SMUGGLING PREVENTION BILL. (Hansard, 18 April 1834)

The Earl of Malmesbury
said, he approved of that part of the Bill which provided that in future smugglers should not, as a punishment for the offence, be sent to serve in the Navy or the Army. It was degrading to either service, and must be felt so by soldiers and sailors, to see men serving with them who were considered criminals. He must, however, observe, that it would become a source of great additional burthen upon counties and upon land if smugglers were to be confined in separate prisons, and at the expense of the county according to one clause of the Bill. Counties had been lately burthened with a heavy expense in consequence of an alteration in our Military-law, and he hoped that no additional burthen would be thrown upon them.

§ The Duke of Richmond
said, it was the intention of Government that the expense should be borne by the Customs.

§ Lord Auckland
said, that the present Bill was chiefly introduced at the request of the Lords of the Admiralty, who felt a strong objection to admitting criminals into the Navy. At present great exertions were making to enhance the respectability of the naval service, and it was to promote that which led to the present Bill. He would, moreover, observe, that the operation of the law at present was very unequal, which was a further reason for amending it. Though the Bill related to smuggling, it was not in any manner intended to facilitate the collection of the revenue.

Viscount Strangford
had so frequently troubled their Lordships with the expres- 932 sion of his opinions as to free trade in general, and as to that branch of it in particular called smuggling, that it was scarcely necessary for him to assure the House that he had no very favourable disposition towards a practice which he looked upon to be one of the most fertile among the many fertile sources of crime and misery in this country. He had, however, a strong objection to a Bill which gave to Magistrates a power which he thought they ought not to possess—the power of drawing a distinction in point of punishment between the rich offender and the poor one, and of enabling the former to escape by the strength of his purse from that infliction of personal degradation and disgrace which, under this Bill, was to be dealt out to those whose offence was enhanced by the misfortune of being poor. The rich man (in nineteen cases out of twenty more culpable than the poor one) was to be let off on the payment of a pecuniary fine, which would be no punishment at all to him; while the poor one, driven perhaps to crime by the desperation of actual want, was to be condemned to what might turn out to be twelve months of close confinement, and hard labour at the tread mill into the bargain. If their Lordships were to enact additional penalties for this offence, which he should presently show to be altogether unnecessary, he begged them to do so in a spirit of equal and common justice to all classes of their fellow-subjects. He should like to know how many prosperous and wealthy gentlemen and citizen smugglers would be sent to the tread-mill under this Act? He knew, and so did the noble President of the Board of Trade, of a certain great commercial house, somewhat "discreditably known" (for that, he believed, was the polite phrase sometimes employed in speaking of irregular pecuniary transactions), "somewhat discreditably known" in the City by its connection with smuggling. He doubted much whether a bench of London Magistrates would venture to send to the treadmill any of the partners of the wealthy, and, as it was called, respectable house. The ostensible object of the Bill was, to relieve the Royal Navy from the degradation of being employed as a punishment for smugglers. He certainly thought this a very fair and proper principle, and he was not at all inclined to quarrel with it. He would merely observe, that he thought it 933 was hardly accurate to consider this sort of service in the navy as identical with punishment. In point of fact, it was merely taking out in personal service to the King the value of that pecuniary fine which, from the poverty of the offender, could be recovered in no other way. Be this as it might, he thought that this compulsory service in the navy might he done away with altogether, without substituting in its place the felon's punishment of the treadmill. He believed that, if the King's Ministers had only courage enough to do their duty, they had it in their power to attack and to destroy smuggling in the very sources in which it mainly originated; and that, too, without loading the Statute Book with new and additional pains and penalties. They had it in their power, by the exertion of a proper English spirit in the proper quarter, to increase the revenue to the extent of nearly one million per annum, by relieving it from the loss to an equal amount which it now sustained in consequence of the indecent encouragement openly given by the French authorities to the practice of smuggling on the northern and western coasts of France. Were their Lordships aware—were noble Lords opposite when they prepared this Bill aware—that there existed at that moment on the other side of the Channel certain privileged ports, such as Boulogne, Cherbourg, Dieppe, Fécamp, Barfleur, St. Valeri, Etaples, and two or three more between Brest and St. Maloes, all the local and municipal regulations and ordonnances of which were framed solely and exclusively with a view to facilitate and encourage the illicit importation of French goods and produce into this country? He would mention a few only of those regulations. He would assert nothing which he could not prove. In the first place, all British boats and vessels of a certain low rate of tonnage were admitted into those poets without being called upon to produce any papers or clearance whatever from the Customhouse, of the place whence they had last sailed; a practice, he was quite sure, contrary to all the rules of maritime and commercial intercourse between State and State. He did not believe, that out of the dominions of our dear and intimate ally, there existed any one port on the face of the globe where such a latitude would be allowed. What would our dear and intimate ally say or do, if we were to 934 invest Brighton, or Weymouth, or Southampton, or Dover, and hall a dozen ports more on our side of the water, with similar privileges? He believed, that our dear and intimate ally would take it heinously ill. But this was not all. In the second place, these small smuggling British vessels were admitted into the ports in question on the payment of dues generally one-third less than those which were paid by the fitly and regular trader—that was, at the rate of 10d., instead of 3s. and 3s. 6d. per ton. Was this, he asked, or was it not, a direct bounty and premium for smuggling? In the third place, at Bourdeaux, Rochfort, Rochelle, and other great ports, from which brandies could be legally exported, according to the French law, in casks containing not less than forty gallons—a proper and salutary law, and which, so far as those ports were concerned, undoubtedly tended to the prevention of smuggling—now what happened at the privileged, or, as he must call them, the smuggling ports? Why, brandies were allowed to be exported from them in the convenient and portable form of kegs, containing from three to six gallons. Could any man doubt what this meant, and that if this indulgence be not merely connived at, but actually avowed, and all but enjoined by the French government, it could only be for the purpose of facilitating the contraband importation of their brandies into this country? In the fourth place, it was a positive fact, that our cruisers were prohibited from entering these privileged ports. When he said our cruisers, he meant vessels employed in looking after smugglers, such as cutters and revenue traders. He was told, too—but this he was certainly not prepared to prove, and was most unwilling to believe—that we, on our part, acquiesced so good-naturedly and so good-humouredly in this exclusion of the King's pennant from these privileged ports, that, in more than one instance, the commander of a British cruiser had been censured for having ventured to approach them, in consequence of complaints and remonstrances of the French Government. This, he could hardly credit. He hoped that, however, for prudential reasons, we might put up with injury, we had not yet shown ourselves altogether insensible to insult. By treaty, every French vessel, of every sort and size, was allowed to enter our ports, and to remain there as 935 long as she pleased. Why, then, he asked, should British vessels, employed for the repression of smuggling, and they only, be excluded from those ports of France, where, at the same time, every possible bonus and bounty was held out to contraband trade? Having stated these facts, and, moreover, declaring himself, as he did, in his place in Parliament, quite prepared to substantiate them, he thought he had a fair right to say to noble Lords opposite, that, when they sought to repress the offence of smuggling, they ought to look to causes rather than effects. They ought to prevent rather than punish; and they should first try what could be done in the way of bringing the French Government to a sense of common decency and common honesty—he would not say of common justice—because he did not wish to ask for what was unreasonable or impossible, before they came down to this House with a Bill, imposing additional disgrace upon such of our fellow-subjects as should be involved in that guilty system, of which, so long as these privileged ports should continue on their present footing, he charged the French Government with being the authors and abettors. His Majesty's Ministers must either be cognizant or ignorant of this system of masked and insidious hostility against some of the best interests of the country. If cognizant, had they tried to put a stop to it by holding such language, as, under such circumstances, British Ministers were entitled to hold? If ignorant, what were we to think of Ambassadors, and Consuls, and Vice-Consuls, and other official servants, who, paid by the public for watching over their interests, left their Government without information on points so vitally affecting them, and on matters which were as notorious as it was that the sun shone at mid-day? He had a most earliest and unfeigned desire for the preservation of a perfect and cordial good understanding with France. But he was not prepared to pay too high a price for the pleasure of bragging and boasting once a-year that such a good understanding did really subsist. He did in his conscience believe, looking at the past, looking at the present, and fearing for the future, that, from the days of Charles 2nd down to our own pre-eminently glorious period, there was no one earthly advantage to be derived from what was fondly termed an intimate connection with France, for 936 which, in some shape or other, in the shape of honour or in that of interest, we had not to pay ten thousand times more than the value received.

§ Lord Auckland
said, it was impossible to prevent smuggling, unless by such a reduction of duties as would render it not worth while to run the risk. As to France, he knew not that this Government could interfere with its municipal regulations; but whenever any authorised act of smuggling was made known to Ministers, they remonstrated strongly against it, and obtained satisfaction. He must add, that the regulations of England were not altogether destitute of that character of connivance which the noble Lord properly blamed in those of France. He was afraid, that, on the frontiers of all countries, where very high duties were levied, it was impossible to prevent the appearance of connivance.

§ The Duke of Wellington
said, he had opportunities of knowing for many years what was passing on the coasts of this country, and he was quite ready to acquit the present Government of the charge of holding out encouragement to smuggling. But when his noble friend (Lord Strangford) said, that illicit exportation was encouraged from France, it was no answer to him to say, as the noble Lord (Auckland) did, that it was impossible to prevent smuggling.

§ Earl Grey
had not thought the observations of the noble Viscount required any reply; but, after what had fallen from the noble Duke, he must make a single observation. He looked with great satisfaction to the intimate and confidential union which existed at that moment between England and France, as, on its continuance, he did not hesitate to say, the peace of Europe depended; and he, from his heart, hoped that it would remain uninterrupted; but to sacrifice the honour and interests of his country, even to so desirable an object as that which he had stated, he was, he begged leave to say, quite as incapable of doing that as the noble Baron himself. Why did not the noble Baron come manfully forward and produce his charge—why did he not state his facts upon a Motion, of which notice had been given? Let the noble Viscount do this whenever he liked, and he would meet him and his charge, and answer, and, as he thought, refute it. The noble Viscount had spoken as if this smuggling trade had 937 only commenced since the present Ministers took office. The noble Viscount said, yes; and again he said, no. But he asked, was it peculiar to the French? was it not a natural desire with them, as with every other people under the sun, to produce as much as they could, and to export as much as they could? If the noble Viscount would state any thing specific, he would at once grapple with the charge; but he would say no more on the subject now—seeing how easy it was to make general sweeping assertions, how difficult properly to repel them—than that his Majesty's Government had never on this, or on any other subject—no matter what—shown any backwardness to express their opinions to the French Government in a becoming and suitable manner, and that whenever it had been necessary to remonstrate on this particular subject, they had immediately done so, and at once been attended to. He repeated, that he was sincerely anxious for the continuance of this union, which the noble Baron so much decried; because, in his conscience, he believed it fraught with good to this and to every other country—because, above all, he thought it an honourable guarantee of peace; but that union should not be maintained for a moment longer by him, if it was to be at the expense either of the interests or the honour of his country.

Viscount Strangford
begged to say one word, in the way of explanation. The noble Earl had asked, whether it was meant that the regulations of the French Government, of which he complained, had been introduced since his (Lord Grey's) accession to office; and, upon receiving an answer in the affirmative, had emphatically denied that such was the case. Now he begged again to repeat, in answer to the denial of the noble Earl, that those regulations of the French Government, of which he complained, had all been framed since the accession to office of the present Government, namely, subsequently to January, 1831. Before that time the French Government never ventured on such proceedings.