complain of them; he had equally no reason to complain of his Liberal friends. He was not opposed by a tariff-reformer; he was opposed by an orthodox Liberal, and he had no right to grumble. He still held certain Unionist principles; he still held, with the noble Lord, that a large portion of the future of the country rested in the hands of the Unionist Party when that Party had been purged of a disease which he hoped was only superficial, and had not yet struck its roots deep into the flesh. If they could do that, as the noble Lord said, what did a few casualties in the rank and file of the Party matter, so long as they could get leaders capable and sound at heart. Might he venture to appeal to the Prime Minister, their Leader, if he would really be so Could he fail to be convinced now that loyalty to a respected, but, he thought, mistaken colleague could be carried so far as to menace the existence of a great Party? Would he not come out from among these old friends who had contracted this mania, and lead the remnant of the Party which was free from it If he would do so, the democratic Conservative Party, now momentarily divorced from the people, might again become the Party of the people, under a Leader any one might be proud to follow. Present sacrifices for some of them might be future gain for all; they must take their chance of that. But he did entreat his fellow-countrymen to pause and consider as to whether any evils that might have been with them in the past, and might touch them in the future, should be met, not by a resort to an artificial stimulus appealing directly to the most selfish of man's instincts, but by the exercise of individual ability and hard work, which had brought this country, with free trade, to where she now was, and which, with enthusiastic co-operation between employers and employed added, would maintain her in that position if those canons were not violated.
§ Motion made, and Question proposed, "That, in the opinion of this House, 1619 grave injury would be caused to the shipping industry and to other industries dependent thereon by the adoption of the changes in the existing fiscal system proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham."— (Mr. Osmond Williams.)
§ *MR. DAVID MACIVER (Liverpool, Kirkdale)said he had not intended to take part in the debate, but after the speech just delivered he wished to say a few words not in any way as representing shipping Members generally, but as speaking on behalf of his own constituency and himself personally. The Shipping Committee had held a meeting that afternoon and the general feeling was that it was undesirable to take part in the debate. The admirable and really eloquent speech of the seconder of the Resolution was the best presentation of the case of the opponents of tariff reform he had heard, but it was very largely an argument based on false premises. A great deal had been said by the hon. Member for the Kilmarnock Burghs, as well as by other speakers and writers, of the state of shipbuilding in the United States, the decay of which they, somewhat absurdly, attributed to protection. What they had forgotten was that the United States as regards shipbuilding was in reality a free-trade country.
§ *COLONEL DENNYI forgot to mention the question of drawbacks. I did know about the question of drawbacks in the United States, but they do not work.
§ *MR. DAVID MACIVERsaid there was a good deal which his hon. friend had emitted to state, but which lie would endeavour to explain in as clear terms as he could. The United States Tariff Act expressly provided that all duties levied upon importations of shipbuilding materials should be given back in the shape of drawback in respect of vessels built in the United States for foreign trade and for their coasting trade between the Atlantic and Pacific ports. The effect was that practically all duties were given back except in the case of vessels for the like service, and the near coasting trade.
§ *MR. REA (Gloucester)Then why do not they build the ships?
§ *MR. DAVID MACIVERsaid that the cost of labour was very much higher in America. The country was prosperous, and men would not work for the wages which were current in this country. Shipbuilding artisans in the United States got 40 to 50 per cent. more wages than was paid here for similar work. Americans also could not operate ships as cheaply as we could in this country, because they were obliged by law to have a certain proportion of their crew and all their certificated officers American subjects. No doubt American shipowners had to pay higher wages just as American shipbuilders had to do, but the actual materials could be imported from this country or the Continent free of duty. They imported very little; but that was only because their own steel manufacturers were wise enough to give them special terms which made it cheaper to buy at home. His hon. friend the Member for the Kilmarnock Burghs was a shipbuilder of great eminence, but he had rather a speciality. He built splendid turbine steamers and high-class passenger boats, but he did not build to any large extent the class of vessels commonly used for carrying cargoes generally throughout the world. The hon. Member numbered amongst his clients a great foreign company—the Austrian-Lloyd. He did not say that that had any great eflect on the hon. Member's views, but it was an indication that he had certain foreign clients. The interests of foreign cleints were not always those of the people of this country.
§ *COLONEL DENNYWe have not built a ship for the Austrian-Lloyd Company for fifteen years.
§ *MR. DAVID MACIVERsaid he was sorry to hear that, because he remembered the day when the hon. Member's firm used to build them all. He remembered the day also when the vessels of the Hamburg-American Company were built on the Clyde, but now that business had gone away. The mover of the Resolution spoke of American shipbuilding, and drew a picture of the 1621 magnificent fleet of American ships in days gone by, which had been swept from the seas. He ascribed that to protection, but as a matter of fact protection had nothing whatever to do with it.
§ MR. OSMOND WILLIAMSIt had everything to do with it.
§ *MR. DAVID MACIVERsaid that the cause was the change from wood to iron The magnificent fleet of American ships to which the mover of the Resolution referred had been built under protection and owed its existence to cheap timber; but when timber gave place to iron the whole circumstances were altered. A great deal had been said about Liverpool.
The hon. Gentleman who moved the Resolution spoke as if he thought Liverpool shipowners generally sympathised with his views. He held in his hand a document which was issued on the authority of the Liverpool branch of the Tariff Reform League. It was not without interest to the House because it contained the names of those Liverpool shipowners who were directly and officially connected with the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. The president was Sir Alfred Jones, the chairman Mr. J. H. Welsford, and the executive included Mr. Aubrey Brocklebank, Mr. Arthur Cook, Mr. R. W. Leyland, and himself, and amongst the names on the general committee were Mr. Collard and Mr. Beckett Hill, all well-known shipowners. Mr. Beckett Hill was a partner in the firm of Allan Brothers & Co., and was chairman last year of the Liverpool Steamship Owners' Association. Mr. Collard was a partner in the firm of R. P. Houston & Co., and was the previous chairman of the Liverpool Steamship Owners' Association. He had got the names of all the shipowners in Liverpool, and there were only five or six amongst the whole number holding views other than of perfect accord with the right hon. Member for West Birmingham. They were many of them even financial supporters of the 1622 views of the right hon. Gentleman. The shipowners to whom he had referred made their living out of carrying the produce of the manufacturers of the country. Anything for the good of the manufacturers of the country—and therefore of the people—was, they believed, to the interest of the shipowner, because if hostile tariffs were broken down and our export trade could be increased, shipowners would have more to carry. Nearly all of those shipowners who were engaged in the carriage of general cargo believed that Mr. Chamberlain's proposals would tend to increase the carrying trade of the country, and be better for shipping. But why were some shipowners of a different opinion? At a recent deputation from the coal trade to the Chancellor of the Exchequer with reference to the shilling a ton duty it was stated that 80 per cent. of the entire exports of this country consisted of coal. That meant that four-fifths of the shipping, so far as exports were concerned, had nothing to do with the manufactures of the country. Shipowners engaged in that business were not interested either one way or the other in the export trade as far as manufactures were concerned. The improvement of our export trade in manufactured goods would not benefit them. They never carried anything except coal; and their Business interests were not the same as the business interest of the shipowners of Liverpool. He might go further and say that many vessels sailing out of Liverpool were not British steamers. They sailed under the British flag, but belonged to an American combine. He believed the Member for Gloucester, to whose information and that of the Member for Dewsbury the mover had acknowledged himself in part indebted, had considerable business interests in carrying coals for such a combine. He did not ay that those interest were anything but the most legitimate, but they were lot the same as the ordinary interests of shipowners in this country. Shipowners in the coal trade were not affected by the proposals of the right on. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, and their views in regard o fiscal questions depended mainly upon their politics.
1623 He did not wish to trouble the House with figures, but he wished to give his authority for what he had stated, and whenever it was possible he preferred to appeal to the authority of his political opponents. The gentleman he would call as witness was Mr. John Williamson, brother of the late Mr. Stephen Williamson, well known to many hon. Members as the much-respected Member for the Montrose Burghs, who had made a careful study of the exports of this country. According to statistics compiled by Mr. J Williamson and explained by him in a paper read before the Chamber of Shipping at their annual meeting in London last year, there had been no real increase in the volume of our exports in the last twenty years with the exception of the trade in coal.
§ *MR. DAVID MACIVERsaid he referred to manufactured goods carried in ships, and in these there had as regards volume been a diminution, while the export coal trade had enormously increased. That statement had support in the returns of exports and imports upon which dues had been paid to the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board. The trade of the port of Liverpool showed an enormous increase last year as compared with previous years in every item of receipts except one, and that was the export of manufactured goods. Last year the port of Liverpool received about £13,000 more in respect of dock and town dues upon imports than in the previous year; while the amount received in respect of dock and town dues upon exports was £1,100 less. With reference to the point raised by the hon. Member for King's Lynn in regard to ships, he had not actual figures, but he was certain we had not the preeminence in shipbuilding for foreign nations that we used to have. A list of the 178 steamers of the Hamburg-American Company, in which were included some of the finest vessels in the world, and of the North-German Lloyd Fleet of 152 steamers, would give an indication of the success 1624 of foreign competition in this respect. These were only two out of several great and admirably managed German shipping companies; nor were our German friends our only competitors. Hon. Members had only to go to the reading room and take up the advertising sheet of The Times to get some idea of what these foreign ships were doing. We had still got a pre-eminence in coal carrying, but our pre-eminence in all other respects had entirely gone. It had gone to protectionist countries, who were beating our manufacturers out of the field, not through any fault of our manufacturers, but because their rivals had a larger market, because they had a protected home market, and were able thereby to quote lower prices for the export market. Our shipowners so far as the best class of shipping was concerned, were suffering with our manufacturers. We were being beaten, and well beaten, upon every one of the great trade routes; and in every part of the world. Our carrying trade was going from us by reason of our insane persistence in this free import system, because we had not taken the reasonable means—protection if they liked— to retain our hold on that trade, because we had not yet adopted the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. He was quite sure we must adopt that policy, if this country was to regain her position.
He thought it was a great misfortune that fiscal questions should have become Party questions, because not only the Unionist Party, but the whole common sense of the people of this country had to be converted before they could adopt the new fiscal proposals. He was glad to see his hon. friend the Member for the Flint Boroughs in his place, because there was a book published a couple of years ago, before fiscal questions became Party questions, from which he would like to quote a few passages to the House. The book was entitled "My Life Work, by Samuel Smith, M.P.," and Mr. Smith wrote this—
I may take this opportunity of saying that I believe a great change has passed over this country on the question of free trade … All nations except our own have gone in an opposite direction. The United States and our Colonies have flourished exceedingly under a contrary policy. None but idealogues would 1625 now accuse the American people, the shrewdest on earth, of being blind to their own interest. It is a matter of common knowledge that no nation since the world began has advanced with such rapidity in wealth and commerce as the United States in the past fifty years; yet it has increasingly adopted a protective policy. Our exports to that country are not more than they were fifty years ago, while we now import three or four times as much, and the balance of trade between us and the United States shows some £119,000,000 a year in their favour! The mere strumming upon the shibboleths of Cobden and Bright—true at the time they were uttered—will not save us, and a fresh survey of the whole industrial situation is absolutely necessary.That was written by an hon. Member who had recently been busy in Wales talking free trade and electioneering with the hon. Member for the Carnarvon Boroughs. He thanked the House for listening so patiently to his remarks, and he thought he had said enough to show the hollowness and absurdity of the contention that the shipping industry of this country in any way benefited under the free import system.
§ *MR. REAsaid that anybody who was acquainted with the shipping trade of the port of Liverpool would not have been very much struck with the statement made by the hon. Member who had just sat down. With regard to the list of names which had been produced by the hon. Member for Liverpool, such a Member would have been much more struck with the names which did not appear on that list than with the names which did appear there. He was sorry that the hon. Member had mentioned his name in connection with the American combine, because he had nothing whatever to do with it. When that combine was formed it was an international concern, but the ownership was held in a preponderating degree in this country. Since the formation of that line the founder of it had disappeared, and the American president had disappeared. The sole control and management of that great combine was now in this country, and it was to-day as much an English concern as any other concern in the port of Liverpool or the port of London. The hon. Member for Kirkdale spoke of American shipbuilding as being carried on under equal con- 1626 ditions with this country because they were able to import their materials free by law. But why did they not do so? Witness after witness before the Commission held in Washington gave evidence to the effect that this concession was absolutely illusory. Although the American shipbuilders could import materials for shipbuilding free by law, their hands were so tied by conditions that they could not import freely for their industry the different materials which by law they were permitted to import.
The argument that we were falling behind in the general shipping trade of the world was answered perfectly easily. Speaking at Liverpool, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham took a period of ten years, and, including Japan, he erroneously made out that the increase of British tonnage was not as great as the increase of foreign tonnage. If they excluded Japan, the figures for Great Britain alone, excluding the Colonies, were much larger than the figures for the rest of the world. The figures were now available for another year. In that year we had added to our registered tonnage 450,000 tons, and all the rest of the world, including Japan, but excluding Russia, because the figures for that country were not available, had added only 400,000 tons. The shipping trade was absolutely the greatest trade in this country. Its gross turnover was equal to that of our great railway system—namely, a trifle over £100,000,000. He did not mean to say that in regard to the amount of capital invested the shipping trade was to be compared with British railways, but in the amount of turnover and returns the business done was equal to the whole railway business of this country. They had had such a deluge of fiscal statistics poured upon them that he felt sure every hon. Member was getting weary of them. but there were certain broad facts which he thought it would be just as well to state. Thy over-sea trade from the ports of the United Kingdom was one-fifth of the trade of the whole world, but the trade done in British ships was one-half, and, if we took the length of the voyages and value of the trade into account, more than one-have of the whole shipping trade of the world.
1627 There was one fact connected with this great trade which ought to be borne in mind by those who supported the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, and it was that of this half of the trade of the world, more than one-half was trade between foreign countries which did not touch the ports in this country at all. The principal protected countries gave more employment to British ships than the United Kingdom itself. Of the tonnage in our own ports two-thirds was with these protective countries, and only 15 per cent, was with the British possessions, and of this trade at home one-fifth was peculiarly ours, that was to say, the transshipment trade, which was very valuable to the shipowners and the shipping classes in this country. Shipping was not only the biggest trade in the country, but it was by far the best. It was the most Imperial and the most necessary to us as an island people. He would say more—it gave the very best employment to the people of this country of any trade in which we were engaged. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham said that the British working man was "being paid more and more with invisible exports"—being paid, not paying. That was an example of how incapable tariff-reformers were of distinguishing between debit and credit. The cotton trade produced £90,000,000 a year, and the export was £70,000,000. But it had to pay £40,000,000 to the foreigner for raw material. This invisible export was not a staple material product that could be seen, but it was payment for labour, and therefore invisible. It consisted in payment for ships built in British yards, almost altogether of British material. These ships were engined in British works, officered and engineered by British subjects, and far the greater part of the crews were British. They were repaired in British yards, provisioned by British dealers, coaled by British coal, and insured in British offices. That was where the money went. If there was anything left it went to the shipowner for his remuneration, but at present he was afraid he had to go without it.
The shipping trade was not only our biggest, but it was the direct product of our fiscal policy. Other countries had 1628 founded great trades because local conditions were favourable. Providence had given the coal trade to South Wales and Pennsylvania and the cotton, trade to Lancashire. But nothing had helped England on the ocean, except its policy. The shipping trade was one which was open to everybody, and in free competition with all the protectionist powers in the world our supremacy was now such that it might almost be called a monopoly. This supremacy dated from the institution of tree trade. It did not exist before. In 1846 America was almost our equal, and other nations were not very far behind, but from the institution of free trade and the abolition of the navigation laws in 1849 dated the progress of the British mercantile marine, which had arrived at its present pre-eminence. He did not say that our free-trade policy alone could have achieved this astounding result. It had been aided by the protectionist policy of other nations. Other nations had one by one dropped out, while we had increased our shipping trade under their protectionist system. Germany was an apparent and not a real exception, because in this particular matter she had been content to act on free-trade principles. Our great shipping trade was a fair target for everybody, and if we engaged in a tariff war with other nations it was through that trade they would hit us. In America it was already possible for the President, at any moment, to put on a duty of 10 per cent. on all imports brought in by ships of a foreign nation in addition to the ordinary tax authorised by law. It was not probable that the President would impose that tax so long as there was no friction with foreign nations, but if we entered into a tariff war with America it was shipping that would be hit, and it would be hit effectually. How could we retaliate? There were gentlemen who advocated that we should establish restrictive legislation in regard to shipping and impose differential dues. That was not practicable, because out of 36,000,000 of foreign tonnage in our ports we could only hit about 4,000,000. He could not understand how any shipowner could support the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. It was to him a perplexing phenomenon 1629 and only showed that men might run and operate ships without any knowledge of the principles that formed the very basis of their practice and success.
§ MR. CHARLES MCARTHUR (Liverpool, Exchange)said he intended to vote for the Motion, but he discriminated between the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham and the policy of the Prime Minister. A good deal had been said about personal interest. He was not a shipowner, and had no shares in shipping, but even if he had he hoped he would subordinate personal interest. He condemned the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham because it sought to found the unity of the Empire upon a basis of self-interest, and more particularly upon a basis of the taxation of food. He objected to it also because it would tend to increase the cost of building and working ships, and would diminish the volume of trade on which our shipping prosperity depended. Any benefit world only be a transitory one, and the advantage to shipping was very illusory. His hon. friend the Member for the Kirkdale Division had referred to the opinion of the Liverpool Chamber of Commerce, and had stated that the great majority of Liverpool shipowners were favourable to the policy of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. He knew many eminent shipowners who supported that policy and many who strongly objected to it, bat whether the majority was of one opinion or the other he had no means of deciding. He thought there was among the shipowners of Liverpool and the country generally a feeling of dissatisfaction with the way in which the shipping trade was carried on at the present time. The hon. Member for Gloucester had stated that this country had sustained its prosperity amounting to a monopoly in the case of shipping. He did not think the hon. Member intended to say that. He thought, the present condition of the shipping trade had been described in too glowing terms by the hon. Member. If his information was correct, the trade had reached its zenith and had entered upon a period of declension. In the twelve years between 1890 and 1902 Great Britain had lost 1630 10 per cent. of the tonnage of the world During the last twenty years British tonnage entering and clearing from the United Kingdom had increased by only 50 per cent., and foreign tonnage had increased by 119 per cent.
§ MR. CHARLES MCARTHURsaid he was taking the amount of tonnage of the entrances and clearances. Did the House realise what was meant by the figures he had quoted? In the period to which he referred British shipping coming in and going out had only increased 50 percent., while foreign tonnage had more than doubled.
§ MR. CHARLES MCARTHURsaid he had not got the figures with him, but he thought the percentages spoke for themselves.
§ MR. LOUGH (Islington, N.)It is most misleading.
§ MR. CHARLES MCARTHURsaid he found that in 1881 the British tonnage was 41,000,000; and in 1902 it was 64,000,000. In 1881 the foreign tonnage was 16,000,000; and in 1902 it was 35,000,000.
§ *MR. REAasked whether the hon. Member could state how much of the tonnage referred to as entrances and clearances was represented by large German steamers which called for passengers and did not interfere with the export and import trade of the country at all, and further whether he could state how much of the tonnage referred to Channel steamers which were owned by the Continental railway companies and were counted every day in the year.
§ MR. CHARLES MCARTHURsaid he was giving the figures with respect to tonnage from all sources. There was 1631 a great deal of misgiving as to the future of the shipping trade. He would remind the House that the Shipping Subsidies Committee came to the conclusion that, although British shipping was in the main holding its own, there was great cause for anxiety and exertion. The Committee went into the subject very carefully; and they attributed the present position of British shipping to the very large bounties given by many other countries to their shipping, to indirect bounties, such as free dock and harbour accommodation, and to the exclusion by some foreign countries of British shipping from their coastwise trade. That Committee came to the conclusion that the time had come when we might ask for reciprocity in this matter. This brought him to say something about retaliation. That was a word they did not like. It seemed to be "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth," but what was wanted was not hostile retaliation leading to great tariff wars, which were to a large extent a disadvantage to the countries concerned. He ought perhaps to except from that statement the tariff war between Russia and Germany, which only lasted for a short time, and was attended with satisfactory results to both countries. He would ask those hon. Members who approached this subject from what he might call the extreme free-trade point of view, why they always spoke about imports and never mentioned exports? In his view the true free-trade policy was that which endeavoured to remove restrictions on exports without interfering with the system of imports. Those hon. Members seemed to argue that if we increased our imports our exports increased themselves. This seemed the same as saying that if we increased our expenditure our income would increase itself. He would remind them that the producer had rights as well as the consumer, and that he was equally entitled with the consumer to the benefits of free competition. While he very much regretted, in many of its aspects, the great agitation which the country had been passing through for some time, he believed it would do good if it led people to realise the economic conditions which were essential to commercial prosperity. 1632 Whilst he condemned the policy of the right hon. Gentleman, which he thought would be injurious to the country, and particularly to shipping, at the same time he believed that the system of free imports and restricted exports was not the most favourable possible to the shipping interests of this country. What was wanted was free trade all round, and therefore he supported a modification of the present system.
§ *MR. RENWICK (Newcastle-on-Tyne)said he thought there would be a general consensus of opinion that what had taken place to-night proved conclusively that certain important questions raised on a private Member's Resolution could not be adequately discussed between nine o'clock and twelve o'clock, especially when the mover and seconder of the Resolution occupied such a considerable proportion of the three hours. He had listened with the greatest interest to the speech of the hon. Member who proposed the Resolution; but he must confess that he had heard very little germane to the-subject. A great deal was said about the Stars and Stripes and about the great city of Liverpool having been built up by free trade. He would remind the hon. Member that if he looked at the opposite side of the Atlantic he would behold New York, compared with which in. size Liverpool sank into insignificance He would see in that city a river alive with shipping, a city not built up on the system of free trade, but on a system of protection. The speech of the hon. Member for the Kilmarnock Burghs was entitled to the consideration of everyone who took an interest in the subject. The main current running through that speech was that it was impossible to carry on shipbuilding without cheap wages, and naturally it followed that there should be also cheap materials. A good deal had been heard about the decaying industry of shipbuilding and shipowning in the United States, and they were told that that was owing to protection. He did not think for a moment that protection had anything to do with it. Previous to 1863, when they saw those magnificent American clippers going to and fro from our ports, there was protection in the United States; but at that time there 1633 was only a glimmering of the great transition from the use of timber to iron in shipbuilding. While shipbuilding was being carried on by the aid of timber British North America and the United States were prominent in the shipbuilding world. But after the American Civil War when iron was substituted for timber in shipbuilding, this country, with its great supplies of coal and iron close to its splendid waterways, forged ahead. There was nothing to prevent the United States at the present time building ships for they had the best machinery and the best skilled workmen. Why did these workmen not build ships then? It was because it paid them better to be engaged in other industries. If anyone disagreed with that let him put it to an American working man whether be would be content to accept the same wages as were paid in British shipyards in order to build up an American marine; and the answer would be "No."
It should be remembered that Continental nations and America could buy ships from us as cheaply as we could buy them, whether it was from the yards of the Tyne, the Wear, or the Clyde; and what was more, all foreign nations got the same benefit as we did from our ships. Their goods were carried as cheaply as ours. But foreign nations had advantages which we did not enjoy. With these advantages Germany had built, equipped, engined, and managed finer and faster vessels than we possessed. Was that anything that we ought to be proud of? And when it was Suggested we should do something to regain the supremacy of the Atlantic no British shipowner was prepared to do it, and the Government came forward with a loan of £2,500,000 at a low rate of interest to enable two vessels to be built to compete with the German liners in the Atlantic trade. And yet we called ourselves a free-trade country! He would remind eminent ship-owners opposite, that foreign countries were running us a close race in many of our staple trades, such as the coal-carrying trade. Last year 64 per cent. not only of the number of ships but of the tonnage cleared from the Port of Blyth was foreign. It was similar in the Bristol Channel ports. 1634 There was a growing preponderance of foreign vessels, and that was because the foreigner carried on his shipping trade on more advantageous terms than we did. Mr. Walter Runciman, senior, speaking at the launch of one of his own vesselspointed out that British shipowners were handicapped owing to the harassing policy' of the sailors' and firemen's unions. The wages bill of a British ship of 2,000 tons was £62 10s. per month and cost of provisions £10 per month greater than of a Norwegian or Swedish ship of the same size. Mr. Runciman went on to say that he had, therefore, entered into negotiations to put his firm's older vessels under a foreign flag, and the effect of that on his whole fleet would be a saving of £20,000 per annum. When that was the result, he believed they would put patriotism on the shelf, and go in for the money. Mr. Runciman added that Scandinavian sailors were the best clothed, most respectable, and best conducted sailors he knew.
The Resolution before the House really referred to some proposal put forward by the right hon. Member for West Birmingham; but, as far as he could gather, these proposals had only been put forward in a sort of tentative form as to what might, under certain conditions, be carried out. The right hon. Gentleman first pointed out very properly that by a rearrangement of our duties upon a common sense basis, viz., by taxing the goods from abroad which we could produce ourselves, and admitting free goods which we did not produce, we might do a great deal of benefit to the people of this country. That was a policy which he himself believed would be carried out before very long. [An HON. MEMBER on the OPPOSITION Benches: Will you vote for it?] Yes, if the question were put fairly before the country. He had never feared to say before the public outside that he was in favour of such an alteration. He would remind hon. Gentlemen opposite that so long ago as 1892, when a fair and square fight took place in Newcastle-on-Tyne on fair trade, the right hon. Member for Montrose was placed second on the poll, and the fair-trader was placed triumphantly at the head. Ever since then they had never been afraid in Newcastle to avow that 1635 some alteration in the fiscal policy was necessary. What effect would that alteration in the fiscal policy have on the shipping trade? It might, to a certain extent, curtail the import of manufactured goods; but that would not injure the shipping industry. Shipowners were more anxious to carry raw materials than manufactured goods. He would like to take away manufactured goods made in this country rather than bring here goods manufactured abroad. There was no proposal whatever to put any tax on raw materials, they were the best cargo for shipowners. The other proposal of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham was to bring the Colonies into closer commercial union with the mother country. Would that do any harm to the shipping trade? No, because bulk was of greater importance to shipowners than value. To bring a million pounds worth of bullion from Australia or South Africa to this country was of comparatively little value to the shipowner; what they wanted was to bring raw materials, and above all raw materials and corn from a long distance; and the greater the distance the larger the ships they would have to build. The shipbuilder had solved the problem by building larger ships to carry the cargo long distances for the same freight as the smaller vessels could carry it from the near Continental ports. Therefore, if trade between the Colonies and the mother country was increased there would be an enormous expansion of the shipping trade. If only that trade could be expanded, depend upon it, neither shipowners nor shipbuilders had anything to fear, but could look forward to an era of prosperity greater than they had ever hitherto enjoyed.
§ MR. BRYCE (Aberdeen S.)said that the hon. Gentleman who had just spoken had shown an example in debating this question in a serious way. He had stated very clearly what were the views entertained by the protectionist Party on this subject. He had been struck by one expression of the hon. Member, that when the question was fairly put he would be prepared to give a vote. Why did not the hon. Member induce 1636 his leaders to put the question fairly? Surely the sooner the question was put fairly both in this House and in the country it would be better for everyone. But he noticed that when the question was put before the House last week the hon. Gentleman was not prepared to give a vote upon it. The hon. Member said that an alteration in the fiscal policy might curtail the import of manufactured goods; but that he did not care for because it would not injure the import trade in raw materials. Did the hon. Gentleman believe that he could increase the import of raw materials, and all those semi-manufactured articles so largely used in our industries, by raising the price of food; and did he think it possible, consistently with his colonial policy, to avoid taxing some raw materials such as wool? The hon. Gentleman said he was anxious to maintain long-distance traffic because the Colonies were in the most distant parts of the world. Not all of them. But this country did not do its largest trade with the Colonies. At present we had the enormous preponderance of trade, both export and import, with the Colonies already. No other country in the world was in it with us. If we took other countries, like Argentina, with its rich corn lands, and with which we had, if not the monopoly, the bulk of the trade, he asked whether the hon. Member wanted us to begin his policy of protective tariffs by destroying that carrying trade?
A comparison had been made by the hon. Gentleman between Liverpool and New York, but he submitted that that comparison would not hold, because New York was the outlet of a gigantic continent, and ought not to be compared with any port in this country. But, even in the port of New York the bulk of the seagoing ships were British. There were, of course, coasting steamers which did the trade between the different ports on the sea-board of the different States of the United States. But the majority of the seagoing ships in New York were British. The hon. Member said that we had developed in this country our shipping trade because we 1637 had coal and iron. But had they not in the United States coal and iron in far greater quantities than we had? The development of the American coal and iron trade was one of the most extraordinary industrial facts of recent years. The reason why the Americans had not developed their shipping trade was because it cost about a third more to build iron ships there than in this country. The hon. Member should read the Report of the Committee on Ships Subsidies in America, and note the despairing cry about tariffs and the duties on raw materials and manufactured articles. The hon. Member said that the Americans could buy their ships here; yes, but they had to pay a tariff on those ships when they went to America. No better object-lesson of the deleterious and injurious effects of a protective policy on a given industry could be supplied than in its effect on shipbuilding in America. In 1870, after the effect of the civil war had passed away, the American shipping trade was nearly twice what it now was, and that was the result of protection.
For the third time he saw before him empty benches. They had been having a very important discussion. Why were not the representatives of the Board of Trade there? They could make a valuable contribution to the discussion. Then the other side would know what they had to meet. They had had an astonishing series of discussions. First there was the debate on protection initiated by the hon. Member for Oldham; then there was a debate on the particular doctrine of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham, and last night there was a debate on retaliation. That evening they had had in a useful and instructive discussion the doctrines 1638 of retaliation brought to the test of a particular trade. He could imagine no way in which the House of Commons could be better employed, but those for whose benefit this instruction was intended were unfortunately absent. Their leading organs said that they required more time for social functions. The Leader of the House was away, and would never know what was passing in the House. He would never know, because there was no single one of his colleagues present to tell him, and because they knew he never read the newspapers, and still less would he read the proceedings in Hansard, because he contemned the House of Commons. He seemed to think there was no House of Commons unless he himself and his colleagues were present. This state of coma might be said to be the harbinger of a dissolution. How long were these grotesque performances to continue. The Prime Minister seemed to think that they were inert matter unless he passed a sort of electric current of his own-personality through the House. He thought the House of Commons and instrument only for considering questions which the Government thought of submitting to it. He did not seem to recognise that they were there by the will of the people, to represent the people, to give voice to the sentiments of the people on questions which interested them, and that they should be neglecting their duty if they did not endeavour to discuss that very question in which the people were most interested at this moment. If the Prime Minister were there he should like to remind him that they were not there merely for the purpose of listening to the proposals that emanated from the Government, but to tell the Government what the 1639 people thought and what they wanted. The Prime Minister was away because his followers would not vote for or against protection, and the followers of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham were away because they knew they would be defeated. That was the way in which the great interests of the nation were being imperilled. In this miserable exhibition of cowardice and insincerity he thought that the protectionists after all were less cowardly and less insincere than the larger section which, with the Prime Minister, ran away in this pusillanimous manner. Never before had the head of a Government done this. This was one of those startling constitutional novelties which they owed to the present Prime Minister and by which his Ministry would be remembered, whatever else it was remembered by. There was one consolation. This sort of thing could not last. A Government which insisted on making itself ridiculous must be drawing near its end.
As to the particular Motion before the House, he desired to express admiration of the vigorous and independent speech, based on close personal knowledge, delivered by his hon. friend the Member for Kilmarnock. What possible benefit could protection be to shipping? Even the hon. Member for Newcastle, who had all the courage of his opinions, had not shown that; and he did not know how the shipping community could see anything but certain and increasing disadvantage in that which, ex hypothesi, would diminish the volume of British shipping trade. Our shipping was half the value of the shipping of the world, and more than half of its quality, when its higher speed was taken 1640 into account. The supremacy of British hipping was mainly due to three causes—the abolition of the navigation laws, the cheapness of shipbuilding, and our open ports. Free ports had made this country the emporium of the world.
§ MR. RENWICKWhat does the right hon. Gentleman mean by a free port?
§ MR. RENWICKThat does not make a free port.
§ MR. BRYCEsaid that was the sense in which he used the term. The hon. Gentleman would hardly differ from him in the opinion that the possibility of an enormous quantity of goods coming to our ports without having to go through a Custom-house had contributed to make this country an emporium of market commodities, and in making it that emporium had also made it a financial centre and a banking centre. It had also had a great deal to do with our transit trade. A great deal of our shipping was built with reference to a particular class of trade and particular customers, and they could not readily alter the ships to fit them for another kind of trade with other countries. What an enormous mark our shipping would be to the retaliatory policy of other countries! There was no branch of our trade in which protection would be more immediately and seriously injurious than it would be to oar merchant shipping. Of that shipping we had every reason to be proud. Our shipping greatness had been built up on the 1641 policy of tree trade. There had been nothing like it in the history of the world, not in the trading cities of the Middle Ages, in Venice, or in Genoa. The Dutch, who in later times took the lead in maritime commerce, never had the same proportion of the maritime trade of the world. That was something to be proud of. He claimed for our shipping trade that it was a link that most effectually bound the Colonies to the mother country. He claimed for it also that it was one of the sources of our naval strength. It was often said that it was largely for the protection of our mercantile marine that we had to maintain so large a Navy. That was true; but that mercantile marine was also one of the causes of the strength and power of our Navy. Through the mercantile marine our people had become so imbued with a capacity for sea life that they had become a sea-loving people. Through the mercantile marine we found the men to man our fleets, and through it our Navy had become what it was. They were told this was Nelson's year, but the centenary of Trafalgar was the last year in which this country would think of reversing a policy which had given Great Britain her hold on sea power.
§ MR. RUNCIMAN (Dewsbury)said he wished to make some reference to the quotation made by the hon. Member for Newcastle from a speech which his father delivered some years ago. The hon. Gentleman quoted only a small portion of it, but even that portion showed that the wages paid under a foreign flag were lower than the wages paid under our own. They in their firm were never so foolish as to 1642 transfer any vessel from the British flag to a foreign flag. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham seemed to think that British vessels would be sent on longer voyages than ever before under his scheme, but if that was the hon. Member for Newcastle's only serious argument the bottom was easily knocked out of it. The distance from the Black Sea to the United Kingdom was greater than from Canada to the United Kingdom, and the distance from Cape Colony to this country was less than from the Argentine. In fact, the very reasons given for altering the fiscal policy of this country did not work out in mere matters of miles. Then the hon. Gentleman entirely overlooked the main points put by the hon. Member for Kilmarnock Burghs and made no reference to the increased price of vessels in protectionist countries and no reference to the increased cost of repairs in protectionist countries—a very important item in those countries. The hon. Gentleman knew well enough that repairing was a serious item in all shipping firms. Then there was the increased price of stores, which was also a serious item. These, added up, made an extra expense of something like 50 per cent. The hon. Gentleman had said that British shipping was not making large profits, but what profits would it make if there was 50 per cent. added to the expenditure. Then the hon. Gentleman also said something about Britain having been compelled to subsidise the Cunard Company in order to retain our supremacy on the Atlantic. More than once he himself had pointed out that a more foolish policy was never adopted than that with regard to the Cunard Company. That was only another example of the foolishness of legislation 1643 by panic promoted by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham. It was the right hon. Gentleman who got into a panic over the American combine; it was he who was the prime mover in the extraordinary Cunard scheme. The right hon. Gentleman was more short-sighted than any of his predecessors in the important office he had held.
The hon. Gentleman opposite said nothing on the question of retaliation, and made no reply to the statement of the hon. Member for Gloucester that shipping could be used as a target for retaliation whenever this country put such a system in force. Foreign countries would of course use our shipping as the first object for their attack, and for one reason that our shipping was right under their noses. They were taunted with our flags flying in their ports in greater numbers than their own, and they saw that our shipping was more vulnerable than anything else we possessed. If the hon. Gentleman imagined the people of this country were going to be so foolish as to jeopardise our shipping for pearl buttons or Moroccan jewellery he must believe they were greater fools than they had ever shown themselves to be before. He seemed scarcely to realise the enormous loss which would fall even on the shipping with which he was connected through the serious dislocation of trade. The great object of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Birmingham in his proposals at Glasgow was to prevent Russian corn from coining into this country in order that Canadian corn might be forced into it. The first effect on shipping would be that an enormous amount of the shipping now in existence, 1644 in fact some of the best ships now on the water, would be shut out of the Black Sea trade, and, according to his scheme would be forced into the Canadian trade for which they were totally unfitted. Something like 12,000,000 tons of shipping at present engaged in the near coast trade would be rendered absolutely useless for the Canadian and more disadvantageous trades which the right hon. Gentleman would endeavour to cultivate. He entirely overlooked the fact that if we could not obtain Canadian grain for our markets at cheaper prices than Russian grain, naturally the country was the loser. He also seemed to forget that they could not dislocate a homeward trade without entirely dislocating an outward trade. Voyages were not merely trips in one direction, but out and home trips. One great example might be given of the way in which trade might be dislocated by merely endeavouring, with a single eye m one direction, to bolster up an industry which owing to natural causes was not able to find a market in this country. The hon. Gentleman mentioned the coalfields of Pennsylvania. Some of the steam coal there rivalled our South Wales coal and was delivered on vessels more cheaply from Virginia to the Argentine, which was one of the principal markets for that class of coal, although the distance from Virginia to the Argentine was very much less than the distance from here to the Argentine. That was to say, the Americans had the advantage of distance, quality, and prices in their favour, yet somehow or other, although the Virginian coalowners had been very anxious to make an inroad, they had not been able to get a footing for the simple reason that America, in her folly, had closed her doors against Argentine commodities. 1645 So it happened that outward freights from Virginia to the River Plate must be very much larger than the freights outwards from South Wales, and that was just sufficient to prevent the Argentine from getting coal from Virginia. He only gave that as an example in order to show that dislocation of the shipping trade would have much more far-reaching effects than either the hon. Gentleman or his right hon. leader had ever apprehended. They could not tell where the damage would stop. To introduce a system of protection into this country would not only damage the carrying trade but the shipbuilding trade as well, and he wished that they had had a word from the Member for East Belfast, who could have thrown some light on the subject. How was it the American combine had to build in Belfast rather than in Philadelphia? It was for the simple reason that Messrs. Harland and Wolff were able to build there 30 per cent. cheaper. Therefore we had this system branching out in every direction throughout the whole range of our industries. If they hit the shipping trade not only would they also hit the shipbuilding, but the iron trade, the coal trade, and all the other trades which depended primarily upon the shipping trade. Anyone who was so foolish as to throw sand into this delicate mechanism was worthy of the condemnation of this country.
§ *MR. J. A. PEASE (Essex, Saffron Walden)said in the two or three minutes which were left he would like to refer to the latest shipbuilding Returns published by the Board of Trade. The figures he was about to quote compared the average annual shipbuilding in the United States, France, Germany, and the United King- 1646 dom during the past thirty years. With a view to avoid taking any special year he had taken the average of each of these countries for three decennial periods. The figures were as follows:—1874–83 United States, 171,000 tons; 1894–1893 United States, 131,000 tons; 1894–1903 United States, 178,000 tons; 1874–83 France, 30,000 tons; 1884–93 France, 27,000 tons; 1894–1903 France, 66,000 tons; 1874–83 Germany, 26,000 tons; 1884–93 Germany, 48,000 tons; 1894–1903 Germany, 88,000 tons; 1874–1883 United Kingdom, 553,000 tons; 1884–1893 United Kingdom, 615,000 tons; 1894–1903 United Kingdom, 815,000 tons, or in other words he said that a comparison of shipbuilding as between this country and foreign countries showed that whereas tonnage in the United States had increased per annum by only 7,000 tons, in France by 35,000 tons, and in Germany by 62,000 tons, it had increased in this country by 262,000 tons. Having regard to the fact that shipbuilding also involved the welfare of the coal, the iron and steel industries, which together gave more employment to labour than any other industry at home, surely it would be folly to raise a tariff which would prejudice the interests of our great shipbuilding industry.
§ Resolved, That, in the opinion of this House, grave injury would be caused to the shipping industry and to other industries dependent thereon by the adoption of the changes in the existing fiscal system proposed by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Birmingham.—(Mr. Osmond Williams.)