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 1 2 3 
 
 32X 
 
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 6 
 

 ON 
 
 THE TIMBER TRADE 
 
 BY 
 
 HKNRY BLISS, ESQ- 
 
 I 
 
 i, 
 
 LONDON: 
 
 J. RIDGWAY, PICCADILLY. 
 
 MDCCCXXXI. 
 
 f 
 
 
G 
 
 55856a 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 C. ROWORTli AND SONS, BELL YARD, 
 TEMPLE BAR. 
 
ON 
 
 THE TIMBER TRADE; 
 
 k s 
 
 ,i': 
 
 Few commercial questions are more important than 
 that of the Timber Trade, and few more difficult. It 
 stands embarrassed with an intricate scale of duties, 
 disputed facts, the great relations of foreign and co- 
 lonial policy, the interests of home production and 
 consumption, and, as if these were not sufficient to 
 perplex the consideration, it is almost always associated 
 with abstract controversies of political economy. Yet 
 as one third part, or 700,000 tons, of the whole shipping 
 arriving annually in the United Kingdom, from beyond 
 seas, comes laden with wood, the maritime ascendancy 
 of the British Empire may be said to depend upon this 
 trade; and consequently its circumstances, however 
 complex, demand the most thorough inquiry and accu- 
 rate knowledge on the part of those, who attempt to 
 regulate it by legislation. 
 
 The present is an essay to study and set forth this 
 subject with all its bearings and ingredients, in order 
 to determine the nature and consequences of the 
 measures lately submitted to parliament. This object 
 may perhaps be better attained, by separately consider- 
 ing what effect the proposed alteration would probably 
 have had upon the Timber Trade, upon the British 
 colonies, upon emigration, upon the manufacturers, 
 
 b2 
 
( 4 ) 
 
 consumers, and shipowners, of the United Kingdom, 
 by summing up and comparing the profit and loss, and 
 by examining the theory upon which the measure is 
 founded, and the views of general policy with which it 
 is connected. First of all, however, let there be given 
 some brief annals of former, present, and the proposed, 
 regulations of this Trade. 
 
 Such notices are not merely matter of curiosity, but 
 may be useful for reference in this discussion, and at 
 the same time show, by the frequency of legislation 
 upon this Trade, during nearly 200 years, the necessity 
 the country has felt throughout that period of securing 
 those same two objects, which are still urged as the 
 most important to British interests, a due share in the 
 carrying, and an active competition in the supplying, 
 of wood to the United Kingdom. 
 
 That these objects, and particularly the introduction 
 of competition from a source independent of foreign 
 powers, were forced upon us by hard experience of 
 their want, appears from the repeated attempts of 
 between thirty and forty statutes to effect this end, 
 and further, is expressly alleged by several, which 
 record, as the reasons of their enactment, the exorbitant 
 profits, arbitrary rates, and excessive prices, at which 
 wood was brought into this kingdom from foreign 
 countries. Complaints, which, until in fear of absolute 
 destitution, the most effective means were finally taken 
 to establis'i this competition, seem never to have ceased, 
 nor, after that competition was estabUshed, to have long 
 continued. There can be no doubt that at the present 
 moment wood of all kinds, both Baltic and Colonial, 
 is imported and sold at the lowest possible rates. 
 
ANNAI.S OF THE TIMBER TRADE. 
 
 At whatever period this country first became depen- 
 dent upon forests beyond seas for supplies of wood, 
 perhaps the earliest traces of that dependence, in our 
 laws of trade, are to be found in the navigation acts of 
 Cromwell and Charles the Second. Soon after pubhc 
 attention was turned to naval power, it seems to have 
 occurred, that the importation of wood, being the most 
 bulky of all articles, must, if secured to British naviga- 
 tion, most effectually promote our maritime ascendancy, 
 whereon, as was then conceived, under the good pro- 
 vidence of God, the wealth, safety, and strength of this 
 nation did chiefly depend. 
 
 In 1651, therefore, the resolutions of the Common- 
 wealth, and in 1660 the stat. 12 Car. 2, c. 1, restricted 
 the importation of certain articles from foreign coun- 
 tries to British ships and ships of the country whence 
 imported. Of which articles, among the first enume- 
 rated, as the most important, are masts, timber, boards, 
 and naval stores, and on importation in foreign ships, 
 they were charged with the alien's duty. 
 
 In 1662, the importation of wood of all kinds and of 
 naval stores from Holland and the parts adjacent, was 
 prohibited (by the 14 & 15 Car. 2, c. 11). 
 
^ 
 
 ( G ) 
 
 In 1704, the following bounties were (by 3 & 4 Anne, 
 c. 10,) given for the importation of naval stores and 
 timber from the colonies : 
 
 Tar and pitch, per ton £4 
 
 Turpentine 3 
 
 Hemp 6 
 
 Masts, yards, and bowsprits 1 
 
 This act was to continue for nine years from the 1st 
 of January, 1705. Its continuance was, in 1713, by 
 \2 Anne, c. 9, extended for a further period of eleven 
 years, until the 1st of January, 1725. The bounty 
 upon hemp was afterwards continued by several suc- 
 cessive statutes, but the bounty upon masts, &c. seems 
 to have expired that year. 
 
 In 1719, the prohibition (by 14& 15 Car. 2, c. 11,) 
 of importing deals and timber, was repealed as far as 
 related to Germany, but continued as to the Nether- 
 lands, (by the 6 Geo. 1, c. 15,) and the importation was 
 permitted in British ships only, and subject to the 
 same duties as the wood of Norway. 
 
 In 1721, the act 8 Geo. 1, c. 12, was passed, permit- 
 ting the importation, from the British Colonies in 
 America, of wood of all kinds, (excepting masts, yards, 
 and bowsprits, for which duties and premiums were 
 ascertained by former acts,) duty free, for the period 
 of 21 years, after the 24th of June, 1722. This statute 
 was afterwards continued (by 16 Geo. 2, c. 26; 24 Geo. 
 2, c. 57; 31 Geo. 2, c. 35 ; 4 Geo. 3, c. 11 ; 12 Geo. 3, 
 c. 56] 19 Geo. 3, c. 22; 26 Geo. 3, c. 53; 33 Geo. 3, 
 c. 40; 36 Geo. 3, c. 40,) to 1802, when it expired. 
 
 In 1729, bounties upon naval stores and masts, yards 
 and bowsprits, were revived, (by 2 Geo. 2, c. 35,) which 
 also added these to the enumerated articles, whose 
 
•». 
 
 (I 
 
 4 
 
 ( 7 ) 
 
 exportation from the Colonies to foreign countries was 
 prohibited. These bounties wore the following : — 
 
 Masts, yards, and bowsprits, per ton .. .£1 
 
 Tar 2 4 
 
 Pitch 1 
 
 Turpentine 1 10 
 
 These premiums were to continue from the 29th of 
 September, 1729, for 13 years. Their continuance 
 was further extended (by If? Geo. 2, c. 28 ; 24 Geo. 2, 
 c. 52 ; 25 Geo. 2, c. 35 ; 32 Geo. 2, c. 23 ; 6 Geo. 3, c. 
 44 ; 14 Geo. 3, c. 26 ; 25 Geo. 3, c. 69,) till the 25th of 
 December, 1785, when they seem to have expired. 
 
 In 1765, the statute 5 Geo. 3, c. 45, enacted other 
 bounties for the importation of wood from the British 
 Colonies in America, at the rates and for the periods 
 
 following : — 
 
 Deals, 10 feet 10 by \\ inch, per 120 : 
 
 For three years, till January I, 1769 £1 
 
 From January 1, 1769, to January 1, 1772.. 15 
 
 From January 1, 1772, to January 1, 1775.. 10 
 
 Of 5»reater length and thickness, not exceeding 4 inches, in like proportion. 
 
 Timber of all kinds 10 inches square : 
 
 For three years, till January 1, 1769 £0 12 
 
 From January 1, 1769, till January 1, 1772. .080 
 From January 1, 1772, till January 1, 1775. . 5 
 
 In 1782, the permission to import deals, masts, and 
 timber from Germany, in British ships, was (by 22 
 Geo. 3, c. 79,) extended to wood of all kinds from any 
 part of Europe, in British ships, or ships of the coun- 
 try whence imported; subjecting, however, such impor- 
 tations in foreign ships to the alien's duty. 
 
 In 1787, the statute 27 Geo. 3, c. 13, repealed all 
 former duties of customs, and enacted, among others, 
 the following upon timber, and the description of deals 
 most generally imported : — 
 
 Deals, 8 to 20 feet, above 7 inches wide, by 3J inch thick, per 120 : 
 
 In British ships £2 13 
 
 Foreign 2 14 5 
 
 ^ 
 
( 8 ) 
 
 Fir timber, 8 inch square and upwards : 
 
 III liritir,li ships £0 6 8 
 
 Foreign 6 10 
 
 Wood of all kinds, except masts, yards, and bow- 
 sprits from the IJritisli Colonies, was at this time, and 
 until 1802, free of duty. 
 
 In 1796, an addition often percent, upon the amount 
 of the duties on staves, and five per cent, upon those of 
 other wood, was granted by 37 Geo. 3, c. 15. 
 
 In 1801, the 41 Geo. 3, c. 28, granted the following 
 among other additional duties on foreign wood from 
 Europe : — 
 
 Deals, 8 to 20 feet— 7 inches wide, by 3J inch, per 120 : 
 
 In British ships £1 9 3 
 
 Foreign 110 
 
 Fir Timber, (except of Norway,) 8 inch square and upwards : 
 
 In British ships £0 3 8 
 
 Foreign 3 9 
 
 In 1803, by the stat. 43 Geo. 3, c. 68, all former 
 duties were repealed, and the following imposed on 
 importation from Europe: — 
 
 Deals, 8 to 20 feet — 7 inches wide, by 3J inch, per 120 : 
 
 In British ships £6 8 
 
 Foreign 6 12 6 
 
 Deal and deal ends of all sorts of the Colonies in America, 5s. the 1 20. 
 
 Fir Timber of Norway, 8 inches square and not above 10 : 
 
 In British ships . £0 9 
 
 Foreign 9 4 
 
 Above 10 inches square : 
 
 In British ships 1 
 
 Foreign 1 9 
 
 Of other parts of Europe, 8 inches square and upwards : 
 
 In British ships £1 
 
 Foreign 1 9 
 
 Of the Colonies in America 1 6 
 
 This act also continued to the United States of 
 America the privilege, which had been granted to them 
 in 1782, under the 23 Geo. 3, c. 39, and after statutes, 
 
( 9 ) 
 
 of importing tlcals, timber, and some other descriptions 
 of wood, into Great Britain, if in British vessels, on the 
 same duties as Colonial wood, with unimportant addi- 
 tions on importation in American shipping. 
 
 [n 1800, by the stat. 46 Geo. '3, c. 117, the importa- 
 tion of masts, yards, and bowsprits, and timber fit for 
 naval purposes, was permitted from the British Co- 
 lonies in America, duty free, until 1809. This act was 
 continued (by the 48 Geo. 3, c. 19, until the 25 March, 
 1810; and by 50 Geo. 3,c. V2, till 25 March, 1812; by 
 52 Geo. 3, c. 33, till six months after the peace; and 
 afterwards by subsequent acts,) until 25 March, 1821. 
 
 In 1809, the 49 Geo. 3, c. 98, repealing former 
 duties, imposed the following : 
 
 Permanent. War. Total. 
 
 Foreign Deals, 8 to 20 feet — 
 
 7 inches wide, by 3^ inch, per 120 : 
 
 In British ships 6113 .. 339.. 9 15 
 
 Foreign 6 16 .. 2 5 4 .. 9 1 4 
 
 Deals and deal ends of all sorts 
 of the British Colonies in 
 America £0 5 3 . . £0 1 9 . . £0 7 
 
 Fir timber of Norway, 8 inches 
 to 10: 
 
 In British ships 9 3 .. .. 9 3 
 
 Foreign 9 6 .. .. 9 6 
 
 Above 10 inches square : 
 
 In British ships 1 6 .. 6 10 .. I 7 4 
 
 Foreign 1 1 6 .. 7 2 .. 1 8 8 
 
 Other, 8 inches and upwards : 
 
 In Britisii ships 1 6 .. 6 10 .. 1 7 4 
 
 Foreign 1 1 6 .. 7 2 .. 1 8 8 
 
 Of the British Colonies in 
 America, 8 inches square, 
 and upwards 1 6 .. 6 .. 2 
 
 Colonial timber for naval pur- 
 poses duty free. 
 
 These temporary war duties were to continue until 
 six months after the peace. 
 
 In 1810, the duties last mentioned, both permanent 
 
 I 
 
( 10 ) 
 
 and temporary, were doubled by the act 50 Geo. 3, 
 c. 77. 
 
 Deals from 8 to 10 feet long, above 7 inches wide, 
 and not above 1 ^ thick, and fir timber 8 inches square 
 and not above 10, of and from Norway, were excepted 
 from this act. 
 
 In 1811, by 51 Geo. 3, c. 43, the above exception of 
 Norway deals and timber was repealed. In lieu of 
 which there was granted, upon such wood of Norway 
 used in the mines of Devon and Cornwall, a drawback 
 of all the duties above the amount imposed by the 49 
 Geo. 3, c. 98. 
 
 In the same year, by the 51 Geo. 3, c. 93, the 
 Norway fir timber of the above dimensions was charged, 
 in addition, by the following permanent and temporary 
 duties, with the same drawback as in the statute last 
 
 mentioned. 
 
 Permanent. Wiir. Total. 
 
 In British ships £1 2 6 ..£0 13 8 ..£116 2 
 
 Foreign 1 4 . . 14 4 . . 1 18 4 
 
 In 1812, additional duties, both permanent and tem- 
 porary, were, by 52 Geo. 3, c. 117, imposed upon 
 certain articles of wood (balks, fir quarters, and ufers,) 
 not concerned in the present inquiry. 
 
 In 1813, the permanent duties upon wood of all 
 kinds, colonial as well as foreign, were, by 53 Geo. 3, 
 c. 33, increased five-and-twenty per cent. 
 
 These temporary duties were continued by several 
 acts after the peace, and at last, by the 5G Geo. 3, 
 c. 19, in 1816, made perpetual. 
 
 In 1814 and 1815, the statutes 54 Geo. III. c. 129, 
 and 55 Geo. 3, c. 14, repealed all former duties upon 
 the importation of wood into Ireland, and granted the 
 following upon deals and timber : — 
 
( n ) 
 
 Deals, per 120. 
 
 12 ft... 12— by 3J inches 
 
 12 to 14 ft do 
 
 14 to 16 ft do 
 
 18 ft do 
 
 20 ft do 
 
 20 ft. . . 12— by above 3| inch . . 
 20ft,..12— by 4 inch 
 
 Foreign. 
 
 In Ikitish 
 Ships. 
 
 Exceeding ditto 100 
 
 Deal Ends. 
 
 Under 8 ft. 
 Ditto 
 
 .12— by 3^; inch 
 by above 3^ inch 
 
 Fir Timber. 
 
 8 inches square and upwards 
 
 £. *•• 
 12 9 
 14 11 
 16 12 
 18 14 
 20 15 
 41 11 
 51 9 
 6 
 
 In Foreign. 
 
 £. s. 
 12 18 
 1.5 1 
 
 17 
 19 
 
 7 1 8 
 13 14 8 
 
 3 4 11 
 
 21 10 
 
 43 1 
 
 .52 16 
 
 101 17 
 
 d. 
 6 
 7 
 8 
 8 
 8 
 4 
 1 
 9 
 
 Colonial. 
 
 Deals and 
 deal ends 
 of all kinds 
 the 120, 
 8s. 3d. 
 
 7 7 3 
 14 5 
 
 3 8 1 2 4 
 
 By the latter of these acts it was provided, that 
 whenever the duties on deals in Great Britain should 
 be reduced, an equal reduction should be made on 
 those duties in Ireland. 
 
 In 1819, the customs were consolidated by the 59 
 Geo. 3, c. 52. All former duties were repealed, and 
 among others the following imposed, in Great Britain, 
 upon timber, and deals under 20 feet ; the same draw- 
 back as before mentioned being continued to the deals 
 of Norway used in the mines. 
 
 ^°!!'g"- In British i„ Foreign. 
 
 Deals. Ships. ^ 
 
 8 to 20 ft., .. 7, — by 3} inch £20 15 8 .. 21 10 8 
 
 Fir Timber. 
 
 8 inches square and upwards 3 5 .. 3 8 
 
 Colonial. 
 
 Deals and ends of all kinds. 120 8 4 
 
 Fir Timber. 
 
 8 inches square and upwards 2 6 
 
 Fir for naval purposes, (by 46 Geo. III. 
 
 c. 117) Free. 
 
 In 1821 all former duties were repealed and new 
 imn^se^' '" Gvpa*" Britain, bv the statutes 1 'ind 2 Goo. 
 
in 
 
 ( J2 ) 
 
 4, c. 37 and 84, with a continuance of the same draw- 
 back. The charges then laid upon deals and timber 
 were these : — 
 
 Deals, per 120. Foreign. Colonial. 
 
 8 to 10 ft. above 7 inches wide, by 1| thick. 
 
 In British ships £8 2 6 
 
 Foreign H 7 
 
 6 to 16 ft. . . 7 inches, . . 3^. 
 
 In British ships 19 . . £2 
 
 foreign 19 19 
 
 16 to 21 ft. .. 7 inches, .. 3J. 
 
 In British ships 22 . . 2 10 
 
 Foreign 23 2 
 
 6 to 21 ft. . . 7 inches, . . above 3 J. 
 
 In British ships 38 ,. 4 
 
 Foreign 39 is 
 
 Above 21 ft. . . 7 inches, . . 4. 
 
 In British ships 44 . , 6 
 
 Foreign 46 4 
 
 The same above 4. 
 
 In British ships 88 . . 10 Q Q 
 
 Foreign 92 8 
 
 Deal Ends. 
 
 Under 6 ft. . . 7 inches, . . 3^. 
 
 In British ships 6 .. 15 
 
 Foreign 6 6 
 
 Same above 3^. 
 
 In British ships 12 .. 1 10 
 
 Foreign 12 12 
 
 Fir Timber. 
 
 8 inches square and upwards. 
 
 In British ships 2 15 .. 10 
 
 Foreign 2 17 
 
 In 1825, the act 6 Geo. 4, c. HI, for consolidating 
 the laws of the customs, reduced the duties on wood 
 imported in foreign ships, to the amount imposed in 
 1821 on importation in British, agreeably to the repro- 
 city laws and treaties. This and the other reductions 
 by those treaties were equivalent to more than 2*. Gd. 
 the load. This statute re-enacted in other respects 
 the same duties and drawbacks on wood imported into 
 Great Britain, as fixed in 1821 by 1 and 2 Geo. 4, c. 
 37, 84, excepting that deals above 45 feet long and 
 
( 1.3 ) 
 
 3 inch thick were charged £2 : 10*. the load, and 
 further with £6 the 120. 
 
 With regard to Ireland, this statute re-enacted the 
 duties on deals as imposed in 1815 by the 55 Geo. 3, c. 
 14, on importation in British ships, and made the 
 duties on timber the same as those in Great Britain. 
 And the stat. 55 Geo. 3, c. 14, was, as far as related 
 to the duties it imposed, repealed. 
 
 On the 11th February, 1831, the Chancellor of the 
 Exchequer, in opening his budget for the year, an- 
 nounced his intention of remitting duties of customs 
 and excise on certain other articles, and supplying the 
 deficiency thus caused by raising an additional revenue 
 on wood. And this addition he promised should be 
 obtained, not only without any increase of burthen to 
 the public, but even with considerable relief. The de- 
 tails of that measure he reserved to be explained at 
 another time ; but the principle and rule of it he 
 then declared to be, a reduction on Baltic timber of 
 5s. from £2 : 15*. a load to £2 : 10*.; and an in- 
 crease on colonial from 10*. a load to 20s. Deals he pro- 
 posed to charge in similar proportion, according to their 
 cubical contents. Agreeably to that principle, the rate 
 of charges upon both, it is beheved, was to have been 
 the following : — 
 
 Deals, per 120. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Not exceeding 
 
 
 
 Foreig 
 
 n. 
 
 Colonial. 
 
 in lengtli, 
 
 Width. 
 
 Thickness. 
 
 
 
 
 8 ft. 3 inches. 
 
 .12 inches 
 
 . . 3| inches . 
 
 ..£9 
 
 
 
 ..£3 10 
 
 10 ft. 3 
 
 do. 
 
 do. 
 
 ..12 
 
 
 
 .. 4 10 
 
 12 ft. 3 
 
 do. 
 
 do. . 
 
 .. 16 
 
 
 
 .. 6 
 
 14 ft. 3 
 
 do. 
 
 do. . 
 
 .. 18 10 
 
 
 
 ..700 
 
 16 ft. 3 
 
 do. 
 
 do. . 
 
 ..21 
 
 
 
 ..800 
 
 18 ft. 3 
 
 do. 
 
 do. . 
 
 .. 23 10 
 
 
 
 ..900 
 
 20 ft. 3 
 
 do. 
 
 do. . 
 
 .. 26 
 
 
 
 ..10 
 
 22 ft. 3 
 
 do. 
 
 do. . 
 
 .. 28 10 
 
 
 
 ..11 
 
 Fir Timber. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 8 inches snuare 
 
 and upwai 
 
 ds 
 
 .. 2 10 
 
 
 
 1 
 
( 14 ) 
 
 hi 
 
 This change he afterwards declared was not to ex- 
 tend to Ireland. 
 
 On Friday the 18th day of March, the day appointed 
 for the discussion of this measure, in which the 
 ministers had in the mean time frequently intimated 
 their resolution to persist, they suddenly declared it 
 to have been abandoned, and in lieu thereof brought 
 forward the following proposition : — to make no addi- 
 tion to the duties on colonial timber and deals, but to 
 reduce the duties on Baltic by the whole amount of 
 I5s. a load, by gradations in three years ; that is, from 
 January, 1832, till 1833, the duty on foreign fir timber 
 to be £2 : 9— during 1833, £2 : 3— and after, £2 a 
 load ; and upon deals in the same proportion. And 
 this change they now declared was to extend to Ire- 
 land. 
 
 The surprise with which this was received could be 
 only exceeded by the indignant manner in which it was 
 rejected. A most important regulation of trade had 
 been brought forward as a question of finance. It had 
 been urged that .£600,000 must be raised for the 
 public service, and that the interest of particular 
 classes must of course give way to paramount objects 
 of revenue ; now it appeared that no more money was 
 wanting, and the measure was presented in the new 
 form of — a relief to the public, and a general regulation 
 of commercial policy. What had been in February 
 an item of ways and means for the current year, was 
 in March a particular case under the abstract rule of 
 free trade; the imposition of a new duty became a 
 remission of taxation : the last scheme of the budget 
 for 1831 was, by a rare specimen of transformation, 
 changed into an act concerning commerce and naviga- 
 
 ^ 
 
( 15 ) 
 
 tion in the year 1835. It was impossible for ministers, 
 after such a total change of front and face, to escape one 
 of two suspicions, that there was something insidious, 
 either in bringing forward a regulation of trade as if 
 a mere question of finance, or in converting a measure 
 of finance into a purely prospective regulation of trade. 
 If the design was to change the course of commerce, 
 why put this forward as merely a measure of revenue ? 
 if revenue only was the object, why, when that was 
 abandoned as unnecessary, seek notwithstanding to 
 change the course of this commerce? As such conduct 
 could not be taken for a purely vindictive piece of 
 mischief^ which, desperate of attaining its own ends, 
 sought at least to defeat and distress those of others, 
 it seems to have been understood as an instance of 
 gratuitous legislation upon abstract principles, unbe- 
 coming the gravity of practical statesmen to receive 
 from the caprice of a precocious economist. Never 
 was there a repulse more signal and exemplary. There 
 is no form of rejection which could more strongly mark 
 the opinion entertained, not only of the nature of the 
 measure, but of the conduct of those by whom it had 
 been thus proposed. Of 426 members present in the 
 committee, 236 voted that the chairman should leave 
 the chair, 190 opposed the motion, and it was carried 
 by a majority of 46. 
 
( 16 ) 
 
 EFFECT OF THE PROPOSED MEASURES 
 UPON THE TIMBER TRADE. 
 
 In discussing what would be the probable effect of 
 such a change as that proposed, it is necessary to con- 
 sider both of the measures brought forward, as well 
 that in February as this in March ; for though nothing 
 can be more contrary than the principles of each as 
 measures of finance, as regulations of trade nothing can 
 be more identical. To reduce taxes, and to impose, are 
 indeed different things ; but to burthen the production 
 of one competitor with ten shillings, while that of the 
 other is lightened by five, is the same as preserving 
 the duties unaltered on the former, and reducing those 
 on the latter by 15s. Indeed of the two measures the 
 reduction of 15s. on the Baltic is rather the more 
 objectionable; and if any of the deputations to the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer, as he seemed to intimate, 
 recommended such a course, they knew little of their 
 own case, and entirely forgot, what the shipping and 
 colonial committee have endeavoured to advocate 
 throughout, the case and interest of the public. Duties 
 on colonial productions if found too high may easily be 
 
 

 ( n ) 
 
 reduced, but duties on foreign commodities if found too 
 low, are not always to be increased without incon- 
 venience to foreign relations, and perhaps offence to, 
 or importunity from, a friendly power. 
 
 In this argument, therefore, whatever reasons are 
 urged to show the inexpediency of such an alteration 
 as first announced, viz., the imposition of 10*. on co- 
 lonial and the remission of 5«.on Baltic wood, will apply 
 equally against the same measure in its new aspect, 
 viz., of leaving the colonial duties as at present and 
 deducting 15*. a load from the Baltic. Either case 
 may be taken as an example of the same rule and prin- 
 ciple, at least until the effect upon consumers and the 
 revenue shall come under consideration. 
 
 It may be rendered evident by a few figures, that 
 the colonial trade in timber and deals would have been 
 most grievously injured by the duties proposed, and it 
 is feared, have wanted little of being totally destroyed. 
 The first cost, the fieight, the charges, and some profit, 
 however small, it is well known, must be first paid 
 before anything can be collected in the name of duty, 
 or trade and industry will soon come to an end. By 
 comparing, therefore, the amount of these ingredients, 
 which compose the whole cost of colonial wood, with 
 the market price, which is regulated by the cost and 
 duties of the foreign article, it will be seen at once 
 what the former can bear, and at what point it must 
 be abandoned for that of northern Europe. Differ- 
 ence, of course, there can be none, whether the wood of 
 Canada is put out of market by enhancing its price 
 through increase of its duties, or by reducing the prices 
 
 c 
 
 u 
 
 i 
 
!l 
 
 ( 18 ) 
 
 of the rival commodity through a decrease of duties on 
 Baltic wood. 
 
 i! 
 
 COLONIAL TIMBER. 
 
 First Cost 
 Charges . 
 Freight. . 
 
 Present Duty 
 
 Proposed addi- ) 
 tional Duty \ 
 
 Average Price "^ 
 the last three J 
 years S 
 
 Loss . 
 
 Red Pine. 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 1 10 
 6 6 
 
 2 
 
 3 16 6 
 10 
 
 4 6 6 
 10 
 
 4 16 6 
 4 7 6 
 
 9 
 
 Yellow 
 Pine. 
 
 £. s. 
 
 d. 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 1 15 
 
 
 
 3 
 10 
 
 3 10 
 10 
 
 4 
 3 10 
 
 10 
 
 BALTIC TIMBER. 
 
 Timber. 
 
 First Cost 
 Charges • 
 Freight . 
 
 Present Duty 
 
 Reduction at ) 
 first proposed jl 
 
 Average price ~i 
 for the last J 
 three years j 
 
 £. f. d. 
 
 I 2 6 
 
 .0 
 
 1 
 
 Profit 
 
 2 7 6 
 2 15 
 
 5 2 6 
 5 
 
 4 17 6 
 
 5 2 6 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 A Table in a subsequent page will show how the 
 change proposed in the rate and scale of duties would 
 affect Colonial deals. The reduction on foreign deals 
 was from o£19 to of 16, and the increase on Colonial 
 from £2 to £6, by the great hundred. 
 
 These statements will present as fair a view of the 
 present state of the trade, and the effect upon it of the 
 proposed alteration, as figures can exhibit. They may 
 undoubtedly be varied by computations with reference 
 to particular ports, but the average of the whole trade 
 for the last three years can not, it is believed, materially 
 differ from the above accounts. 
 
i !■' 
 
 f 
 
 ( 19 ) 
 
 The colonial deals ought principally to be contrasted 
 with those of Norway, because from their relative di- 
 mensions, and from the effect of the change in the 
 scale of duties, it is the Norwegian that will come most 
 into competition with the colonial, and must utterly 
 supplant them: unless perhaps any one can affirm, that 
 of these rival commodities, if £4) be added to the 
 duty on one, and £3 deducted from the duty on the 
 other, or if a pure and partial deduction of £1 be 
 made from either alone, both can still compete in the 
 same market. 
 
 The new scale of duties has also a double aspect ; 
 first, it alters the relative duties on foreign and colonial 
 deals; secondly, it introduces a new division of the 
 dimensions upon which the charge is graduated; by the 
 latter of which it depresses the Russian trade scarcely 
 less than it prohibits the colonial by the former; and 
 all for the benefit of the Norwegian. This effect will 
 be best set forth by the tables following, which show 
 what the present scale amounts to per load on the 
 deals of the several countries, from which imported, 
 and what change would be effected by the scale pro- 
 posed. 
 
 c3 
 
( iiO ) 
 
 //r 
 
 I'l-agc Size of Deals as now imported, with the Contents of \ 20 
 Pieces in Cubic Feet, and the Rate of 1. 
 
 Cubic Feet on each Description. 
 
 of Duty per Load of ,"H) 
 
 Foreign. 
 Noiwav . . 
 Do. .... 
 Mernel . . . . 
 Petersburg 
 Archangel 
 
 Canadian. 
 Spruce .... 
 Yellow Pine 
 
 Length. 
 
 Feet. 
 12 
 14i 
 18^ 
 20 
 20i 
 
 12 
 12 
 
 Thick- 
 ness. 
 
 Inches 
 3 
 3 
 3 
 3 
 3 
 
 3 
 3 
 
 Width, 
 
 Inches 
 
 9 
 
 9 
 11 
 11 
 11 
 
 9 
 11 
 
 Cubic ft. 
 in 120 
 Pieces. 
 
 Present Duty 
 per Load. 
 
 Feet. 
 
 270 
 
 326^ 
 
 508,1 
 
 550 
 
 563^ 
 
 270 
 330 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 3 10 4^ 
 
 2 18 3 
 
 2 3 3 
 
 2 
 
 1 19 li 
 
 7 
 6 
 
 Of 
 
 Dimensions of which Deals could, and probably ivould, be /)«- 
 ported under the proposed Scale of Duties, at the New Rates 
 given in page 13. 
 
 
 Length. 
 
 Thick- 
 ness. 
 
 Inches. 
 
 Width 
 Inches. 
 
 Cubic 
 
 ft. in 
 
 120 
 
 Pieces. 
 
 Projwsed 
 
 Duty per 
 
 Load. 
 
 Increase 
 of Duty. 
 
 Decrease. 
 
 Foreign. 
 
 Feet. 
 
 Feet. 
 
 £. A-. d. 
 
 £. A'. (/. 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 Norway . . 
 
 12 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 270 
 
 2 19 3 'O 
 
 11 IJ 
 
 Do 
 
 14 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 315 
 
 2 18 8|0 5| 
 
 Memel 
 
 16 
 
 3 
 
 11 
 
 440 
 
 2 7 8J0 4 5f 
 
 
 Petersburg . 
 
 18 
 
 3 
 
 11 
 
 495 
 
 2 7 5|0 7 5| 
 
 
 Archangel . 
 
 20 
 
 3 
 
 11 
 
 550 
 
 2 7 3^0 8 3 
 
 
 Canadian. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Spruce .... 
 
 12 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 270 
 
 1 2 22-0 14 9f 
 18 2jO 12 IJ 
 
 
 Yellow Pine 
 
 12 
 
 3 
 
 11 
 
 330 
 
 
 A deduction of £3 the great hundred, equal to 
 1 1*. lid. per load, was to be made from the 12 feet deals 
 of Norway, and an addition of i'4 the great hundred, or 
 14*. 9^(1. the load, made to the spruce deals of Canada. 
 No competition could have stood this; yet on the 
 10 feet deals the difference would have been far oreater. 
 
( ai ) 
 
 I 
 
 Specious reasons, Ijowever, have been alleged for 
 this scale of charges; in point of fairness, that it is 
 more according to cubical contents ; in point of policy, 
 that it encourages the importation of wood in a state of 
 less manufacture. From what use has been derived 
 the latter reason, which would put consumers to the 
 expense of paying freight, charges, and profit, upon 
 waste and saw dust, need not be asked of those 
 who, in destroying what is called a forced trade in 
 wood, when they were at the same time destroying a 
 voluntary and expenseless emigration, proposed to en- 
 courage the latter at the public cost ; and ofter, as a 
 compensation for diminishing protection on colonial 
 wood, to increase the protection on colonial corn. But 
 however desirable this object, the new scale does little 
 to attain it ; for, except on the deals of Norway and 
 Canada, the duties are still unequal to the duty on 
 timber. On the other side, thei'e are also reasons, to 
 which this change in the gradations of the scale is no 
 less opposed, both in expedience and justice. For as 
 a question of justice, if the difference in the present 
 scale of duties is to the advantage of Russia, from the 
 larger growth of her trees, the difference of freight, 
 from the length of the voyage, is also to her prejudice; 
 and the former circumstance has never been made the 
 exact criterion of our duties, though the latter has 
 often introduced a greater distinction. Next, as a 
 question of expediency, it surely is of no less import- 
 ance to consider, whose ships are to import an article, 
 of which the freight equals half the first cost, than 
 whose saws are to cut it ; and of the deals from Russia, 
 almost all are brought in British ships; of the deals 
 
 I 
 
( 22 ) 
 
 from Norway, about one-tenth. There exists, how- 
 ever, no reason why the interests of British industry 
 should not be consulted in both respects ; or at least 
 there can exist no doubt that, as far as it concerns 
 Colonial deals, British industry would have been sacri- 
 ficed ; for to them these charges amount to a radical 
 prohibition. 
 
 These effects seem to have been felt so strongly, 
 that an attempt is made in the new scale to counteract 
 them, by charging all deals as 12 inches wide, those 
 of Norway being in fact only 9, while the Russian 
 are II. This attempt partakes of all the charac- 
 teristics of the whole measure throughout — inconsis- 
 tency in its principle, mistake in calculation, vigour 
 to inflict, and impotence to remedy, the evil. First, 
 a great preference is given to Norwegian deals, for 
 the sake of charging the duties according to cubical 
 contents ; then the duties are not to be charged accord- 
 ing to cubical contents, for the sake of counteracting 
 the preference given to Norwegian deals. Let the 
 deals and duties alone, for the sake of heaven ! may 
 well be the exclamation of the ship-owners and colo- 
 nists; the injury first done to the trade was sufficiently 
 oppressive, but the compensation proposed is equally 
 ruinous. For a vast quantity of the Colonial deals, 
 almost all those of spruce, are also of the width ui only 
 nine inches; and while counting nine for e' en is 
 utterly inefficient to enable the Russian to compete 
 with the Norwegian, (because the difference of duty 
 thus made is 11*. 3d. a lond, and the difference of 
 freight j>; ^b.ve 14*.) yet tht additional burthen laid, 
 by the : aiK' ralo, upon Colonial, amounting to 4*. a 
 
 rsssa 
 
( 2;j ) 
 
 i 
 
 I.; 
 
 lojul, places tlieir entire exclusion no less beyond tloubt 
 or redemption. 
 
 The ett'ect of such a scale on Russian and Norwegian 
 deals, may be exemplified by its operation in [rcland, 
 where a similar system has for some time been in force, 
 and where the importation of last year, from Norway, 
 was ^,'227 great hundreds, from the rest of Europe, 
 417 , while the importation into (ireat Britain was, from 
 Norway 9,700, from the rest of Europe 18,400. As 
 the advantage Norway now possesses in Ireland is con- 
 siderably less than that pro])osed in Great Britain, a 
 similar result may be fairly expected, and consecjuently 
 the decline of the Russian trade in deals cannot be 
 thought exaggerated if taken at one half. 
 
 There are brought from the Colonies about 18,258 
 great hundreds of deals, equal to 105,895 loads, and 
 requiring about 70,000 tons of shipping. This, there- 
 fore, was in deals the amount of trade and navigation 
 to have been terminated bv the new duties. 
 
 The quantity of timber imported from the Colonies 
 amounts to about .'39o,6.'Jl loads, of which 100,000 may 
 be red pine, 2(52,354 yellow, and {J 1,1 77 of oak or 
 other timber. 
 
 As the difference made in timber is not quite so 
 evident a prohibition as in deals, it may be urged, that 
 though the duty were to be doubled, or 150 per cent, 
 of its amount remitted to the foreign competitor, yet 
 the other ingredients of the price can be reduced, 
 and, therefore, the trade be continued at lower profits, 
 indeed, to those employed, but equal gain to the reve- 
 nue or the consumer. 
 
 Such reductions are, undoubtedly, the first resource 
 to which industry resorts against the burthens and de- 
 
 ll 
 
( 24 ) 
 
 rangenients of government : but this resource is not 
 inexhaustible, and, in the present case, has been long 
 since employed beyond any useful result. Since the 
 changes last made of duties on timber, and the repeal 
 of discriminating charges on foreign tonnage, the 
 British merchant and colonist have only been induced 
 to carry on the trade by the barest saving profit; 
 which but for. the distresses of the ship-owner would 
 have proved an invariable loss. The ship-owner has 
 been compelled to submit to reductions greatly be- 
 low, not merely the fair and ordinary rate, but below 
 all living remuneration ; his average freight from the 
 Colonies having declined from three to two pounds the 
 load. Why then, occurs the usual objection, why has 
 he continued the trade ? Because, though a man has 
 sunk half his capital, he is not therefore the less anxious 
 to save the remainder. Sell out the ship-owner could 
 not, except at a sacrifice of fifty per cent. ; and, to work 
 out some portion of the other fifty, he must keep his 
 vessel in employ. The force of hope and habit is 
 enough for this, even if prudence did not direct it. 
 
 Ships, however, are still built. They are; but by 
 either a different class of men, or for a different pur- 
 pose, and in diminished number. There must always 
 be a constant succession of the first class of ships, be- 
 cause some trades can be conducted in no other. If 
 this class also has been overstocked, it was not so much 
 by the ship-owners increasmg the number, as that the 
 shipbuilders have from the*ame depression been driven 
 to force an employment. No new ships have been 
 built by any person for the Timber Trade, nor have 
 many entered it but those which, after a certain age, can 
 
( 
 
 25 
 
 ) 
 
 find employment in that alone. The same causes have 
 even compelled the ship-owners, in the absence of ail 
 offers for charter, to send their ships on their own 
 account to the Colonies for wood : in consequence of 
 which partly it is, that the Colonial Timber trade has 
 increased since 1821. The merchants at home, the 
 colonists abroad, and the revenue, have all been living 
 upon the ship-owner. * 
 
 There cannot be given a better illustration of the 
 extreme distress of the ship-owner, than the very cir- 
 cumstance so erroneously cited to prove that his pro- 
 tection in the Colonial Timber Trade is too high. For 
 to such a pass have his freights been reduced, that to 
 save the difference of duty between the wood from 
 foreign countries and the wood from the Colonies, 
 equal to only 45*. a load, for which sum, in 1821, he 
 would not have gone for timber to Quebec or to 
 Halifax, there are now some instances of his going 
 first to Memel, and lading with wood, sailing thence to 
 the North American Colonies and unlading it, then lading 
 again there, and returning to the United Kingdom. To 
 those who ui'ge this evasion of the law as a proof of its 
 inexpediency, it should be answered, that this voyage 
 has only been accomplished by departing from the 
 eastern ports of this country to Prussia, and thence 
 to the most eastern ports of Nova Scotia, and home 
 to the western of the United Kingdom ; that as 
 the instances in which it has even thus been per- 
 formed are only five, the whole circumstance is very 
 unimportant ; that a small rise in freights to a liv- 
 ing profit would effectually put a stop to what no- 
 thing but the ruinous depression of shipping could 
 
ft!' 
 
 ( ^^6 ) 
 
 have borne; that the advantages at present gained 
 by this circuitous voyage do not all consist of the 
 saving of duty, but are materially composed also of re- 
 fitting and provisioning the ship for the double passage 
 of the Atlantic at the cheaper rates of a Prussian 
 port ; and finally, that there are in the British Tariff' 
 many articles of home production which, if admitted 
 from the British Colonies at a similar evasion of the 
 duty, would pay better for a far more circuitous voy- 
 age; yet as that would not prove the home pro- 
 ducer to have too great a protection, so neither does 
 the circuitous importation of timber prove the pro- 
 tection of the colonial producer to be too great. Jt 
 proves that such importations and evasions of the law 
 ought not to be permitted ; and in that both colonists 
 and shipowners most heartily agree. 
 
 It proves also that freights are fallen to such a rate, 
 no further reduction can be expected. Indeed another 
 decline equal to that since 1821, would bring ships to 
 a breaking-up price. 
 
 As little is the probability of any efficient reduction 
 in the other ingredients of the present price. Labour, 
 vvhich is so cheap in the North of Europe, forms in 
 Canada almost the whole of the first cost of wood. 
 Want of other employment may, indeed, reduce this 
 to a certain degree; no great however; or not only 
 will emigrants cease to arrive or be employed in the 
 country, but the settlers already there begin to leave 
 it. The future reduction in the price of labour can 
 scarcely keep pace with its increase in quantity, as 
 the distance increases at which the timber uuist be 
 procured. Nor is it more probable that the charges 
 
 m 
 
( 27 ) 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 
 I 
 
 and the commissions of the liritish merchant can be 
 lessened, as his business becomes more contracted and 
 his returns less certain. Yet suppose, by great efforts 
 and necessities, a reduction is effected, unless either it 
 equal 15.?., which is the amount of the reduction to be 
 made in the relative charge on foreign and on Colonial 
 timber, or an increase to the extent wanting take place in 
 the prices of the Baltic, the timber of Canada may be 
 excluded. For example, if the Colonial can be brought 
 into this country and sold 10*. cheaper than at present, 
 and Baltic timber maintains its rise of 5*. in the foreign 
 market ; or if the latter rise 10*. and the former can be 
 imported at a reduction of 5*., then, as the relative 
 prices of both will continue the same, the importation 
 may continue ; but the consumers in that case will have 
 to pay for it, and the only difference be, that 5s. or 
 15*. of the amount paid for Baltic, instead of going 
 into the Exchequer, must be paid into the pockets of 
 the foreigner. To expect, however, that the Colonist, 
 in the production of an article costing from 20*. to 30*. 
 can be made by an act of parliament to reduce the cost 
 by 15*. or by 10*., is altogether too preposterous for 
 any observation ; and whatever be his efforts, if he fall 
 short of this by one shilling, they may avail him nothing ; 
 for the loss of one shilling a load will as effectually ter- 
 minate the trade as the loss of nine. Thus, therefore, 
 it is perfectly compatible, that the Colonial trade may 
 be destroyed, the price of foreign timber increase, and 
 the consumer not only gain nothing, but lose whatever 
 is added to the revenue or to the Baltic prices. 
 
 The candour of the Chancellor of the Exchequer 
 has rescued this part of the question from all contro- 
 
ill! 
 
 'il 
 
 I' ii 
 
 i; 
 
 ( '28 ) 
 
 versy. Not only has he confessed it his belief, that the 
 Colonial trade would be most injuriously depressed, 
 but has avowed the whole measure to be founded upon 
 the principle and intention of transferring one-half of 
 that trade to the North of Europe. His very financial 
 computations proceed from such data, as is shown by 
 the following official return, apparently the only one 
 which has been much consulted: — 
 
 ^Tr!!rL.°f, ""^'^^,,7 C«l«nial Wood at the present Hates, and the 
 on BaUie fir ^^'^ ''''^^'''"* according to the Hates charged 
 
 By the Colonial 
 Rates. 
 1828.... £213,749 .. 
 1829.... 224,108 .. 
 1830.... 232.799 .. 
 
 Baltic. 
 £1,251,922 
 1,494,867 
 1,580,795 
 
 Difference. 
 £1,038,172 
 1,270.758 
 1,317,995 
 
 By this return (upon which some remarks hereafter) 
 it has been calculated, that half the above amount of 
 Colonial trade would at double the duty yield the same 
 revenue, and that half transferred to the Baltic would 
 produce half of the above .£1,317,995, which in round 
 numbers is called i-GOCOOO. A strange mode, and a 
 strange motive, for regulating the most important branch 
 in the trade of a great commercial and maritime em- 
 pire ! Surprised as all have been at the department of 
 government with which this measure has originated— 
 
 * This computation is not only absurd in princij.le, but as far as con- 
 cerns deals erroneous in detail ; because 120 pieces, from Canada, have the 
 average contents of 290 cubit feet, from northern Europe, 471 feet • while 
 every 120 pieces, therefore, is charged, in the column of colonial rates, as 
 y.eid.ng £200, and in the column of Baltic rates, as £1900. the amount h. 
 fact paid by the Baltic deals would be only £1168 : 10.., there being 100 
 colomal deals in every 611 of the Baltic : so that the real ,:-fference .s 
 £968 . 10.., instead of £1700, little more than one half the charge in this 
 return. 
 
( 29 ) 
 
 alarmed as some of the first interests of the country 
 have felt at the consequences— there is something no 
 less novel and unaccountable in the ingenuous coolness, 
 with which those consequences are avowed and braved. 
 But how, let it be asked, how is it to be ascertained 
 that a change which, as is acknowledged, must destroy 
 half the Colonial trade, would affect nothing beyond 
 that proportion ? If the operation of the duties could 
 be hmited to the destruction of one-half, would not the 
 loss of that half also destroy a portion of the re- 
 mainder? But how can it be foreseen that the injury 
 to which is assigned the extent of one-half, may not 
 involve three- fourths, or four-fifths of the whole trade? 
 It is perhaps conceived, that as one half of the Colo- 
 nial wood now introduced is yellow pine, a description 
 unknown in the North of Europe, its importation, not- 
 withstanding the new duties, would have continued in 
 nearly the same quantity. There are, it is true, some 
 uses to which the much-calumniated yellow pine of 
 Canada, (whose wood it suits the purposes of the anti- 
 colonial party, at one time to depreciate as worthlesss, 
 at another to represent as indispensable,) is found so 
 peculiarly adapted, that were it less abundant, it would 
 probably command a higher price than the best firs of 
 Riiia. But these uses are limited in number and ex- 
 tent. There are others again for which the yellow pine 
 is nearly equal to the Baltic ; the extent, however, of 
 such uses depends entirely upon the relative prices of 
 the two commodities; and the excessive difference now 
 to be effected in that relation must operate in similar 
 proportion on their relative use. It is also true, that 
 the largest and best timber for masts is only found in 
 
til! 
 
 ( 30 ) 
 
 the forests of Canada, and so much undoubtedly would 
 be unaffected by the change of duties. But this last is 
 an inconsiderable quantity ; about 5,069 pieces under 
 12 inches diameter and 3,595 loads above, together the 
 freight perhaps of 5,000 tons annually. And neither 
 this description of timber, nor the yellow pine, could 
 be procured with the same labour and cost, if every 
 other species of wood surrounding them is rendered 
 unsaleable. For not one tree in 10,000 is fit for a 
 mast, and groves of red pine are, as the country is ex- 
 plored, found so much more frequent than formerly, 
 the yellow may possibly become the scarcer and dearer 
 wood. Upon the whole, the quantity of timber re- 
 quired for masts, and of yellow pine, as well that which 
 is indispensable, as whatever may possibly still obtain 
 some preference after the change of duties, these, and 
 all else which may remain, taken together, at the 
 largest allowance, can hardly be estimated at one- 
 fourth of the present importation. The decline, there- 
 fore, which it is conceded would have been one-half, 
 might most probably be set down as at least three- 
 fourths of the whole Colonial trade in wood. What 
 would be the consequence ? 
 
( .-n ) 
 
 EFFECT ON THE COLONIES. 
 
 To ascertain the importance of the Timber Trade to the 
 North American Colonies, it is necessary to know, what 
 they were before this trade began, and what they have 
 become since ; of which, although no person can con- 
 ceive an adequate idea, who has not visited those pro- 
 vinces at each period, yet sufficient evidence may per- 
 haps be also collected, by considering the nature of 
 this trade, and the exchange it promotes, and by con- 
 sulting official returns of the increase of those Colonies 
 in population and commerce. 
 
 The first object of industry presenting itself to the 
 planters of a new country like Canada, is the dense, 
 lofty and interminable forest, which covers the face of 
 every hill and valley from the mountain tops to the 
 water's verge. If any means could be suggested, by 
 which these woods might be converted into the various 
 fabrics and instruments required for life and labour in 
 every land, but produced only in the more cultivated, 
 it is obvious, that instead of proving any obstruction to 
 the colonist, the forest would become his greatest as- 
 sistance. And it is one of the best examples of the 
 triumphs of commerce, that this object, apparently no 
 less difficult than desirable, is accompHshed by the 
 Timber Trade. With the simplest instruments, the 
 rudest labour, at a season admitting of no other em- 
 
 [f 
 
 i 
 ■ ; ■ 
 
 l:jr 
 
1h ! 
 
 ( 32 ) 
 
 ploynient, and out of materials inapplicable to other 
 purposes, the Canadian is enabled to bring home to 
 his cottage the comforts and conveniences of life from 
 almost every climate and country under heaven ; the 
 woollens and cottons, the manufactures of iron, leather, 
 delf, and others, from Great Britain ; the sugars and 
 spirits of the West Indies ; the teas of the East ; in short, 
 of all the contrivances invented to lessen the evils and 
 add to the term and enjoyment of our painful existence, 
 the most useful are thus brought into the daily con- 
 sumption of every woodman in the forest. And yet a 
 person has been heard to affirm, that the Timber Trade 
 was not beneficial to those Colonies. Why ? ft intro- 
 duces dissolute habits, and corrupts the manners of the 
 inhabitants. From what acquaintance with the country 
 was this assertion derived, or from information through 
 what person ? who having perhaps seen the woodmen 
 making merry, as is natural, at finishing their la!)ours 
 and receiving their reward, has mistaken occasional 
 excesses for constant habits, or committed the usual 
 error of concluding against the general advantages of a 
 measure, by reasoning from particular evils or a transi- 
 tory abuse. The same person might almost as rea- 
 sonably blame the pursuits of agriculture, on hearing 
 the shouts of "harvest-home," and more justly con- 
 demn navigation, since seamen are so frequently indis- 
 crete and dissolute in expending their wages. What- 
 ever occupation collects men together for labour or re- 
 freshment, leads also to over-indulgence in spirits, 
 which it is unfortunate for those Colonies the severity 
 of their climate makes in some degree necessary, and 
 the low duties on West India produce do nothing to 
 
( 33 ) 
 
 restrain. The extent of the evil, however, has been 
 always as much exaggerated as its comparative import- 
 ance. They who have only known or heard of the 
 operation of the Timber Trade upon the Colonies by 
 its effect, when first introduced, are very incompetent 
 to judge of its present character. The high prices and 
 abundant profits of that period have long since disap- 
 peared, and with them the inconsiderate undertakings, 
 thriftless management, unskilful labour, and dissolute 
 habits, with which, in consequence, the Colonists have 
 in some cases been deservedly reproached. The em- 
 ployment of American axemen has also almost entirely 
 ceased. The business is now done by the native set- 
 tler and the emigrant, with equal improvement in the 
 character both of the workman and the work. Fru- 
 gality and sobriety are now no less hkely to be ob- 
 served in the Timber Trade than in many others, 
 as there is none in which those qualities are more re- 
 quired or better rewarded ; and the introduction of tem- 
 perance societies into the northern Colonies is already 
 diminishing the use of ardent spirits, beyond what the 
 West Indians, at least, may perhaps imagine to be de- 
 sirable for health and enjoyment : but in no country is 
 there any occupation so dangerous to the habits, so 
 fatal to the manners, and morals, of the people, as that 
 idleness, which must there succeed to the loss of the 
 Timber Trade throughout most of the country during 
 five months of the year. 
 
 A more rational objection is that of those, who con- 
 ceive that this employment has too much diverted the 
 industry of the colonists from clearing and cultivating 
 
 D 
 
 ii 
 
 I 
 
 I 
 
i! li: 
 
 
 ( iJ4 ) 
 
 the land. It is true, indeed, tliat the labours of cutting 
 timber, and of clearing the land for cultivation, are not 
 always, by any means, the same : but it is equally true, 
 that the principal means of extending and accelerating 
 the latter have been acquired in the former pursuit. 
 By the proceeds of the trees fit for timber, the colonist 
 has been enabled to remove those which are only an 
 incumbrance, and to subdue the ground they covered 
 to tillage and pasture, to erect his mill, and compel 
 the creeks and rivers to assist him in grinding his corn 
 and sawing his logs ; while the work of felling and 
 drawing, carried on in the forest, diffuses through the 
 whole country a demand for the produce of his farm, 
 bringing round the market to his own door ; and thus 
 both occupations mutually encourage and assist each 
 other : while both are, in a great measure, compatible, 
 being carried on at different seasons of the year. In 
 fact, the Timber Trade has alone supplied that, of 
 which the Colonies have been most in want — the in- 
 vestment of capital. It has given industrious settlers 
 the indispensable means of employment in new coun- 
 tries, credit. It has made the labours of the last twenty 
 years more productive of wealth and improvement to 
 the Canadian provinces than, perhaps, the progress of 
 half a century could have otherwise accomplished. 
 
 Persons who have had intimate acquaintance with 
 the Colonies, the accounts published by intelligent tra- 
 vellers, the testimony collected by several parliamentary 
 committees, (with exceptions admitting of easy explana- 
 tion), agree in describing the great and rapid change 
 made in those possessions since the Timber Trade 
 commenced, the stationary and even languishing state 
 
 'ill 
 
( 35 ) 
 
 they were in before, and the sudden impulse of 
 improvement, which thence has canied them for- 
 ward to tlicir present station in wcaltli and conse- 
 quence ; the same facts, liowever, may be rendered 
 evident to otiiers, by even the scanty statistics of their 
 population and commerce presented in official returns. 
 The whole British dominions in North America, 
 which in 1784 are supposed to have contained 180,000 
 souls, can be fairly stated at the present moment to 
 have increased to 1,200,000. Suppositions, however, 
 may appear loose and uncertain, and it is much to be 
 regretted that the census of their population has not 
 been taken at such intervals, as to bear more directly 
 upon the present question. In Nova Scotia, however, 
 more exact accounts of the increase, from 1817 to 1827, 
 have been kept and published, and which give the fol- 
 lowing results : 
 
 1817. 
 
 1827. 
 123,848. 
 
 Population of Nova Scotia 82,053 
 
 This, although the most accurate, is by no means 
 the most favourable, instance of improvement, Nova 
 Scotia being less engaged in the Timber Trade than 
 some of the other Colonies, and having received less 
 increase from emigration. It is remarkable, however, 
 that those districts of the province, which have enjoyed 
 the benefit of that trade, have advanced in far greater 
 proportion than the others on the whole ; the general 
 ratio of increase, during ten years, being fifty per cent., 
 while that of the eastern counties, the most engaged in 
 this pursuit, has been from sixty to eighty. The in- 
 crease in Upper Canada is still more surprising. That 
 colony was planted in 1782, by about 10,000 persons. 
 
 d2 
 
 it 
 
 :it 
 
 I 
 
ml 
 
 \i. 
 
 ( .'JO ) 
 
 Tlie ofKcial returns gave it, in 1824, a population of 
 151,097, and, in IS.'JO, of 211,117. Nearly half of the 
 timber is brought from Upper Canada. 
 
 Accounts of the imports of all those Colonies, from 
 the United Kingdom, offer more direct and satisfactory 
 illustrations. 'J'he Timber Trade cannot be said to 
 have been fairly begun in the Canadas before the year 
 1810. By comparing, therefore, the increase of their 
 trade to the United Kingdom before and after that 
 period, it may be seen, how far they abounded in those 
 comforts and conveniences of life, which they import 
 from this country, before they participated in the ad- 
 vantages of this trade, and how far they are more 
 abundantly supplied since. It will be seen also, at the 
 same time, how extensively and immediately the en- 
 couragement of this commerce has reacted in encou- 
 raging the home production of Great Britain. 
 
 In 1792, the last year of peace, the official value of 
 their imports from Great Britain was .£1,119,991. 
 During the next nine years of war the average was 
 considerably less. In the year of peace, 1802, their 
 imports were £1,350,890. Increase in ten years, 
 v£2o0,905. The amount, in 1802, was greater by 
 above £300,000 than that of any succeeding year, 
 until the commencement of the Timber Trade in 1809. 
 The average of the three years preceding 1806 was 
 .£1,045,615. The average of the three following, 
 i;" 1,834, 120. During a period, therefore, of nine- 
 teen years previous to the Timber Trade, the imports 
 of those Colonies from Great Britain, had not only in- 
 creased nothing, but had actually declined. During 
 the period of three years after the Timber Trade, those 
 
( 
 
 I)"" 
 
 ) 
 
 imports, which coutiibuto there so greatly to health ami 
 the enjoyment of life, were increased nearly eighty per 
 cent. This increase, however, is too great to be all im- 
 puted to the doubling of the duties on foreign timber. 
 The state of our relations with the American government 
 had, no doubt, already aftectedthe Canadian trade. But, 
 to show no great allowance is to be made for that cir- 
 cumstance, it may be mentioned, that when the Ame- 
 rican intercourse was completely interrupted by the 
 war, the Colonial imports were, in 1811, uicreased to 
 
 i"4,01)3,0()2. 
 
 This ingredient of our American relations, may be 
 entirely neglected in comparing the returns of ship- 
 ping employed between the Colonies and Great Britain, 
 for the amount of shipping depends upon their exports, 
 and their exports would be rather diminished, by Ame- 
 rican hostilities, than increased. 
 
 The shipping freighted with their exports entering 
 inwards into Great Britain, was, in the year 179^, 33,17G 
 tons. In the year 1802, it amounted to 41,^01 tons, 
 making an increase in ten years of 8,025. As the returns, 
 from 1808 to 1814 are lost, perhaps by comparing, with 
 this increase, that which took place in ten years, from 
 1807 (the year before any material alteration was made 
 in the timber duties) until 1817, the different degree 
 of advancement in those Colonies, with, and without, 
 the Timber Trade, may be better understood. In 
 1807, the tonnage laden with their exports to this 
 country was 63,681 tons. In 1817 it amounted to 
 211,031, an increase of above threefold. In 1825 it 
 reached its highest point, being that year 489,844. 
 The excesses of importation that year, in every com- 
 
 I 
 
 \^ 
 
( 38 ) 
 
 modity, have rendered it no fair criterion; but in 1829, 
 a year of sounder character, the navigation so em- 
 ployed exceeded 431,000 tons, and upon the average 
 of the last six years it amounts to 430,000. 
 
 By this increase of their exports, may be seen, what 
 employment the timber trade has given to the industry 
 of the Colonists ; by the increase of their imports, what 
 has been the fruit of their labours. In the face of 
 these facts, to deny that such a trade is useful to them 
 — to assert that one half of it may be suddenly de- 
 stroyed, and the Colonies suffer no ill consequence, 
 because they may turn to the corn trade — is Hke per- 
 suading a person it is good to part with one eye, 
 because he may still see with the other, or to submit 
 to the amputation of his right arm, that he may become 
 more expert with the left. Surely the industry of a 
 people is not to be directed to any particular pursuit, 
 by depriving them of all other; it is rather by the 
 rewards given to production that any enterprise is best 
 encouraged ; and what better premium can be devised 
 for the agriculture of those colonies than the increased 
 prices of its produce, consequent upon the increased 
 trade in wood ? This reasoning is confirmed by fticts, 
 which show that the labours of husbandry, in the mean 
 time, far from being neglected, have been actually 
 extended beyond the degree other circumstances could 
 probably have admitted. 
 
( 39 ) 
 
 Wheat and Flour exported from Quebec: 
 
 Years. 
 
 1793 . . . 
 
 1794 ... 
 
 1795 ... 
 17C6 ... 
 
 1797 . . . 
 
 1798 92,000 
 
 Wheat, Bushels. Flour, Barrels. 
 
 .. 487,000 10,900 
 
 .. 414,000 13,700 
 
 .. 395,000 18,000 
 
 3,106 4,300 
 
 31,000 14,000 
 
 1799 
 1800 
 1801 
 1802 
 1803 
 1804 
 1805 
 1806 
 1807 
 
 9,500 
 
 129,000 14,400 
 
 217,000 20,000 
 
 473,000 38,000 
 
 1,010,033 28,300 
 
 360,892 15,432 
 
 200,043 14,067 
 
 22,016 18,590 
 
 96,909 10,997 
 
 231,543 20,442 
 
 
 Thus far, to the commencement of the Timber Trade, 
 these returns give no great proofs that the agriculture 
 of Canada is greatly promoted by the want of employ- 
 ment in the forest ; nor, if these returns be further 
 pursued, (excepting the years of the American inva- 
 sion,) does the introduction of that employment into 
 the Colony seem to have interrupted or depressed its 
 
 agriculture. 
 
 Years, 
 1808 
 1809 
 1810 
 1811 
 1812 
 1813 
 1814' 
 1815 
 1816 
 1817 
 1818 
 1820 
 1821 
 
 Exported from Quebec: 
 
 Wheat. Flour. 
 
 186,707 42,460 
 
 228,015 20,726 
 
 170,869 12,519 
 
 843 19,340 
 
 263,178 19,237 
 
 517 
 
 1,217, 
 
 1.920 
 
 1,137 
 
 145,660 38,047 
 
 401,791 30,545 
 
 37,895 12,086 
 
 319,048 45,369 
 
 1822 318,483 22,635 
 
 1823 147,285 47,247 
 
 1824 4,710 46,250 
 
 1825 5,396 41,901 
 
 1826 718,016 40,167 
 
 1827 434,911 132,288 
 
 1828 134,057 60,721 
 
 1829 44,957 25,060 
 
 •ir. 
 
Ill 
 
 i 'I 
 
 6. 
 
 ( 40 ) 
 
 Lonsidering, that the population of Lower Canada 
 has been nearly quadrupled within 40 years, that a 
 considerable military force is to be fed there, that 
 great public works are carrying on, six or seven hun- 
 dred large ships arriving yearly, and 28,000 emigrants 
 in 1829; the agriculture which has supplied all these 
 increased demands, and yet maintained its amount of 
 exports, seems at least as little depressed by the intro- 
 duction of the Timber Trade, as it appeared to have 
 been encouraged by its absence. 
 
 The following return from another colony offers a 
 comparison directly in point, of the agricultural stock 
 existing on the commencement of the Timber Trade, 
 and the increase nineteen years after: — 
 
 Statement of the Live Stock in the Province of Nova Scotia, in the Years 
 
 1808 and 1827. 
 
 
 1808. 
 
 1827. 
 
 Increase. 
 
 Horses 
 
 6,763 
 56,972 
 27,695 
 75,364 
 
 12,951 
 110,818 
 
 71,482 
 173,731 
 
 6,188 
 53,846 
 43,787 
 98,367 
 
 Horned Cattle 
 
 Swine 
 
 Sheep 
 
 Similar returns from the other provinces would un- 
 doubtedly show similar results, and to a more favour- 
 able degree, as the increase of Upper Canada and 
 New Brunswick has been much greater, both in popu- 
 lation and production. 
 
 No disposition can be here intended to depreciate 
 the agricultural interests of the North American Colo- 
 nies, or the importance of the suggested admission of 
 their corn duty-free. A change of pohcy more advan- 
 tageous at once to them and to the United Kingdom, 
 cannot be named nor desired. But because the pro- 
 posed alteration of the duties upon their corn is desir- 
 
 J 
 
( I'l ) 
 
 able, the proposed change of duties upon their wood 
 is not the less to be deprecated. For, in addition to 
 the reasons already stated, and without counseUing the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer to consider, by what 
 chance of success, or what appearance of consistency, 
 he is encouraged to ask Parliament to transfer to corn 
 an extension of the same system, which he has just 
 removed from the importation of wood ; it may be called 
 to mind, that while the injury inflicted with one hand 
 is certain, is extreme, is instant, is so general as to 
 touch almost every colonist, and many to the skin, the 
 compensation suggested is uncertain in its enactment, 
 distant and progressive in effect, inferior in amount, 
 and moreover is partial in its application. The name 
 Canada is commonly used in this country to designate 
 the whole British Colonies in North America, a vast 
 and various dominion, comprehending many diffe- 
 rences of situation, soil, and chmate. A portion of 
 this country, the western and southern interior, is emi- 
 nently fertile of the best and finest corn, more esteemed 
 in the London market than any of foreign productior. 
 But the north-eastern districts nearer the sea, embrac- 
 ing part of Lower Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova 
 Scotia, are far more favourable to pasture than tillage ; 
 and wheat is there so difficult and precarious a crop, 
 that they always have imported it, and probably always 
 will, for their own consumption. Now it is precisely 
 from these districts that more than one half of the 
 wood is procured. The injury and compensation, 
 therefore, unfortunately, do not alight upon the same 
 persons. Forests, mountains, lakes, and rivers intervene. 
 There is a mistake in this reckoning of several de- 
 
 iHi 
 
 i S 
 
 1 J 
 
 V 
 
■'■ 111 
 
 If'! 
 
 
 ( ^2 ) 
 
 grees both of latitude and longitude. The measure, 
 with regard to corn, if attainable, is excellent; but to 
 offer it as a compensation for the loss of the Timber 
 Trade, is like compensating the discharge of your car- 
 penter by orders to convert his sawdust into wheat bread. 
 But, above all, what is to become of the capital 
 invested by the Colonies in the conduct and advance- 
 ment of this trade ? Invested too, not merely on the 
 tacit faith and encouragement of repeated Acts of Par- 
 liament, but after the express invitation, the anxious 
 sohcitation, of the ministers, when by the hostilities of 
 Europe this country was in daMger of utter destitution. 
 These investments should not be estimated according 
 to the immense wealth and enterprise of this country, 
 but with reference to the means of that their amount is 
 of most serious importance. The colonists themselves 
 compute it, in steam mills, water mills, dams, wharfs, pri- 
 vate canals, warehouses, and other establishments, at no 
 less than o£'2, 100,000. Besides which, the value of almost 
 all the fixed property in the country, or at least in the 
 lower districts, depends upon this trade, and, having 
 risen with its rise, must sink with its decline. Let 
 those who talk of the transfer of capital consider what 
 is meant by capital, and then they will understand how 
 far it can be transferred. Capital must be either the 
 instrument of exchange, or the instrument of labour, 
 or its materials, or its produce. The first is in these 
 Colonies very inconsiderable, and is everywhere only used 
 as the means of transferring the others. And which of 
 all the others could in the present case be transferred 
 from wood to corn? The mills, it is said, and at very 
 trifling expense. Unless the materials be also trans- 
 ferred, the expense of altering the mills would be only 
 
 i 
 
( 43 ) 
 
 added to the loss. There are aheady in those pro- 
 vinces as many corn mills as would manufacture what- 
 ever increase of flour can be created or demanded. 
 Transfer of capital exists only in the imagination of 
 economists. It is in all cases the loss, the destruction, 
 of capital, to a greater or lesser degree, and in this case 
 to the greatest. 
 
 It would be of much assistance in this question, 
 towards ascertaining the value of this trade to the 
 Colonies, if an exact return of their exports to the 
 United Kingdom could be given. It would then be 
 seen at once what they have to send home, and what 
 means remaining, to pay for their importations from 
 this country, after their export of wood shall have been 
 destroyed. As an approximation to such a return, the 
 following account of the exports of the three principal 
 ports, Quebec, Halifax, and St. John's, has been col- 
 lected from colonial newspapers. It may not be very 
 correct, but is still perhaps as worthy of attention, as 
 the vague assertions, that there are other exports from 
 those Colonies, besides wood, sufficient to pay for most 
 of their importations, and to employ numerous shipping. 
 Another assertion, no less vague and erroneous, has 
 been made, that a large quantity of their timber comes 
 from the United States. Of what kind ? lied Pine ? — 
 The Americans have scarcely any. Yellow? — That is 
 dearer with them than at Quebec. Oak ? — The whole 
 quantity exported is but about 30,000 tons, of which 
 they may possibly have supplied one-fourth. Of staves 
 one half may be American ; of deals, one hundredth. 
 The whole, including so much fir timber as is necessary 
 to tloat the hard wood, can not amount to 40,000 loads, 
 a fifteenth of the whole exportation. 
 
 1 
 
 H 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 M 
 
 '< Si 
 
( 44 ) 
 
 EXI'OIITS TO THE UNITED KINGDOM. 
 
 Il'lj 
 
 1 1 
 
 
 Apples barrels 
 
 Apparel chests 
 
 Arrowioot . . barrels 8; boxes 
 
 Battens No. 
 
 Beeswax 
 
 Bones do. 
 
 Coffee bags 
 
 Copper 
 
 Copper Coins 
 
 Cranberries barrets 
 
 Cotton Wool bales 
 
 Cassia boxes 
 
 Canoes No. 
 
 Coal and Copper Ore . bris. 
 
 Capelin cask 
 
 Deals 
 
 Deal Ends No. 
 
 Essence of Spruce . . . boxes 
 
 Furs puns, 
 
 truss 
 
 bbh. 
 
 No. pieces 
 
 Fish qtls 
 
 barrels 
 
 Flour barrels 
 
 Hides No, 
 
 Horns buds. 
 
 Herrings boxes 
 
 Handspikes No 
 
 Iron pigs 
 
 Knees No, 
 
 Lignum Vita; 
 
 Lathwood cords 
 
 Logwood tons 
 
 Molasses puns. 
 
 Masts and Spars No. 
 
 Oil, Castor casks 
 
 — , Fish 
 
 Oak billets 
 
 Oars No 
 
 Pearl Ashes cwt. 
 
 Poles and Rickers .... No 
 
 Pork barrels 
 
 Plank, Pine -feet 
 
 pieces 
 
 inoM 
 
 Quebec, 1829. 
 
 12 
 
 63,021 
 5,880 lbs. 
 
 1,551,400 No. 
 43,558 
 5 
 
 374 
 37,334 
 
 3 
 
 2,863 
 100 
 
 21,798 
 
 l,6i7 
 
 3,574 
 
 43 
 25,482 
 31,766 
 
 3 
 
 148,253 
 
 4 
 4 
 6 
 
 52 casks 
 
 8 
 158 
 2 tons 7 casks 
 2 casks 
 27 
 235 
 3 
 3 
 23 
 1 
 i\6,l90Jeet 
 
 3 
 41 
 
 1 
 10 
 
 107 
 
 119 
 
 3 
 
 25 
 
 1 
 
 106 
 
 364 
 
 293 
 
 86 
 
 2 tons 126 pes. 
 
 323 
 
 25 
 
 114 
 
 539 
 
 19 
 
 38 tons 38 gins. 
 
 946 
 
 108 
 
 1,821,777 
 3,881 
 
 St.John's, N.B. 
 1827. 
 
 8,000 M.Ji 
 
 800 bis. 
 100 
 
 2,800 
 
 3,189 
 5,170 
 
 43,302 /t. 
 
( 45 ) 
 
 EXPORTS TO THE UNITED KINGDOM— ( Cmtinuef/.; 
 
 rnoM 
 
 Quebec, 1829. 
 
 Plank Hardwood .feet 
 
 Pot Ashes cwt. 
 
 Rum puncheons 
 
 Seeds boxes 
 
 Shocks packs 
 
 Staves No. 
 
 pipe 5f puncheon 
 barrel 
 billets 
 
 Stave Ends 
 
 Skins, Seal puncheons 
 
 , INIoose A'o. 
 
 Shingles No 
 
 Tongues and Hams . . boxes 
 
 Timber, Fir tons 
 
 , Hardwood . . .tons 
 
 Tree Nails No. 
 
 Treacle hogsheads 
 
 W heat minots 
 
 Other Coin and Pulse . . 
 
 Whiskey puncheon 
 
 Cases of Foreign Mer- ^ 
 chandize i 
 
 105,600 
 
 237 
 
 1,850,451 
 
 3,992,492 
 
 291,553 
 
 83,383 
 
 3 
 
 167,132 
 
 41,100 
 
 1,650 
 
 40,462 
 
 12,153 
 
 1 
 
 230 
 
 Halifax, N. S. 
 1828. 
 
 St.John's, N.B. 
 1827. 
 
 254,254 
 
 122 
 
 1 
 
 28 
 
 1,011 
 
 4,567 
 
 10 
 18 
 
 7,900 
 
 20,859 
 
 3,286 
 
 1,300 
 
 6 
 
 1,200.000 
 
 J 186,332 
 
 16 
 
 Persons, however, are not wanting in this country, 
 who deny or disregard the whole of these facts. One 
 has pHed up the St. Lawrence in steam hoats, or, to 
 become more thoroughly acquainted with the country, 
 been driven asleep along its banks ; another has never 
 been in Canada indeed, but has a brother who travf lied 
 through it, (like the lad, who was never confirmed, but 
 his brother had been vaccinated) ; the family, if not 
 the fortunes, of a third, are engaged in the rival Timber 
 Trade of the United States, upon which recommen- 
 dation he is selected to visit and report upon the 
 
 II 
 
 » ' 
 
 IJ 
 
( 46 ) 
 
 Canadas; and a fourth needs no information, disre- 
 gards all particular cases, having been made free of 
 the universal science of trade, by which all difficul- 
 ties are cut short, that Hberal compendium of poli- 
 tical economy, which supersedes the necessity of all 
 inquiry into situations, climates, soils, habits, and other 
 circumstances, of a country. These persons oppose 
 their own opinions to the whole Colonial and shipping 
 interests of this country, and challenge the public pre- 
 ference. In this they may be right ; they certainly are 
 pardonable ; but perhaps their case would lose little in 
 either the graces of style or the forces of argument, if 
 they could conduct it with less frequent use of oppro- 
 brious epithets, and charges of " want of education, 
 ignorance, incapacity, folly, imposition, mystification, 
 affected language, and nonsense, §fc. Sfc," which tiave 
 of late been so coarsely and gratuitously edited. It 
 should be enough, that contempt for " declamation* 
 and "ftie writing" is abundantly discovered, at least in 
 the latter case, by their adopting a style, to which such 
 an epithet could never be attributed. Hut it is as idle 
 in the present controversy, to cite anonymous letters 
 from a Canadian Seigneur for opinions, as to resort to 
 the Westminster Review for facts. The question is 
 not to be decided by personal testimony, where de- 
 ductions may be made from statistical returns. Or if 
 personal testimony and opinions are to avail, it is not 
 sufficient to state that you have been connected in 
 trade with Canada, and have a brother long resident in 
 those countries ; say, whether you are now connected 
 with their trade in timber? whether you have any 
 stake in that country, any fixed property, pledged to 
 abide the consequences of your present efforts? or 
 
( 47 ) 
 
 
 or 
 
 whether, after having published these statements, you 
 intend ever to reside in that country, and look in the face, 
 and grasp the hand, of those Colonists, whom you have 
 endeavoured to relieve from the nuisance of the " abomi- 
 nable" timber trade? For not till this is answered in 
 the affirmative is such testimony to be contrasted with 
 that of governors, who have returned from those Colo- 
 nies, followed with the regrets of their inhabitants, and 
 able, for evidence of their capacity in understanding and 
 serving the best interests of that country, to cite both 
 the public addresses brought with them, and the public 
 acts and works left behind. It need not be inquired, 
 whether people here be likely to hesitate between these 
 two opinions thus supported ; for the fact in issue has, 
 as far as opinion is concerned, been already decided. 
 The Colonists themselves have spoken ; (and who is 
 there in this country, who can claim better to under- 
 stand the character and interests of that, than the 
 Colonists themselves?). Their addresses, their petitions, 
 their most earnest prayers and entreaties, to the im- 
 perial government, are now on the way home from 
 every quarter of these provinces, are in part already 
 arrived, exclaiming and protesting with one voice 
 against the ruinous effects of the measure proposed, 
 and reiterating the same arguments, and confirming the 
 same facts and opinions, which their friends had here 
 advanced. The assertion of no individual, however 
 gifted, can avail much against so general a declaration 
 of whole towns, counties, legislatures, and provinces; 
 nor can any person longer refuse to agree with them in 
 believing, that however such measures may affect other 
 interests, as far as the Colonies are concerned, no 
 greater injury could be suggested. 
 
 ! 
 
( 48 ) 
 
 1 
 
 i 
 
 ?s,i 
 
 EFFECT ON EMIGRATION. 
 
 The emigration from the United Kingdom to the Ca- 
 nadian provinces is now become scarcely less important, 
 as a relief to the surplus population of this country, 
 than as an accession to the numbers and industry of 
 the Colonies. During the present year 28,000 persons 
 have arrived at Quebec from Great Britain and Ire- 
 land. The number to the lower ports is stated at 12,000 
 more. And so ready and abundant has been the em- 
 ployment found for this influx of 40,000 persons, that 
 few of them have either become chargeable to the 
 Canadas, or left that country for the United States. 
 It is interesting to compute the amount of relief which 
 this emigration must aftbrd, either to the poor opera- 
 tives, by withdrawing so many supernumerary labourers, 
 or even to the poor rates, by the removal of so many 
 paupers. Their subsistence in this country would, at 
 5s. a week per person, amount to 0^520,000 per an- 
 num. As emigrants are generally of a middle age, be- 
 tween 20 and 40 years, this annuity, taking the average 
 of their lives at 30 years, is, at 16 years' purchase, 
 equal to a capital of about o£'8,400,000. This sum, 
 therefore, represents the gain or saving to the country 
 from such an emigration, the labour of these emigrants 
 being not only not required, but by their absence the 
 condition, of at least an equal number remaining, rendered 
 
( 4f) ) 
 
 I: 
 
 more comfortable. Nor is this estimate to be less 
 regarded l)ecause these emigrants were not all paupers, 
 nor all from that part of the United Kingdom wliich 
 pays poor rates. It is enough that their existence must 
 in all parts have been supported, either by charity, or 
 by displacing the labour, or dividing the bread, of 
 others, or by crime, or in want and disease. The 
 above sum therefore represents, as tndy as figures can, 
 the injury thus spared, or to be suffered, by the commu- 
 nity, either in money, or in misery. But more, these 
 emigrants are enabled, under the present system, to 
 become in the Colonies purchasers of British manufac- 
 tures to the extent of above 30*. per person, or 
 o£'60,000 per annum. In addition, therefore, to the ne- 
 gative advantages, they soon create a positive employ- 
 ment for the productive industry of the mother-country 
 to that amount. And this again, as a perpetual anrmity, 
 is equal to a capital of c^' 1,500,000. And in this view, 
 both the burthen, of their descendants, if at home, and 
 the advantage, if in the Colonies, are entirely omitted, 
 though the number would probably double, in the 
 former case, once perhaps in fifty, and in the latter, 
 every twenty-five years. These ^"9,900,000 of yearly 
 relief and benefit to the population and production of 
 the United Kingdom, multiplied by a term of years, 
 (and it cannot be unwise to attempt to look forward 
 at least ten years into futurity,) will represent, in the 
 only light now regarded by economists, in the figures 
 of ^£'90,900,000, the measure of these astonishing re- 
 sults, the progress of which, being silent and secret, 
 escaped notice in the alterations proposed, or was per- 
 haps to be sacrificed to a trifling question of finance. 
 
 i. 
 
( 50 ) 
 
 It will, of course, bo readily denied, that the proposed 
 change of duties could have had any eflect upon emi- 
 gration to the Colonics. For answer, it is insisted, that 
 the effect would be felt in three ways. First, in dimi- 
 nishing the opportunities, and increasing the expense, of 
 the outward passage, which can at present be obtained 
 so frequently, cheaply, and from so many and conve- 
 nient points, that the timber ships are commonly said 
 to have made for emigrants a bridge over the Atlantic. 
 Next, the effect would be felt indirectly, but most im- 
 portantly, from the poverty and general distress of the 
 country, to which they are conveyed ; as no one will 
 contend that any people, having no manufactures, can 
 be deprived of one half of their principal, and in some 
 Colonies almost their only export, and yet receive and 
 employ an additional population. Thirdly, emigration 
 would be directly checked, by want of that source of 
 industry, which is iriimediately offered in the timber 
 trade. For, although not many of the emigrants are 
 axemen, nor of much service at first in making timber, 
 yet there is in this no mystery, with which they do not 
 soon become acquainted. In the meantime, they are 
 employed as labourers in the towns and upon farms, 
 where they serve an apprenticeship, as it were, to the 
 habits and seasons and business of the Colony, and after- 
 wards take up new land, and enter upon the customary 
 engagements and pursuits. But others are, imme- 
 diately on their arrival, employed in the forest, from 
 which, if the older settlers are now to be turned back, 
 not only will the agricultural and other labours be oc- 
 cupied by them, but their means lost of hiring the 
 emigrants. There needs, therefore, no more argument 
 
{ 51 ) 
 
 to show, that as the industry of the country is {mralysed, 
 and its first and principal resource rendered worthless, 
 so not only will less employment he there found for 
 future emigrants, but those already planted will become 
 as needy and idle there, as they had been at home. 
 That the emigrants may then go to the United States, 
 will perhaps be answered by those, who think enough 
 do not go thither already, or as many, as the Americans 
 are willing to receive. Still, however, if the same 
 number in the whole continued to emigrate yearly, and 
 their destination only were changed, there would yet 
 be this difference, not merely politically, of their mul- 
 tiplying the number of adversaries, instead of subjects, 
 but commercially, that they settle in a country, where 
 they are forbidden to use British manufactures, by 
 duties of from 50 to 150 per cent., instead of a country, 
 where they are forbidden to use any other, by duties of 
 20 and tiO. The value of which difference is, that the 
 British Colonists purchase of us per person nearly 
 four times as much as the Americans, or any other 
 foreign people, except the Portuguese, whom treaties 
 had in some measure placed commercially on the footing 
 of Colonists. 
 
 But is it certain that the Americans would receive 
 additional emigrants, to this number, and of that de- 
 scription, which it is most desirable to send abroad ? 
 The legislatures of some of their states have already 
 prohibited the landing of any poor persons, unless 
 security be first given that they shall not become 
 chargeable: under which law, as is said, a ship with 
 160, having been warned off the coast during the past 
 season, perished with all on board. The result of such 
 
 r'. I 
 
 m f 
 
 I 
 
 ij 
 
 If: 
 
 C #v 
 
11 \ 
 
 i '!' 
 
 11 '•' 
 
 ( ^2 ) 
 
 regulations is, as was intended, to obtain a far more 
 useful class of settlers, and whom we least wish to 
 alienate, emigrants with some capital, and to repel 
 those, whose departure is iuost expedient, both for us 
 and themselves. 
 
 This conduct of the Americans, there is danger, 
 lest our own Colonies be, by the present measure, 
 absolutely compelled to follow. They have for some 
 time borne upon their poor rates the support of many 
 diseased and impotent persons from the United King- 
 dom, who not only have no property, which is not 
 an objection, but neither the age nor strength fit 
 for a plantation. The activity of the timber trade has 
 hitherto made such burthens transitory or tolerable, 
 but the embarrassment and distress succeeding its 
 abandonment will, if even half the number continue to 
 arrive, create such additional charges as cannot pos- 
 sibly be supported. Deprived of their principal em- 
 ployment, these Colonies will be not only utterly unable 
 to maintain such emigrants, but even unwilling to 
 receive them, without assistance from the parent 
 country. 
 
 To take up the subject of colonization, as a public 
 object, at the public cost, may or may not be expe- 
 dient, may or may not have become necessary ; but 
 at all events it cannot be wise, either to impoverish the 
 country to which such Colonies must be sent, or to 
 check and arrest the voluntary emigration thither, which 
 can alone spare or defer a great national expense. 
 
 i''i 
 
1 
 
 i 
 
 EFFECT ON THE MANUFACTURERS. 
 
 i I i 
 
 The eft'ect of the Timber Trade upon home consump- 
 tion and production, is by no means the least important 
 relation, in which the subject should be considered. It 
 has been lately advanced as a first principle, that in 
 the imposition of taxes, their effect, not upon the pro- 
 ducer, but upon the consumer, was to be regarded as 
 the rule and scope of their measure and design. Whe- 
 ther there can really be this difference of interest 
 between the producer and consumer, may perhaps be 
 called in question ; but granting it to exist, as assumed, 
 upok) what reason is the latter preferred? Is it con- 
 sumption, then, that constitutes public wealth, and not 
 the industry of production? And provided those who 
 make way with the fruits of labour are busily and 
 cheaply employed, may those who supply them be 
 safely neglected? It is the productive industry of the 
 country, assuredly, that should first be consulted, as 
 another authority has observed, with more sagacity, 
 had he not at the same time appeared to conceive, that 
 our productive industry was most concerned in culti- 
 vating the tobacco of foreign countries, or in snuffing 
 and smoking it in our own ; or, no less erroneously sup- 
 posed, that duties of 50 per cent, being a sufficient 
 bounty upon smuggling, if he reduced them from 12 
 
 
 H, 
 
 , i 
 
 ) 
 
 i r 
 
 
 t 
 
m 
 
 ■i'il'll 
 
 ( 54 ) 
 
 to 600 per cent, he might dispense with the whole coast 
 guard. 
 
 The effect of the proposed system upon the pro- 
 ductive industry of the Colonies has already been 
 shown ; but with regard to tiie productive industry of 
 the manufacturers of the United Kingdom, and the 
 effect the Timber Trade has upon them, let the 
 amount of purchases made of them, by each of the com- 
 petitors for this trade, the foreigner and the colonist, be 
 compared, and then let it be judged, whether of the 
 two proves the better customer, and what is to be 
 gained by preferring the Baltic to the Canadian wood. 
 
 The accounts subjoined are taken, not from such re- 
 turns as were most desired, but such as could most 
 readily be obtained. They show at once the relative 
 value, to the home manufacturer, of the Baltic trade 
 and the Canadian, and also their relative increase 
 within a late period of four years. 
 
 Principal Articles of Home Production exported from tlie United 
 Kingdom to the North of Europe, and the British North 
 American Colonies. 
 
 
 i|ii;':i 
 
 Cotton Goods. 
 
 1824. 
 
 Yards. 
 Russia 2,646,871 
 
 ^^^^"^ J 403.064 
 
 Norway J 
 
 Deumark 461,609 
 
 Prussia 436,283 
 
 • 1,300,946 
 
 British North American Colonies 
 
 3,947,817 
 5,680,723 
 
 5 21,864 
 
 I 364,605 
 
 248,416 
 
 9,100 
 
 1828, 
 
 Yards. 
 2,602,267 
 
 543,885 
 3,046,152 
 9,202,265 
 
( 55 ) 
 
 Linens. 
 
 1824. Yards 
 
 Russia 724 
 
 Sweden ) ^ q^q 
 
 Norway / ' 
 
 Denmark 862 
 
 Prussia , 103 
 
 .. 8,625 
 
 9,349 
 
 British North American Colonies .. 2,192,624 
 
 Woollens. 
 
 1824. 
 
 Pieces. 
 
 Russia 37,198 
 
 5«'«den1 i33y 
 
 Norway J 
 
 Denmark 1,818 
 
 Prussia 1,687 
 
 . . 4,864 
 
 42,062 
 
 British North American Colonies .... 76,345 
 
 Woollens, 
 
 1824. 
 
 Yards. 
 Russia 123,926 
 
 S;^^^^" ] 6,168 
 
 Norway J 
 
 Denmark 17,542 
 
 Prussia 4,707 
 
 28,417 
 
 152,343 
 
 British Nortlj American Colonies 938,897 
 
 Leather. 
 
 1824. 
 
 lbs. 
 Russia 1,318 
 
 S"'*^^" J 2,134 
 
 Norway ^ 
 
 Denmark 2,468 
 
 Prussia 196 
 
 ; .. 4,798 
 
 6,116 
 
 British North American Colonies .... 445,640 
 
 1828. 
 
 S 3,066 
 
 I 9,393 
 
 10,787 
 
 14,254 
 
 Yards. 
 2,155 
 
 . 37,500 
 
 39,655 
 
 2,834,642 
 
 1828. 
 
 { 
 
 355 
 1,663 
 1,356 
 
 123 
 
 Pieces. 
 38,515 
 
 3,497 
 42,012 
 63,558 
 
 18S!8. 
 
 { 
 
 1,940 
 
 9,232 
 
 3,700 
 
 772 
 
 Yards. 
 127,126 
 
 . 15,644 
 
 142,770 
 
 1,123,276 
 
 1828. 
 
 lbs. 
 1,445 
 
 255 
 
 979 
 36 
 
 1,270 
 2,715 
 
 324,303 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 1 
 
 
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 ■ 
 
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 1 
 
 h> 
 
 m h' 
 
 p ' '■- 
 
 ^ 
 
 i 
 

 
 mi 
 
 I 
 
 ( 56 ) 
 Earthenware. 
 
 18J4, 
 
 Pieces. 
 Russia 435,520 
 
 l^^"^^" I 632,522 
 
 JVorway S 
 
 Denmark 607,983 
 
 Prussia 105,495 
 
 1,346,000 
 
 British North American Colonies 
 
 1,781,520 
 2,567,561 
 
 1828. 
 
 f 34,620 
 
 \ 512,442 
 
 536,534 
 
 43,772 
 
 Pieces. 
 122.813 
 
 1,127,368 
 1,250,181 
 1,745,207 
 
 Iron and Steel Wrought and Unwrought. 
 
 1 1828. 
 
 1824. 
 
 Tons. 
 
 Russia 65 
 
 Sweden ^ „. 
 
 Norway S 
 
 Denmark 172 
 
 Prussia 14 
 
 . . 207 
 
 S 120 
 \ 41 
 
 477 
 1.089 
 
 272 
 
 British North American Colonies 6,442 I 
 
 Hardware and Cutlery. 
 
 1824. 
 
 Cwts. 
 
 Russia 2,532 
 
 Sweden ^ 774 
 
 Norway S 
 
 Denmark 836 
 
 Prussia 740 
 
 2,350 
 
 4,882 
 British North American Colonies 14,845 
 
 1828. 
 
 S 107 
 ( 535 
 
 764 
 544 
 
 Tons. 
 
 44 
 
 1.771 
 
 5,930 
 
 Cwts. 
 3,080 
 
 1,950 
 
 5,030 
 
 15,412 
 
 All other articles of British and Irish manufacture 
 exhibit a similar result, some in a greater, some a lesser 
 degree, with the exception of salt, coals, machinery, 
 unwrought tin, and cotton twist. Exceptions, which all 
 illustrate the principle and object of the present argu- 
 ment, but which are so trifling in amount that none re- 
 
( 57 ) 
 
 quire particular notice, except the first and the last. 
 Salt is in Prussia a government monopoly, and it seems 
 to be considered in that country no offence against 
 the treaty of reciprocity, to purchase that salt only 
 which is brought in their own ships. And as the 
 freight thither, of this article, bears so great a propor- 
 tion to its value, its exportation offers nearly as little 
 encouragement to British industry, as coals, and ma- 
 chinery, and cotton twist, by purchase of which the 
 foreigner makes, whatever of our labour he employs, 
 the very means of employing no more. This is emi- 
 nently the case in cotton twist, of which one half of 
 the whole British exports to these countries consists. 
 
 Exports of Cotton Twist and Yarn. 
 
 1824. 
 
 Russi.1. 
 
 Sweden ) ,„. -.^> 
 
 Norway! '^^^'^^^ 
 
 Denmark 1 17,412 
 
 I'russia 58,167 
 
 lbs. 
 11,923,029 
 
 381,344 
 
 12,304,373 
 British Nortii American Colonies 18,007 
 
 1828. 
 
 lbs. 
 14,882,644 
 / 32 1,294 
 \ 14,865 
 164,207 
 48,360 
 548,726 
 
 15,431,370 
 66,520 
 
 Let the manufacturers of every commodity examine 
 these and the other articles of our production and 
 trade, and say with which of these competitors it is 
 more the interest of the home producer to deal? with 
 our own Colonies, whose population of 1,200,000, fur- 
 nish a demand equal to £l. los. 4<d. per person, for 
 commodities in the last stage of manufacture, or with 
 the foreigners of northern Europe, who, though 
 47,000,000 in number, are permitted by their govern- 
 ments, or induced by their wants and habits, to pur- 
 
 lu: 
 
 ■f \ 
 
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 1 
 
( 58 ) 
 
 chase, of our home productions, to the amount only of 
 one shilling each, and purchase almost exclusively such 
 articles, as are not so much the employment of our 
 labour, as the instrument or materials of their own, and 
 consequently do less to encourage British industry, 
 than to rival it and depreciate ? 
 
 But it is asserted, that the exports of our manu- 
 factures to the northern powers will increase, as our 
 import thence of wood increases. To create an ex- 
 tensive or beneficial intercourse between our own and a 
 foreign country, it is not enough that we should only 
 import from them : two things further are necessary ; 
 first, that their habits and wants should be such, as to 
 desire importations from us ; next, that their laws of 
 trade be such, as to permit those desires to be gratified. 
 We have increased our importations from France, 
 since 1817, from o£'518,353 to .£'3,159,307, in 1829; 
 yet our exports thither have declined, between the 
 same years, from o£'l,649,181 to £64>3,303. As long 
 as the northern powers adhere to their tariiFs, it will be 
 in vain for us to court their custom, by sacrificing our 
 intercourse with the Colonies, whose laws of trade are 
 acts of the imperial parhament. It is upon the foreign 
 tariffs that our exports to foreign countries are found to 
 depend, and not upon our duties on their timber. 
 Compare the trade of Great Britain to the north of 
 Europe, in the last year of peace, 1802, before the 
 present system of duties began, with our trade thither 
 in 1819, when the protection to colonial wood was 
 greatest, and in 1829, after that protection had been 
 reduced by 22s. 6d. a load. 
 
( 59 ) 
 
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 To 
 
 ( <iO ) 
 
 TOTAL EXPORTS FROM UREA I URITAIN. 
 Official V^alue. 
 
 Russia . . . . 
 Sweden . . 
 Nonviiv > 
 DeiiiiiHrk ) 
 Prussia. . . . 
 
 isoa. 
 
 £33,229 
 194,349 
 433,734 
 
 £834,412 
 
 661,512 
 
 £1,495,924 
 
 1819. 
 
 £40.419 
 
 60,171 
 
 184,923 
 
 435,153 
 
 £1,630,047 
 
 720,66H 
 
 £2,330,715 
 
 1829. 
 
 £52,643 
 
 «0,7n 
 
 ia5,934 
 
 224,994 
 
 £1,849,312 
 
 544,302 
 £2,393,614 
 
 
 
 
 M 
 1 1 
 
 i\ ■:!: 
 
 It would be long to comment upon all the parts of 
 this trade ; let that of Prussia be taken, as the most 
 striking illustration of what the others also evince in a 
 lesser degree. Between 1802 and 1819 our importa- 
 tions from that country of timber and deals seem to 
 have declined by 109,505 loads, while our exports 
 thither exhibit a small increase. Between 1819 and 
 1829 our importation had increased by 59,937 loads, 
 and our exports declined nearly one half The old 
 adage, that it requires two to make a bargain, is not 
 more certain, than that it requires the consent of two 
 governments to make a trade between two countries. 
 
 it has been formerly asserted, that Prussia is partly 
 supplied with British manufactures through the North 
 of Germany ; and so convenient is it to resort to and 
 over-rate suppositions, the exact value of which cannot 
 be ascertained, that it is now also alleged, that the re- 
 fusal of Norway to import our manufactures is likewise 
 
( 01 ) 
 
 to be accounted for in the same way, her abundant 
 supplies from the North of Germany. It is scarcely 
 worth while again to appeal to the geography of coun- 
 tries, and referring to maps, inquire, why the demand, 
 which is insufficient to invite British manufactures to 
 that country, in the direct voyage so frequently made 
 by Norwegian ships, should be able to attract tho e 
 goods, by so circuitous and varied a route, over seas 
 and mountains, with multiplied transhipments, and gra- 
 tuitous cost, labour, and risk : for the ultimate answer 
 to be expected is, that whether our manufactures 20 
 thither or not, is altogether a most unimportant circum- 
 stance ; since if this wood is not paid for at all, the loss 
 is not ours ; and if paid for, it must be directly or indi- 
 rectly paid in British manufactures: and they ask, 
 where is the difference, whether you send these to 
 Prussia for wood, or to South America for gold, and 
 give that gold for the wood of Prussia? 
 
 In a country which has suffered so lately, and much, 
 from the fluctuations of the circulating medium, it can 
 hardly be contended, that its increase in value, that is, its 
 decrease in quantity, or its exportation, does not tend to 
 embarrass commerce, distress debts and credits, affect 
 prices and contracts, and depreciate property. And if 
 that country have also a conventional instrument of 
 exchange, whose value as a commodity is nothing, but 
 depends entirely upon its being probably convertible 
 into gold, the exportation of gold, as it diminishes 
 that probabihty, has a doubly injurious effect,-— first, 
 by enhancing the value of specie, and next by impair- 
 ing the credit of its substitute. It is not indeed every 
 
 ) : 
 
 In, 
 
 r 
 
 i. I 
 
 i i' 
 
li 
 
 mi 
 
 1 1 ;il 
 
 li 
 
 ( 6^ ) 
 
 exportation of gold tliat produces those effects ; but 
 every such exportation has a tendency to produce them, 
 varying only in degree. That gold returns again, is the 
 remedy which corrects the evil, but does not prove 
 that its exportation is none; unless it can be shown, 
 that its exportation to one country, increases its impor- 
 tation from another. If, for example, by transferring 
 the Colonial Timber Trade to the Baltic, i^l, 000,000 
 more of gold be annually exported from this country, 
 how will that produce an importation of gold to an 
 equal amount? How will it enable us to dispose of 
 c£l,000,000 more of manufactures? Send them to 
 South America, say the economists, and there exchange 
 them for gold. The process is not so simple. We 
 already send thither as much as they want, or more 
 than they can pay for. They do not in that country 
 give away gold for asking ; nor do they stand ready to 
 give us more, because we offer more manufactures; nor 
 have they more there to give, than they owe us al- 
 ready ; nor if they had, should we then have a greater 
 abundance here, than requisite to secure us against 
 panics, and to purchase whatever commodities we can- 
 not obtain by the barter of our own. As gold and 
 silver are the necessary instruments of exchange, and 
 as the greatest injury to commerce is to be destitute of 
 them, every country not producing them, which pays 
 away or exports more of them than it receives, must, 
 in a given time, be reduced to this destitution; and 
 every trade, which promotes this exportation, must so 
 far promote this destitution, and therefore be so far 
 injurious. But with regard to our manufactures, it is 
 
an 
 of 
 to 
 
 ( 63 ) 
 
 necessary, either to point out in what country an addi- 
 tional market can be opened for them, equal to that 
 abandoned in the Colonies, and in consequence of the 
 abandonment, or to confess such a measure an entire 
 loss of so great a market. 
 
 There is also another class of producers, less exten- 
 sively indeed, but more directly, perhaps, concerned in 
 the existing system, the proprietors and planters of 
 land, by whom the suggestion of a possible gain, in the 
 expense of the trifling quantity of foreign wood used 
 upon farms, has been rejected, with the derision it de- 
 served. It is a most fortunate circumstance for the 
 British provinces in Canada, that their interests gene- 
 rally coincide with, and promote, those of all the 
 great productive classes of these kingdoms ; so that the 
 same principle, and measure, of encouragement to the 
 Colonies, adjusts also the fairest, and most equal, pro- 
 tection, to all departments of British industry at home. 
 For as on the one hand, those Colonies are capable 
 of furnishing quantities both of corn and wood, suffi- 
 cient to save us from scarcity, or dependence on foreign 
 supplies, (and wish and need to receive from us our 
 manufactures in exchange); so, on the other hand, 
 their distance operates as a sufficient protection to the 
 home production of either article, though admitted 
 duty free : while that free admission, coupled with the 
 present protecting duties on foreign importations, re- 
 conciles and serves at once the claims and interests of 
 all parties, — the colonists and manufacturers, who pro- 
 duce and exchange commodities, — the emigrants, who 
 are removed from where burthensome and miserable to 
 
 ; 
 
 i. .J 
 
 HI 
 
 1 
 
 I 
 
 1 
 
I 04 ) 
 
 where useful and happy, — the consumers of corn and 
 wood, who desire greater abundance of the former 
 article, and can obtain no greater of the latter, than by 
 the existing system, — the landed proprietor, whose pro- 
 duction will still find an adequate preference— and the 
 ship-owners and seamen, who carry on this exchange of 
 wealth, and guard its security. Encouragement to the 
 corn of Canada is not only best given, by encouraging 
 the more general and preliminary occupation in the 
 forest ; but the two trades are identical in principle, and 
 similar in their effect, as well on every other interest, as 
 particularly upon manufacturers and consumers. 
 
( or> ) 
 
 ^ 
 
 EFFECT ON THE CONSUMERS. 
 
 The interest of the consumers is always made the most 
 prominent part of the case with those, who oppose the 
 Colonial Timber Trade ; which, say they, under the 
 present system, forces upon the market an inferior 
 article at a greater price, and compels us to pay dear 
 for bad wood. 
 
 As to the inferiority of the article, it should be re- 
 membered, that there are imported from Canada two 
 species of fir timber, of which one only, the Red 
 Pine, can be fairly compared with the Baltic. The 
 Yellow or White Pine, not found in the North of Eu- 
 rope, is for certain purposes, (as musical instruments, the 
 inside work and panelHng of houses, and some others,) 
 preferable to any wood whatever, because larger, less 
 knotty, and more easily wrought. For many other 
 uses, however, it is undoubtedly unfit, and particularly 
 is found to decay in this country, if excluded from the 
 air. But for whatever purposes the yellow pine may 
 be less suitable, for these, and for every other, the red 
 pine of Canada is fully equal to the best firs of Norway 
 or the Baltic. In point of strength and tenacity, the 
 experiments and testimony of Sir Robert Seppings 
 
 F 
 
( no ) 
 
 vh 
 
 .jm 
 
 placed the respective merits of each hefore the Com- 
 mittee of 1821, in the following comparison : — 
 
 Canada lied Pine. 
 
 Riga Fir 
 
 Norway Spar , 
 
 Average 
 
 specific Gravity. 
 
 .657 
 
 .753 
 
 .577 
 
 Ureaking 
 
 Weight. 
 511 lbs. 
 422 
 655 
 
 Ultimate 
 Deflexion. 
 . 5.82 inches. 
 . 6.00 
 . 4.00 
 
 The durability of the red pine, as compared with the 
 Baltic, is a contested point, upon which too little ex- 
 perience is yet had, and too few facts collected, to 
 decide. There certainly have been instances of its 
 vapid and entire decay within a very few years; but 
 not more rapidly, nor more entirely, nor within fewer 
 years, than the best English oak also has been found 
 to perish, in a similar manner, and situation. The 
 nature and causes of the disease called the dry rot, are 
 too little known, to admit of being ascribed to any pecu- 
 liarities in Canadian timber, except, indeed, by those 
 who, with as Httle evidence, hesitate not to impute 
 to it also the introduction or propagation of certain 
 vermin ; though this nuisance is at least equally pre- 
 valent in parts of Europe, where no wood from America 
 was ever seen, and existed in this country long before 
 the discovery of that; while the other complaint of 
 the dry rot has never made its appearance in Canada 
 to this day. Such prejudices deserve no better answer 
 than, that as the vermin alluded to were known in this 
 country before the Colonial trade in wood began, they 
 must, if imported in timber, have come over in the 
 Baltij, which being cut on the river Bug, has probably 
 transmitted to them a name from the place of nativity. 
 
 In point of dimensions, and other respects, there is 
 no great diflerencc between the two woods, except that 
 
 i II 
 
67 ) 
 
 for fineness of grain and fibre, the red pine is con- 
 sidered superior, being apparently of slower growth. 
 
 How ther '.oes it happen not to command the same 
 price in the same market? First, there is a difference, 
 in the hewing and squaring of the timber, in favour of 
 the Northern European, amounting to about 10 per 
 cent. Next, there is that, which is so often found to 
 depress the price of many new productions, which for 
 years after their first importation affected in a similar 
 manner the sale of Petersburg deals, which has but 
 lately been overcome in the use of Canadian hemp, — 
 prejudice, and the force of habit; thes , with numerous 
 persons, have still continued the undue opinion created 
 against Canadian timber, when its use was new, and its 
 qualities unproved. Then, the difference between the 
 two species, of red and yellow, has not been always 
 known, or observed, and the latter having, through 
 inexperience, been at times applied to purposes for 
 which unfit, has consequently thrown discredit upon 
 the whole wood of the country. Another reason has 
 been, that the duty on Baltic timber has prevented any 
 but the very best from being brought to market. And 
 lastly, there has been the artifice of interested persons, 
 who have availed themselves of the causes just stated, 
 and of every other opportunity, to calumniate merchan- 
 dize which competed with their own. The red pine, 
 however, has gradually advanced in use and favour, 
 notwithstanding these obstacles, and is now more than 
 ever esteemed. As conclusive evidences at once, of the 
 merits of the wood, and the calumnies prevailing against 
 it, may be mentioned,— the assertion, lately heard from 
 high authority, that it was excluded from use in His 
 
 I! 
 
 Ill 
 
 ! 
 
 |; ! 
 
 
 f2 
 
( 68 ) 
 
 Majesty's navy, — and the advertisement, at the same 
 time circulating in the daily papers, from the Commis- 
 sioners of the Navy, demanding it, and in large quantities, 
 for His Majesty's yards; an advertisement which has al- 
 most yearly made its appearance, since, in 1809, a con- 
 tract was made by those Commissioners for 30,000 loads 
 of Canadian timber, at four pounds a load cheaper than 
 the Baltic. 
 
 With regard to other descriptions of wood, — the in- 
 feriority of the oak timber, and spruce deals, from the 
 Colonies, is acknowledged, and the only question made, 
 is of the degree; but the rock-elm of Quebec is, for 
 strength and durabihty, unrivalled by any naval timber, 
 and the masts of Canada are the largest, and finest, in 
 the world. 
 
 But still the Colonial wood costs us more, under 
 the present system, say its opponents, and the con- 
 sumer must be preferred and be relieved. From what 
 class of consumers is it, that this cry is raised for 
 such relief? Where are the petitions against the pre- 
 sent duties ? From what town, what manufactory, or 
 what individuals ? Comes this clamour against Colo- 
 nial Timber from any trade, any interest, any industry, 
 in this country ; or from those only who have no trade 
 but politics, no interest but that of disputants, and 
 whose capital is invested in the industry of foreigners? 
 Of all materials for manufacture, there is not one, which 
 can more fairly and conveniently bear taxation, than 
 wood. The present charges are so far from proving too 
 high, that many loads are annually consumed for fuel. 
 Among other advantages, it has been the peculiar hap- 
 piness of this system, that without impeding any manu- 
 
 i 
 I 
 
 1 
 c 
 
( 69 ) 
 
 facture, or enhancing prices so far as to embarrass any 
 consumption, a very important revenue to the country 
 has been created. Oi, if the excessive cost of timber 
 had produced any great inconvenience, the ship-owners, 
 who build with it, should have first made the com- 
 plaint : they, however, attribute their depression to far 
 different causes, and consider the proposed measure 
 as their last and worst of misfortunes. Or, if they use 
 too little of any but native wood, yet the timber mer- 
 chants, who deal in that article both foreign and colo- 
 nial, have they petitioned upon this subject? They 
 have; and, with some two or three exceptions, all in 
 London condemned the change proposed But even if 
 any department of trade or industry could be pointed 
 out, as demanding such relief, there exists already a 
 better method of affording it, long used and approved, 
 the allowance of drawbacks, as in the case of timber 
 used in mines, — a measure which can benefit a parti- 
 cular interest, without greatly compromising any other. 
 It is no less difficult to discover the causes of such 
 complaints, than the evidence of their existence. Since 
 the present system was introduced, prices of timber 
 have been declining, with few and trifling re-actions, 
 from above sixteen pounds to five guineas a load, and 
 have never been lower than at the present moment. 
 This decline, and the causes to which it has been 
 owing, are shown in the subjoined table. 
 
 '' I 
 
 i 
 
 ! I 
 
 I*' 
 
M ! ■' 
 
 '■'■ 
 
 MH 
 
 'M 
 
 iln 
 
 ( 70 ) 
 
 An Account of the Prices of Baltic Timber, including and 
 exclusive of the Duty, the Rates of Duty, and the Quantities 
 imported from the North of Europe and the British North 
 American Colonies, from the Year 1790 to 1829. 
 
 
 Price of 
 
 Duty on 
 
 Net Price, 
 deducting 
 the Duty, 
 
 Total 
 
 Total from 
 
 
 Years. 
 
 Baltic 
 
 BalticTim- 
 
 imported 
 
 theBritish 
 
 Duty on 
 
 
 Timber 
 Load 
 
 per 
 
 ber ill Fo- 
 reign Ships. 
 
 from the 
 Baltic. 
 
 N. A. 
 
 Colonies. 
 
 Colonial. 
 
 
 £. s. 
 
 J. 
 
 £. .s. d. 
 
 £. *. d. 
 
 Loads. 
 
 Loads. 
 
 
 1790 
 
 2 5 
 
 
 
 6 10 
 
 1 18 2 
 
 227,638 
 
 148 
 
 Free. 
 
 1 
 
 2 9 
 
 6 
 
 , . 
 
 2 2 8 
 
 209,072 
 
 2,536 
 
 
 2 
 
 2 10 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 2 3 2 
 
 277,261 
 
 2,726 
 
 
 3 
 
 2 16 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 2 9 2 
 
 189,740 
 
 2,664 
 
 
 4 
 
 2 10 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 2 12 
 
 169,710 
 
 873 
 
 
 5 
 
 3 12 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 3 5 2 
 
 147,384 
 
 235 
 
 
 6 
 
 3 1 
 
 
 
 7 2 
 
 2 13 10 
 
 199,119 
 
 840 
 
 
 7 
 
 2 10 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 2 2 10 
 
 117,051 
 
 1,513 
 
 
 8 
 
 3 15 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 3 7 10 
 
 141,042 
 
 1,607 
 
 
 9 
 
 4 8 
 
 
 
 . . 
 
 4 10 
 
 148,280 
 
 2,126 
 
 
 1800 
 
 5 £ 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 4 17 10 
 
 189,331 
 
 2,605 
 
 
 I 
 
 5 l3 
 
 
 
 10 11 
 
 5 4 1 
 
 158,770 
 
 3,099 
 
 
 2 
 
 4 5 
 
 
 
 
 3 14 1 
 
 252,672 
 
 5,143 
 
 
 3 
 
 5 5 
 
 
 
 10 9 
 
 4 4 3 
 
 280,550 
 
 12,133 
 
 £0 1 6 
 
 4 
 
 4 15 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 3 14 3 
 
 275,429 
 
 14,835 
 
 
 5 
 
 4 15 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 3 14 3 
 
 248,717 
 
 13,018 
 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 5 19 3 
 
 144,054 
 
 16,120 
 
 Free. 
 
 7 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 4 19 3 
 
 213,636 
 
 26,561 
 
 
 8 
 
 11 11 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 9 10 3 
 
 26,764 
 
 60,467 
 
 
 9 
 
 16 10 
 
 
 
 18 8 
 
 15 1 4 
 
 54,620 
 
 90,829 
 
 
 10 
 
 13 5 
 
 
 
 2 17 4 
 
 10 7 8 
 
 135,626 
 
 125,313 
 
 
 11 
 
 13 10 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 10 12 8 
 
 124,765 
 
 154,232 
 
 
 12 
 
 10 5 
 
 
 
 . . 
 
 7 7 8 
 
 27,176 
 
 171,795 
 
 
 13 
 
 13 
 
 
 
 3 8 1 
 
 9 11 11 
 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 9 15 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 6 6 11 
 
 126,289 
 
 50,790 
 
 
 15 
 
 8 15 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 5 6 11 
 
 194,503 
 
 122,212 
 
 
 16 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 2 11 11 
 
 79,885 
 
 153,707 
 
 
 17 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 2 11 11 
 
 86,715 
 
 162,611 
 
 
 18 
 
 6 10 
 
 
 
 , . 
 
 3 1 11 
 
 141,885 
 
 248,669 
 
 
 19 
 
 6 7 
 
 6 
 
 3 8 
 
 2 19 6 
 
 119,237 
 
 322,920 
 
 
 20 
 
 6 
 
 
 
 
 2 12 
 
 65,841 
 
 307,813 
 
 
 21 
 
 5 7 
 
 6 
 
 2 17 
 
 2 9 6 
 
 99,202 
 
 317,563 
 
 10 
 
 22 
 
 5 5 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 2 8 
 
 137,248 
 
 345,741 
 
 
 23 
 
 5 8 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 2 11 
 
 161,472 
 
 3«3,747 
 
 
 24 
 
 5 6 
 
 
 
 2 15 
 
 2 11 
 
 195,900 
 
 415,363 
 
 
 25 
 
 5 10 
 
 
 
 , , 
 
 2 15 
 
 286,871 
 
 467,625 
 
 
 yii 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 . . 
 
 2 5 
 
 156,078 
 
 455,800 
 
 
 27 
 
 5 2 
 
 () 
 
 . , 
 
 2 6 6 
 
 173,382 
 
 343,203 
 
 
 28 
 
 5 2 
 
 6 
 
 , , 
 
 2 6 6 
 
 144,522 
 
 372,613 
 
 
 29 
 
 5 
 
 
 
 • • 
 
 2 5 
 
 150,974 
 
 393, Wl 
 
 
( 71 ) 
 
 This table is not offered, for the purpose of com- 
 paring the prices of the last war, with those of the pre- 
 sent peace; although it might well be insisted that such 
 a comparison is perfectly fair, for war is an essential 
 ingredient in this question, and if Baltic prices are 
 liable to be enhanced from that cause, the argument 
 for colonial competition, and the example of its effects, 
 is as pertinent to the question, as if that enhancement had 
 occurred from any equally probable cause during peace. 
 Never ought the colonial case to be separated from the 
 consideration, that supplies of timber from the Baltic 
 depend upon the will of foreign governments,— supphes 
 from Canada, upon our own. But the above table is 
 given to show, that the introduction of colonial com- 
 petition has not only beaten down the excessive war 
 prices of ten and fifteen pounds a load, but has con- 
 tinued since the peace to reduce and depress them, 
 until within less than a. penny per foot as cheap, as on 
 the average of the last three years of peace ending 
 with 1792, and cheaper by nearly 7iL a foot, than in 
 the peace of 1802; although the whole demand of the 
 United Kingdom has risen since then from below 
 190,000, on the average between 1790 and 1802, to 
 nearly 000,000, on the average of the last six years, 
 an increase of threefold ; and the standard of value, 
 corn, has also, in comparison with money, risen since 
 that date by one third, the average price of wheat 
 being 45*. the quarter in 1792, and about GO*, at the 
 present time. 
 
 When it is considered, that this article is not the 
 produce of the hand of man, but the slow and sponta- 
 neous growth of native forests ; — that no improved 
 machinery has been apphcd to its preparation ;— that, 
 on the contrary, its preparation requires yearly more 
 
 li. 
 
 .1 
 
 
 . i 
 
( 72 ) 
 
 Labour, the distance at which procured increasing 
 yearly, upon the mere continuance of the same de- 
 mand; — the conclusion seems almost irresistible, that 
 nothing but the most active and frugal competition on 
 the part of our Colonies, and the abundant importa- 
 tions of their wood, could have prevented our pur- 
 chasing it of the Baltic merchants, at rates proportioned 
 to the increase of our demand, and the diminished 
 sources, and enhanced cost, of their supply. 
 
 In the case of deals the result has been similar, 
 though as less perfect returns are at hand, a compari- 
 son of diffeiont intervals must be taken. 
 
 MEMEL AND DANTZIC DEALS. 
 
 
 Price, in- 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Duly on 
 
 
 cluding tlic 
 
 Duty per 
 
 Average 
 
 
 
 
 
 Quantity 
 
 Colonial, 
 
 
 Duty, per 
 
 Great Hun- 
 
 cubical 
 
 Duty per 
 
 Net price. 
 
 Quantity 
 
 troin the 
 
 per Great 
 
 Years. 
 
 Petersburg 
 
 dred. 
 
 contents 
 
 Petersburg 
 
 excluding 
 
 imported 
 
 N. A. 
 
 Hundred, 
 
 Standard. 
 
 8 to 20 ft. 
 
 of a Grt. 
 
 Standard. 
 
 the Duty. 
 
 from the 
 
 Colo- 
 
 Deals of all 
 
 
 12 ft. 11 by 
 
 long, 7 by 3j. 
 
 Hndrd.* 
 
 
 
 
 Baltic. 
 
 nies. 
 
 kinds. 
 
 
 li inch. 
 
 
 Feet. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 £. S. d. 
 
 .£. 6. 
 
 d. 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 Gt.Hds 
 
 Gt.Hds 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 1790, I 
 1 & 2 ^ 
 
 9 
 
 2 14 5 
 
 495 
 
 18 
 
 U 
 
 8 1 101 
 
 
 
 Free. 
 
 1799 
 
 16 
 
 2 17 \l 
 
 495 
 
 19 
 
 0^ 
 
 15 lU 
 
 31,707 
 
 102 
 
 
 
 1802 
 
 16 
 
 4 7 11 
 
 495 
 
 1 9 
 
 01 
 
 14 10 111 
 
 45.584 
 
 381 
 
 
 
 1811 
 
 38 
 
 18 2 8 
 
 495 
 
 6 
 
 101 
 
 31 19 11 
 
 44,308 
 
 3,418 
 
 7 
 
 1819 
 
 20 
 
 21 10 8 
 6 to 16 ft. 
 
 495 
 
 7 3 
 
 6^ 
 
 12 16 5^ 
 
 34,043 
 
 9,871 
 
 8 0| 
 6 to 10 ft. 
 
 
 
 19 
 
 1(5 to 21 ft. 
 
 
 
 
 
 • ■ 
 
 • • 
 
 2 
 
 10 to 21 ft. 
 
 1829t 
 
 16 
 
 22 
 
 508^2 
 
 7 2 
 
 81 
 
 8 17 31 
 
 33,300 
 
 18,258 
 
 2 10 
 
 * The average dimensions of Memel deals were in 1819 ascertained to 
 be 18 feet 11 by 3 inches. They are here presumed to have previously been 
 of the same average, as the scale of duties was the same. Since the altera- 
 tion of that scale in 1821, tlieir average length has become 18J feet. That 
 of the Russian deals has also increased from 18 to 20 feet. Conse(j'i«ntly 
 there aie many more cubic feet of wood in the same number of deals in 
 1829 than in 1819. 
 
 t The importation into Sroland is included in this year's account, and not 
 in the former. No very ma <;rial defect, perhaps, as the c? I'lin of deals 
 imported into that country from northern Europe is now \:\\': about 4,000 
 great hundreds, and the nuniber from the Colonies in 1820 wd - jnly 1,100. 
 Returns are so tlotaciifd, dofwitive, and difficult to collect, that bcu'i infor- 
 ination cannot here be otlbred. 
 
( 73 ) 
 
 The whole demand and supply seem by this ac- 
 count, to have advanced by about two-thirds, (and mea- 
 sured by the cubical contents the increase is still 
 greater), since the year 1799. Yet the price, which 
 was nearly quadrupled by the war, had, after the in- 
 troduction of colonial deals, been brought down, in 
 1819, to less than two-fifths of the war price, and since 
 that year of peace, is now become depressed to nearly 
 two-thirds of the price in 1819, and at the present 
 moment is little more than one penny per cubic foot 
 above the price in 1792. 
 
 This reduction in the selling price is evidently to be 
 imputed to the duties, which enabled another com- 
 petitor to come into the market, and the quantities of 
 wood that competitor brought ; else how, in the face 
 of an increasing demand, and a decreasing supply, 
 without aid of reduction in the cost of labour, or much 
 improvement in its instruments, how has the price been 
 so extensively depressed, while the money standard of 
 value, with which that price is compared, has itself 
 declined by one-third? It may be answered, that 
 prices of other articles have within the same period 
 very generally declined. They have ; in a lesser degree 
 perhaps ; but from what causes, or what so important, 
 as the increase of production, and the excessive com- 
 petition ? For wherever such competition has been 
 wanting, prices have not only not fallen, they have 
 risen, as in the article of Swedish steel. Now, it is 
 the colonial trade, that has produced this excessive 
 competition, and consequently it is the colonial trade, 
 that has thus brought down the prices. 
 
 |;I.J 
 
 t 
 
 !! 
 
! 
 
 
 III 
 
 ( 74 ) 
 
 But if it be necessary that the prices of wood should 
 be reduced still lower, the next inquiry is, would the 
 proposed alteration probably effect that purpose? The 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer avows, that the measure 
 would, and was intended to, transfer to foreign Europe 
 one half of the colonial trade in wood. The colonists, 
 the British merchant, and the ship-owner, all think 
 and exclaim, that the whole trade would be so 
 thoroughly broken up, and all in it so undone, that, if 
 any, a very inconsiderable part only, could be con- 
 tinued. But let us assume for the present no more 
 than is conceded. One half of the colonial trade trans- 
 ferred so suddenly to the Baltic, must cause an in- 
 creased demand for Baltic wood, equal to about 60 
 per cent, of their present annual exportation. That 
 this vast and sudden increase of demand should not 
 produce a corresponding increase of price, is altogether 
 untenable ; and even if in time the supply could be 
 also so increased, as to equal this demand, (a very un- 
 certain fact by the way,) yet to reduce the price again 
 to the present rate, two things must be ensured ; — that 
 there shall be no return to combination, among the 
 foreign producers, nor to export duties, among foreign 
 governments. The ports from which the wood is 
 shipped are so few, and the value of the article so 
 small, that individual merchants, confederating in two 
 or three places, may easily give law to the market ; and 
 the Jews of Prussia and Poland, through whom the 
 wood of those countries is procured for the merchants, 
 are not perhaps likely to be less ready to avail themselves 
 of the same advantage ; nor will these examples pro- 
 
( 75 ) 
 
 bably be altogether lost on the great landed proprietors, 
 from whose estates the timber is felled for the Jews. 
 Certain it is, that such combinations have been formed 
 before the competition of a colonial trade was intro- 
 duced ; else we should not find in so many Acts of 
 Parliament repeated complaints of the " exorbitant 
 prices," and " the excessive rates," at which wood was 
 brought into this kingdom from foreign countries ; nor 
 continued attempts, since 1721, to excite the competi- 
 tion of the Colonies, by immunities and bounties : and 
 however the policy of such acts may be censured, by 
 some, because they went too far, by others, because not 
 far enough, all must admit them to be sufficient evi- 
 dence of the fact they record, — that timber was sold at 
 excessive rates and exorbitant and arbitrary prices. 
 Now as the importation of timber into this country has 
 increased, since 1802, from 257,815 loads to 544,505 in 
 1829, and the stock in those countries must have 
 diminished, by what process of reason do we conclude, 
 that if the trade be again placed on the same footing, 
 it will not be again attended with the same evils, and 
 to a greater degree. It is a recorded fact in the 
 annals of commerce, that such combinations in the 
 north of Europe have frequently been made. The 
 most eminent example of which appeared in the year 
 1703, when the Tar Company of Sweden absolutely 
 refused to let this country have any pitch or tar, al- 
 though ready money was always paid for it, unless 
 England would permit it all to be brought exclusively 
 in Swedish shipping, and at their own price, and in 
 such quantities, as that company should please to allow. 
 
 :i 
 
u 
 
 if 
 
 i 
 
 w I 
 
 ( 7r, ) 
 
 This it was, that first compelled Parliament to have 
 recourse to the Colonies for naval stores and ship 
 timber; and so urgent seems the need to have been, 
 and so unconscionaolo h;u\ the foreign monopoly be- 
 come, that bounties were enacted (3 &4 Anne, c. 10,) 
 as high as four pounds the ton, upon pitch and tar, 
 and on masts and spars, one pound. This was the first 
 cause and commencement of tho '^^lonial Timber 
 Trade, to which the country appears to hav( been 
 driven by no abstract affection for any general system, 
 but by necessity and the dear-bought experience of 
 dependence. And lest their ends and motives should 
 at any after time be misapprehended, the statesmen of 
 that period took care to register them, in the preamble 
 of the above and the several similar statutes succeed- 
 ing, as being the same, which in the present times also 
 have been recognized for the great evils of dependence 
 on the Baltic trade : — that thereby " timber is brought 
 into this kingdom, from foreign countries, by foreign 
 shipping;" that this is done '* at excessive rates, and 
 arbitrary and exorbitant prices," that it is paid for 
 " in ready money, whereby foreigners have found op- 
 portunities to export the coined monies of the realm;" 
 and that there are " vast tracts of land in the 2ilafita- 
 tions in America, lying near the sea, and on navigable 
 rivers, which may commodiously afford great quanti- 
 ties, if due encouragement be given on that behalf, and 
 so tend to the further employment and increase of 
 English shipping and seamen, and also of the trade 
 and vent of the woollen and other manufactures of this 
 kingdom" These are the facts and reasons, which the 
 
( 77 ) 
 
 experience of a century has testified and approved, 
 and to which the present age may also bear witness, 
 as the statements above given, and to follow, shall have 
 proved. 
 
 For even under the existing system, it is not for want 
 of attempting a combination, that the prices of foreign 
 wood are not exorbitant, but because the competition 
 of the Colonies has frustrated those attempts. "There 
 are efforts made at Memel every spring to raise the 
 price of timber. This year they have met together, 
 and combined to raise the price 5s. a load. And f 
 apprehend that if any amount of duty were taken off, 
 the greater part of it would go to facilitate their 
 object." — Evidence of Lancelot Holland, Esq., a Tim- 
 ber Merchant^ \st Report of the Committee of the 
 House of Commons on Foreign Trade, 1821, p. 30. 
 The evidence of Henry Usborne, (p. 40,) and of 
 Mr. M'Ghie, (p. 38,) is confirmatory of the same opi- 
 nion — th.it whatever duty is taken off the foreign 
 timber, must raise its price in equivalent proportion if 
 the competition of the Colonies be not maintained. But 
 there has occurred a recent event, which fully corro- 
 borates these facts and opinions, and should place this 
 part of the question beyond further controversy. No 
 sooner had the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced 
 his intention of reducing the duty on Baltic timber by 5s., 
 than the pri o rose in the foreign market even beyond 
 that amount. If individuals, however, were probably to 
 neglect this so obvious an advantage, is it certain that 
 foreign governments may not seize and turn the oppor- 
 tunity to their own account? Having ascertained, as the 
 
m 
 
 • 'i < 
 
 ( 78 ) 
 
 trade of the last twenty years has shown, that the con- 
 sumers in this country can well, and with little inconve- 
 nience, pay a remunerating price for foreign timber and 
 freight, and pay from £Q : \i)s. to £S : 5*. a load besides 
 into the public customs ; and seeing, that those duties 
 amount to nearly £\,iiOO,OOQ per annum, and that 
 their subjects still export enough to pay for whatever 
 merchandize they want from this country, and carry 
 home a balance in gold and silver ; is it so very certain, 
 that those governments may not feel disposed to gather 
 into their own treasuries, at least as much as we reject 
 from ours, and perhaps by degrees something more? 
 In fine, may not the question become to which country, 
 whether of the importer, or exporter, are to be paid the 
 duties upon an article, which the importer must have, 
 which he can not procure so cheaply elsewhere, and 
 which can well bear the tax imposed ? What should 
 prevent such a course in foreign governments ? Con- 
 sideration for their own subjects? It must, as the duties 
 now stand ; for such an attempt now would distress 
 their trade, and encourage the colonial ; but give up 
 any amount of those duties, and that consideration 
 would fail. They might then put the whole, or the 
 whole to one shilling, into their own exchequers, and 
 yet give their subjects a better trade, at the expense of 
 the colonial. But they did not attempt this in 1821 ? 
 The change of 1821 never had its natural result, on ac- 
 count of the depreciation of freights and ships; but an 
 equal depreciation can not again occur, or occurring can 
 not produce the same effects — for ships would then be 
 broken up for the materials. Besides, if the first relaxa- 
 tion of duty was left by foreign powers to private benefit. 
 
\ 1., : 
 
 ( 79 ) 
 
 that is no reason why the second should not he secured 
 to their pubHc revenues. But such an attempt would be 
 countervailed on our part? How, unless by reducing 
 the duties on Canadian Timber? which, after the ruin 
 of the Colonies, and great loss to the revenue, would 
 bring the trade round again to the same system as at 
 present, with some only of its advantages, and all its 
 objections : provided always vvc shall still be so happy 
 as to have Colonies left; for the most zealous advocates 
 of the sect, which demands this change of duties, are 
 no less the advisers of discardui- all our Canadian 
 dominions. Such contests with foreign governments 
 are greatly to be deprecated, by one situated as ours ; 
 and it is to be hoped the northern powers will not be 
 tempted to the experiment ; though neither their tariffs 
 in peace, nor their armed neutralities in war, encou- 
 rage too secure a dependence. An export duty is no 
 new thing in their commercial or financial policy. How 
 far the Swedes have abused the monopoly they possess 
 in steel, is well known; and how often they have dis- 
 tressed us, by augmenting their duty upon its exporta- 
 tion, at one time to the amount of five-and-twenty per 
 cent. ; and how dearly they make us pay for it at this 
 moment, for want of competition. Neither, indeed, 
 was it till the year 1817 that the Prussian Government, 
 in consequence of the increasing supplies from our 
 Colonies, reduced its export duty of 5 per cent, upon the 
 value of wood ; nor even then did the Russian Govern- 
 ment abate its frontier duty of 6 per cent, to less than 
 one half. — Evidence before the Committee of the House 
 of Commons on Foreign Trade, 1821, page 112. 
 
 As we ourselves, therefore, if people required autho- 
 
 t 
 
■ "■ I li 
 
 ( 80 ) 
 
 rity to follow their own interests, finding our coals 
 cheaper to our neighbours than any they can procure 
 elsewhere, and finding that such cheapness enables 
 them to compete the more with our manufactures, con- 
 ceive it to be neither impoUtic towards ourselves, nor 
 unfriendly to them, to lay an export duty, and this 
 year to increase it; — so perhaps certain of our neigh- 
 bours, finding that they can supply us with timber 
 cheaper than any other country, may, by our own 
 example, learn the policy, and prove the justice, of a 
 similar imposition. For where is the people, which, 
 possessing such an advantage, would hesitate to use it? 
 Or where the three neighbouring governments, who 
 could not soon come to an understanding, to secure 
 and divide it? The advocates of free trade see not, 
 that they are in reality establishing the most dangerous 
 of monopolies, while they assume the name of destroy- 
 ing one, which does not exist, iwp^al, or equalize, the 
 duties on timber, and three foreign powers may levy 
 upon you a tax of above .£1,100,000 annually, and yet 
 not sell you a foot of wood the less : and if the doctrine 
 of universal free trade be good for any thing, it would be 
 for our interest to pay it. As our present importation 
 amounts to above 1,100,000 loads, and our duties on the 
 foreign article are from 21. 10*. to 21. \5s. a load, and the 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer concedes that 30*. a load 
 is necessary to retain for the Colonies even one half of 
 their pi t'sent trade, or 300,000 loads, it is evident, that 
 if the duties be equalized, or, to put the case on the 
 fair principles of free trade, if the duties be all repealed, 
 .£1,100,000 per annum might be levied by foreign go- 
 vernments OH the exportation of wood from the north 
 
coals 
 
 ( 81 ) 
 
 of Europe, and yet 10*. a load of cleai- profit be left in 
 the hands of their subjects, wherewith to extend their 
 own production and annihilate Colonial rompetition. 
 
 It is not, however, material to determine, whether the 
 amount of the alteration in duties is probably to be 
 transferred to the treasury of foreign governments, 
 or to the pockets of their subjects. Of two sources of 
 supply, where one, and the greater, is cut off, the prices 
 of the other must of course rise with the demand; and 
 as the consumption of the United Kingdom, requiring 
 annually 1,100,000 timber trees of 50 feet cubic each, 
 is now become too great almost for either alone, this 
 rise of prices will, for ihe reasons before given, be pro- 
 bably permanent; or at least never decline again to the 
 rate produced under the existing system. 
 
 It can readily be objected, that if the advance of 
 prices be equivalent to the decrease of the duty, the 
 Colonial trade may still be continued. Should the dif- 
 ference, now made by the duties between Baltic and 
 Colonial wood, be still preserved, by whatever means, 
 and freights remain the same, the Colonial trade would 
 undoubtedly continue, and the whole burthen resulting 
 from either the additional duty, or the advance of prices, 
 would be thrown on the consumer, and the only conse- 
 quence of a pure remission of duty, be so much loss to 
 the revenue. But, to preserve that difFerence, prices 
 must rise, not only to the extent of the duty taken oft' 
 foreign wood, but also to the amount of the duty im- 
 posed on Colonial. For as the loss of one shilling a 
 load will prevent the trade as effectually, as the loss of 
 fifteen, the foreigner may put the residue, fourteen, for 
 example, into his own pocket, and run no risk of 
 
 ■I 
 
 I 
 

 ( 82 ) 
 
 renewing the competition of the Colonies. Besides, 
 after the abandonment of the trade, the breaking up 
 of establishments, the destruction, soon accomplished, 
 of water mills and steam mills, and the consequent 
 insolvency of most concerned, the Colonists will have 
 neither the disposition, nor the ability, to adventure 
 again in undertakings, which depend only on a slight 
 increase of British freights, or a slight reduction of 
 Baltic profits, — a reduction more easily to be made, than 
 even of the Baltic duties. 
 
 It is seen, therefore, that as far as respects the 
 interest of consumers, the present system rests upon 
 tl?e following facts and reasons. That the most abun- 
 dant supplies of all descriptions of wood are now im- 
 ported ; as, whoever will visit the timber-yards at the 
 various ports, or examine official returns, or compare 
 tire prices of former years, must be forced to acknow- 
 ledge: that consumers have in consequence their choice 
 of evjry kind and quality, which they purchase at the 
 lowest possible rates, exclusive of the duty: that this 
 duty is nothing lost to the country, nothing given to 
 the colonists or ship-owners, but all paid into the 
 public exchequer, which must be supplied from some 
 quarter, and can be supplied from none with less incon- 
 venience: that no manufacture is impeded, no conve- 
 nience straitened, no industry lessened, by the cxistinf^ 
 duties, nor complaints heard from any class of con- 
 sumers: that even admitting the inferiority of Colonial 
 timber, iis use is entirely voluntary, and induced not 
 by the absence of the better commodity, but by the 
 excess of its price, and the whole of that excess is 
 revenue : tliat the interest v.i consumers can l)e pro- 
 
( S3 ) 
 
 moted by no means so effectually as by an enlarged, 
 active, and frugal competition ; the existence of which 
 at present is so evident, that no one will affirm there 
 can be made, in any department of this trade, more 
 than the barest living profit : that any change which 
 shall reduce or destroy this competition, whether by 
 increasing the duties on Colonial to the amount of 10*. 
 and decreasing on Baltic to the amount of 5s., or by 
 deducting from the latter the whole 15*., must be 
 injurious to the public ; because, whatever may thus 
 be saved in the price, is lost to the revenue; what is 
 gained in quality, is paid for in the price; what added 
 to the revenue, taken from the consumers ; and what 
 lost through want of competition, given as tribute to 
 the foreigner. 
 
 (; 2 
 
( 84 ) 
 
 EFFECT UPON THE SHIPPING INTEREST. 
 
 In questions of navigation, its intimate connection with 
 the general vveakh and safety of the whole empire, may 
 always be taken as undisputed. Its extreme depres- 
 sion at the present moment, is scarcely less evident; 
 there are, however, some facts illustrative of this, 
 which, though often repeated, seem httle known or 
 little regarded, and which are shown by official returns 
 or undoubted authority. The tonnage of this kingdom 
 has, since 1816, declined nearly 400,000 tons, of which 
 one half has disappeared, or its disappearance been 
 discovered, since 1822. The value of ships in the 
 Timber Trade has, since the year last mentioned, de- 
 clined from 11/. a ton to 51. 10*.; and the rate of 
 freights to Canada from 3/. to 21. per load. The com- 
 petition of foreigners has so driven British navigation 
 out of the foreign trade, that the proportion of foreign 
 to British shipping has increased about seventy-five per 
 cent, since the year 1792; nearly two-fifths of which 
 increase have been made within the last seven years.* 
 British shipping has consequently sought, and as yet 
 has found, its asylum and best employment in the 
 Colonial trade. 
 
 The trade of the British North American Colonies to 
 the United Kingdom gives freights to above 43C9O0 
 tons yearly, (on the average of the last six years,) and 
 constant employment to about o01,000, exclusively of 
 
 * The proportion of British shipping to foreign was, in 1792, about 100 
 to 351, in 1822 about 100 to 5U, and in 1829 about 100 to 61^, on the 
 average of three years preceding each period. 
 
 I '■\ 
 
! ''li 
 
 h!li 
 
 ( 85 ) 
 repeated voyages, which may be made by three-fifths of 
 the whole 430,000 tons. This quantity of 301,000 tons 
 is nearly one-seventh of the whole registered tonnage 
 of Great Britain and Ireland. From these 301,000 tons, 
 however, is to be deducted whatever shipping arrives 
 from the Colonies with freights other than wood. The 
 exact amount of this cannot be ascertained, and conse- 
 quently has given rise, as usual, to very vague and 
 extravagant statements. Those who prefer some cer- 
 tain data, to gratuitous conjectures, will be able, within 
 close limits, to collect a fair estimate of this quantity, 
 by referring to the exports of the several Colonies, and 
 to the tonnage they employ. The whole 400,841 enter- 
 ing inwards in the United Kingdom, in 1823, came 
 from these Colonies in the following proportions : 
 
 Ships. Tons. 
 
 Canada 595 167,806 
 
 New Brunswick 634 181,588 
 
 Nova Scotia ]-20 29,564 
 
 Newfoundland and other places 177 .... 21,893 
 
 1,526 400,841 
 
 It appears, that the average burthen of the ships 
 from Canada and New Brunswick was nearly 300 tons, 
 from Nova Scotia 250, from Newfoundland not 130. 
 It is probable, therefore, that nearly the whole of the 
 two first, a great part of thf Jiird, and very little of 
 the fourth, were employed w. bringing wood. And 
 this, as may be seen by a table already given, corre- 
 sponds with the character of their exports ; the first 
 Colony sending I'ttle, but ood, the second nothing; 
 the third a smaii proportion of fish and oil ; of which 
 two articles, it is well known, the export of Newfound- 
 land principally consists. 
 
 
'% 
 
 ( 86 ) 
 
 Another statistical view of this question will lead to 
 the same result, and very nearly determine its value. 
 The whole quantity of wood imported from the Colonies 
 is about 600,000 loads. Allowing 67 tons to carry 100 
 loads, which is considered a fair proportion, 402,000 
 ton3 would be required to do the work ; so that the 
 tonnage in the Colonial trade to the United Kingdom, 
 not employed in bringing wood, may be set down at 
 28,000 tons. Deduct this from the 430,000— deduct 
 further three-tenths of the remaining 402,000, for the 
 repei-ted voyages, and the residue of 281,400 is the 
 amount of British navigation to be put in jeopardy, 
 one half of which, or 140,700 tons, is confessedly to 
 be put out of employment, by the measure proposed. 
 As no person could have the nerve to encounter this 
 without some palliative, it is alleged, that one half 
 of this tonnage would still retain employment in the 
 Colonial trade, and the other half be provided for 
 in the increase of the Baltic, and the coal, trades. 
 Again, let the temporary concession be made, that 
 half of the Colonial trade only would have been de- 
 stroyed: and concede also, that this half, or 300,000 
 loads, would, when transferred to the Baltic, be divided 
 between British and foreign ships in the same propor- 
 tion as at present, that is, about equally. These 300,000 
 loads then will give freights to about 201,000 tons; but 
 as three Baltic voyages are on the average made in the 
 year, 67,000 tons are sufficient for the work, of which 
 one half only being British, no more than 33,500 of the 
 tonnage discharged from the Colonial Timber Trade 
 could obtain employment in the Baltic. There remain, 
 therefore, 107,200 tons to be taken up by the increase 
 of the coal trade. 
 
•tJ 
 i 
 
 ( 87 ) 
 
 The expectation olany material increase in tiie coal 
 trade, depends upon taking for granted several facts, 
 which are either very disputable, or purely imaginary- 
 First, that the whole remission of duty is not stopped at 
 the pit's mouth, by combinations of the great monopo- 
 lists in the north, who have already been able to effect 
 a greater enhancement. Next, that if the whole es- 
 capes them, the whole will also slip through the fingers 
 of the numerous other hands it has to pass, and reach 
 and benefit the consumer alone. Then, that the con- 
 sumer lays out the whole of this saving in increased 
 purchases of coals. Upon these assumptions, as the 
 remission of a duty of six shillings is about one-seventh 
 of the cost to the consumer, and the consumption of 
 London is 1,G00,000 chaldrons, employing throughout 
 the year about 135,000 tons, and the consumption of 
 all other parts of the coast is about 1,000,000 chaldrons 
 more, and the tonnage it requires through the year, 
 about 84,000 tons, a corresponding increase of one- 
 seventh in the aggregate consumption would give an 
 addition of 371,428 chaldrons to the freights in the 
 whole coal trade. To all these concessions, there may 
 very safely be added another, no less ample than gra- 
 tuitous, that, from some indescribable cause of a sud- 
 den extension of manufactures, no matter what or 
 wherefore, the increase above granted should be just 
 doubled to 742,856 chaldrons ; that is, that by an acc of 
 parliament, there shall be created to-morrow a trade 
 equal to nearly one-half of the whole coal trade, of four 
 centuries growth, to the port of London ; yet not even 
 ihcn could a single ton displaced from the Colonial 
 Timber Trade obtain a freight of coals. Because, 
 
 IK 
 
 II 
 
( 8« ) 
 
 ffl 
 
 from the great delay in loading at the northern ports, 
 in consequence of certain regulations established there 
 by the proprietors, the tonnage already occupied in this 
 trade is abundantly sufficient to do between a third and 
 a fourth more work, than at present is to be obtained. 
 The whole increase, therefore, to the fullest extent 
 imagined, in the carrying of coals coastwise, is not be- 
 yond the quantity of surplus tonnage at present en- 
 gaged, and this vaunted boon and provision for the 
 timber ships is long since forestalled, by the colliers 
 constantly waiting in the north for freights. 
 
 If, however, this v/ere not the fact, as the undoubted 
 information of the ship-owners attests, there still remains 
 one little difficulty to be obviated, before this boon and 
 provision can much avail. What is it? The shi})s in 
 the Timber Trade being some of 400, and generally of 
 300, tons burthen and upwards, draw at least 16 feet of 
 water; and 12 feet is the utmost depth to be found 
 under the spouts; where consequently, if coals were 
 offered to any amount, such craft could not he and 
 load. Unless, perhaps, it was intended also to intro- 
 duce a special provision in the new act, that 12 feet of 
 water should in future float a loaded vessel drawing 16. 
 
 There are other difficulties, less palpable perhaps, 
 but equally insurmountable. For without disputing 
 the other assumptions, if any one of which be denied, 
 the whole argument for the new measures is groundless, 
 the opinion of those, who have at least had opportu- 
 nities of information, is that the decrease of shipping in 
 the Colonial Trade, instead of one-half, would proba- 
 bly amount to three-fourths ; and it may be easily ren- 
 dered clear, that the increase in the Hultlc Timber 
 
( 89 ) 
 
 Trade, would not be divided equally between British 
 and foreign shipping. For, as it has been shown that 
 the Colonial Trade in deals consisting of 105,895 loads, 
 would by the new duties have been almost entirely sup- 
 planted by the Norwegian ; of the whole 300,000 loads 
 to be transferred to the north of Europe from the 
 Colonies, 100,000 may be set down to deals, and the 
 remaining 200,000 to timber. Now, of the timber im- 
 ported from the Baltic into Great Britain, on an aver- 
 age of the last four years, 78,064 loads have been in 
 British ships, and G2,274 in foreign. Tlie 200,000 
 loads of timber, therefore, would be divided nearly in 
 the proportion of 111,251 British, to 88,749 foreign, 
 which would, at the rate of 67 tons to 100 loads, give 
 employment, excluding repeated voyages, to 24,846 
 tons of the amount thrown out of the Colonial Trade. 
 But in deals from Norway, on the same average, 624 
 great hundreds have been brought in British ships, and 
 5,194 in foreign. The 100,000 loads of deals, there- 
 fore, to be transferred to Norway, would, probably, be 
 divided nearly in the proportion of 10,725 British, to 
 89,274 foreign; giving freights to 7 J 75 tons of British 
 shipping, or, exclusively of the repeated voyages, of 
 which at least four may be made in the year, to 1,793 
 tons. On the whole, therefore, instead of e 33,500 
 tons to have been provided for in the Baltic trade by 
 an equal division of the increase, the whole British 
 shipping, which could probably find employment there, 
 would be but 26,639 tons. 
 
 Russian deals, however, on the same average, were 
 brought, 12,217 great hundreds, or 134,387 loads, in 
 British ships, and 430 great hundreds, or 4,730 loads. 
 
 fl 
 
^1. 
 
 I : I' 
 
 • ! 
 
 ( J^o ) 
 
 in foreign; and consefjuently gave freights to 90,039 tons 
 of British shipping, and, allowing the whole to make two 
 voyages in the year, employed 45,Oi30 tons throughout 
 the year. But it has been shown to be not improbable, 
 that the effect of the proposed alteration in the duties 
 would have also transferred half of the Russian trade 
 in deals to Norway ; and therefore, the decline of Bri- 
 tish tonnage in this quarter may be stated at 20,01 1 tons, 
 after allowing the usual proportion (viz. 2,499 tons,) to 
 be taken up in the increased Norwegian trade. Thus, 
 of the 26,6od tons, which is found to be the probable 
 extent of additional employment for British navigation 
 in the Baltic trade, all that remains uncovered by the 
 decline of the Russian trade in deals is but 0,628 tons ; 
 and this is to be divided among the 140,700 tons thrown 
 out of the Colonial Timber Trade. In which, if the 
 decrease be but one-twentieth more than is conceded, 
 the whole scheme of compensation is utterly frustrated. 
 Is it not lamentable to find the great interests of na- 
 vigation thus lightly assailed, with so little pains ap- 
 parently taken to inquire, compute, and reflect, upon cir- 
 cumstances and consequences ? Some vague surmises, 
 some loose and puerile conjectures, resting only on the 
 confidence with which they are asserted, are thought 
 sufficient grounds for perilling millions of capital, and 
 even the maritime ascendancy of the British Empire. 
 
 ^■i 
 
( yi ) 
 
 SUMMARY OF PROFIT AND LOSS. 
 
 ; f 
 
 if 
 (.1 
 
 These are the advantages of the present system, to the 
 consumers and carriers of wood, the manufacturers at 
 home, and the colonist ahroad. But these advantaiies 
 may be purchased at too dear a rate: they cost us, it 
 is said, about one milHon and a half yearly; and the 
 parliamentary return, before mentioned, is referred to, 
 which shows the duty now levied on Colonial wood to 
 amount to £232,199, and that the duty which would 
 have been paid, had the same articles come from the 
 Baltic, would have amounted to i'1,580,795; and 
 therefore the difference o£' 1,347,996, is the price paid 
 by this country for the Colonial trade. How egregious, 
 and at the same time how infelicitous, a genius was his, 
 who required and used this return for such a purpose ! 
 Another instance of the ill fortune not unknown to areat 
 talents, to have lighted on one grand discovery, and 
 just missed another, which a very ordinary person, with 
 the assistance of the former, may at once point out. 
 For by this system of finance might be paid off the 
 whole national debt. Let similar returns be made out 
 of what duties would have been paid on the linens of 
 
 i 
 
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 IMAGE EVALUATION 
 TEST TARGET (MT-3) 
 
 1.0 
 
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 lAO 
 
 2.5 
 
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 L25 IIIIU IIIIII.6 
 
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 ^ cry ik. ^ V 
 
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 7 
 
 Photographic 
 
 Sciences 
 
 Corporation 
 
 23 WEST MAIN STREET 
 
 WEBSTER, N.Y. 14580 
 
 (716) 372-4503 
 
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 m 
 
( 02 ) 
 
 Ireland, if imported from the Baltic, or other foreign 
 countries, on the cottons and silks of Scotland and 
 Lancashire, the woollens of Yorkshire, the sugars of 
 Jamaica, on our glass, leather, in short, on every article 
 of production, home and colonial, and either such a 
 sinking fund will appear in prospect, as must speedily 
 discharge the o£'800,000,000, or it will be acknowledged 
 perhaps, that the difference between the amount col- 
 lected by duties on home or colonial production, and 
 the amount which would have been collected on them 
 if imported from foreign countries, is not the measure 
 of what is lost to the country, but the index of a far 
 greater gain. There are some arguments which are 
 sufficiently answered by following up their ulterior con- 
 clusions, until the absurdity becomes apparent. 
 
 Another no less ingenious method has been disco- 
 vered, of stating the profit and loss of this trade. The 
 difference in quality between Colonial and Baltic wood, 
 has been assumed to be equal to one-third of the sel- 
 ling price, exclusive of the duty. This amount is, 
 therefore, set down as so much loss. Then there is 
 added to this, the excess in the selling price of the 
 Colonial wood, above that of the Baltic, duty likewise 
 excluded. For example : — 
 
 PINE. 
 
 " Average of the two years 1824, 1825, of the amount of pine 
 timber imported into Great Britain, from the American 
 colonies : 
 
 Loads 352,450. One third of which would have been used 
 for the purposes above-mentioned, and, therefore, no loss 
 is to be calculated on that third : the two-thirds remain- 
 ing will be 238,634 loads, at the average price of £4, 
 duty excluded, making the sum of £954,536 
 
( 93 ) 
 
 One third of which is £31B,I7B 
 
 Tlie average price of Meincl fir, duty excluded, was .£"2. 10», 
 ihus the community lost on every load of tiinher Itoujjht 
 of the colonies, the sum of £1. 5s., making upon two- 
 thirds of the whole quantity bought, the sum of 29(1,292 
 
 Which, added to the above loss, on account of inferior quality, 
 
 makes a loss to the community of ,/'Gl 0,470" 
 
 ( Weitmirukr iievkw.) 
 
 
 i' is 
 
 And in like manner, going over the other articles of 
 Colonial wood, the whole loss to the country is made 
 out to be o£'947,283 per annum. By this calculation the 
 loss on Colonial wood is made to exceed what will pre- 
 sently be shown to be the whole first cost of the article; 
 so that it is in fact asserted, that if the trees in Canada 
 descended from the forests to the sea, hewn and sawn, 
 and spontaneously put themselves on board ship, they 
 would not be worth bringing home. 
 
 As to the former of these two items of loss, — without 
 here renewing the controversy concerning the inferiority 
 in quality of Canadian wood, it may be answered, that it 
 seems rather unreasonable to assume, on the one hand, 
 an arbitrary rule of one-third the value, for measuring 
 that inferiority, and to reject, on the other hand, the 
 certain standard of the market price. For how is it, if 
 the red pine timber of Canada be so much inferior to 
 the Baltic, how is it that consumers willgive .£'4. 7«. Gd. 
 for the former, when the latter is offered them in abun- 
 dance at £5. 2s. (ydl It is difficult to maintain that the 
 difference in market price, (from which, in the present 
 view, the duty should not be excluded, for the duty 
 makes part of that price,) does not give the utmost 
 measure of the difference in value or quality ; though it 
 
 
 ' i 
 
 i 
 
( 91. ) 
 
 may easily be shown, that the difference in price in- 
 cludes something more than the difference of quality, 
 viz. prejudice, and the degree of manufacture. 
 
 But next, it is not more certain that the difference of 
 value or quality is measured by the market price, than 
 that by the market price also, it is at the same time 
 compensated and paid for. Or why, again, does the 
 consumer buy the inferior red pine at £4. 7s. 6d. when 
 he may have the superior Baltic for £5. 2s. 6d. why, 
 except that, in his opinion at least, he saves as much 
 by the difference of price, as he loses by difference of 
 quality. 
 
 The first item, therefore, is to be struck out of the 
 account, as an attempt to charge a second time that, 
 for which the money has already been paid, and a re- 
 ceipt given. For the other item, — if the community is 
 to be considered as consisting of the consumers and the 
 revenue alone, and the ship-owners and colonists to 
 have no more concern in the public wealth, than Prus- 
 sians and Norwegians, it can not be disputed that Co- 
 lonial timber is dearer by its excess, if any, of first cost, 
 and of freight, above the Baltic. Whether it be wise 
 to make this separation of interests, and wlien made 
 what the apparent but fallacious advantage amounts to, 
 is next to be determined. Only it is perhaps still to be 
 considered, for the consumers and revenue, whether 
 both are probably to be benefited under any system 
 more than the present; whether, if the Baltic duties be 
 reduced or raised, the one has not to lose whatever 
 the other gains ; or, if the Colonial trade cease, and be 
 transferred to the north of Europe, under such duties 
 as to raise the same revenue as at present, the re- 
 
( 05 ) 
 
 venue, at least, can receive no benefit, nor the consu- 
 mers more than suits the convenience of the foreisn 
 producers and governments, through whom only it can 
 reach us. The gain from the reduction of duties falls first 
 to the producers ; it is but the re-action of the effect 
 there, that is felt by the consumers here. How far in 
 the present case, that benefit would probably extend to 
 this country, after the competition of her colonies de- 
 stroyed, has already been discussed. If, as is contend- 
 ed, the whole advantage be intercepted by the foreign 
 producers, it will be nothing new, nor contrary to their 
 practice ancient and recent. How far has the reduc- 
 tion of duty on foreign cordage been felt in its price 
 here ; or has the reduction on rape seed had any other 
 effect, than to destroy its home production? 
 
 But, to measure the profit and loss of the Colonial 
 trade in wood, let a fairer test be suggested, which 
 though by no means proving the loss so much, will show 
 to a certainty that it cannot be more. Compute the 
 difference of the first cost in the wood of northern Eu- 
 rope, and of Canada, and the difference of freights 
 from either country, and the sum of these two differences 
 will be the utmost possible amount of loss, even if both 
 Colonists and ship-owners be considered as foreign 
 subjects. 
 
 ■ H 
 
 
( 90 ) 
 
 COST OF CANADIAN WOOD COMPARED WITH BALTIC. 
 
 Quantities imported In the United 
 Kingdom, from the North Ame- 
 
 First Cost in 
 Canada. 
 
 First Cost in the 
 North of Europe. 
 
 rican Colonies, in 1829. 
 
 Price. 
 
 Amount. 
 
 Price. 
 
 Amount. 
 
 393,531 Loads of Timber, of which 
 say:— 
 
 100,000 Red Pine 
 
 262,354 Yellow ditto. . . 
 
 31,177 Oak and other.. 
 72,742 Great Hundreds of Staves, 
 of whicli say : — 
 
 40,000 large 
 
 32,742 small 
 
 358 Great Hundreds of Spars .... 
 3,595 Loads of Masts, 12-inch 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 1 10 
 
 1 
 
 2 10 
 
 4 
 
 2 
 30 
 
 3 
 2 
 1 10 
 9 
 
 £. 
 
 150,000 ) 
 
 262,354 i 
 
 77,942 
 
 160,000 
 65,484 
 10,740 
 
 10,785 
 
 10,138 
 
 7,585 
 
 164,322 
 
 73 
 
 4,039 
 
 £. s. d. 
 
 1 2 6 
 4 
 
 6 
 3 
 40 
 
 6 
 3 
 
 2 5 
 110 
 
 9 
 I 
 
 £. 
 
 407,648 
 124,708 
 
 240,000 
 98,226 
 14,320 
 
 21,570 
 
 5,069 Pieces ditto, under 
 
 5,057 Fathoms of Lathwood .... 
 18,258 Great Hundreds of Deals 
 7.^ Tons of Cedar 
 
 15,207 
 
 11,378 
 
 200,838 
 
 577 Great Hundreds of Battens . . 
 
 7 
 2 
 
 5,193 
 
 Freight of 600,000 Loads 
 
 923,462 
 1,200,000 
 
 1,139,088 
 600,000 
 
 
 2,123,462 
 1,739,088 
 
 1,739,088 
 
 Cn^t frnm thp ^ovth of EuroDe . 
 
 
 
 Difference 
 
 384,374 
 
 
 
 
 
 It appears, therefore, that the whole first cost of the 
 colonial wood, collectively taken, is less, than if all 
 purchased from the Baltic countries. Why then, it 
 may be objected, does the Colonial wood require 
 protection beyond the difference of freight ? Because, 
 though some portion of it be cheaper, another is 
 dearer, than the Baltic ; because, though some portion 
 of it be equal, and some superior, to the Baltic, others 
 are acknowledged to be inferior ; because, most of it 
 comes in a state of less manufacture ; because, the 
 
( i>7 ) 
 
 whole labours under undue prejudices; and because it 
 is dealing, neither fairly nor wisely, with Colonial pro- 
 ductions, to place them on the same terms as foreign ; — 
 a decided preference is claimed, and is due; and, upon 
 referring to the comparative prices of each, (before 
 given,) and to the quantities imported of each, (in the 
 last page,) it will be seen, that such a preference is but 
 barely afforded, by the present system; for the market 
 is nearly equally divided between the two competitors, 
 and nothing but the most frug.il management preserves 
 to either his share. 
 
 It appears also from the above table, that whatever 
 is paid by the public for the colonial Timber Trade, is 
 paid to the British ship-owners and seamen: and it can 
 be made no less apparent that instead of proving this 
 difference of freights to be a loss of £384,374 to the 
 community, the table shows a saving of ofl, 739,088. 
 For as the end and purposes of every society, com- 
 mercially considered, are, by industry, to make the re- 
 quisites of life abundant, and by trade to distribute 
 them to all its members ; that intercourse, which ex- 
 changes and retains the amount of (suppose) two mil- 
 lions (one of wood and one of manufactures) among 
 these members, must be a clear gain and saving of one 
 half, compared with that intercourse, which receives 
 back, indeed, one million of wood, but takes away from 
 the common stock and sends out of the comnuuiity one 
 million of manufactures. From this sum, however, of 
 £1,739,088 is to be deducted ^"300,000, for so much 
 freight from the Baltic as, it is asserted, would still be 
 paid to British shipping: and further, be there de- 
 ducted £384,374, the excess of cost in Colonial wood 
 
 H 
 
 II. 
 
 
n 
 
 U ,' 
 
 If.. 
 
 I i ' ': 
 i ^^ 
 
 mi 
 
 I. 
 
 ( 98 ) 
 
 and freights above Baltic, which will be said to ve- 
 prcsent unnecessary labour, but which really represents 
 only the misfortune that our colonial forests are so 
 distant: there still would remain a net amount of 
 £1,054,714 saved to the community, by doing our own 
 work ourselves, instead of paying foreigners to do it 
 for us. 
 
 Some further subtraction, it will be urged, should yet 
 be made, for what the public would gain by the 
 superior qualities of Baltic wood. Here again is a dis- 
 pute, as well of the existence of the fact, in some articles, 
 as of its value in all. Yet suppose both conceded : the 
 whole amount claimed for this (by the Westminster 
 Review) is £473,G41, enough to satisfy the most ardent 
 partizan of the Baltic case, but not more, than may be 
 safely granted in the colonial ; for even after allowing 
 that deduction, there would be left still the sum of 
 .^'58 1,073, of pure profit to the community from the 
 Colonial Timber Trade. Unless, indeed, any one is 
 prepared, either to dispute, the first axiom in pohtical 
 economy, that the home trade of any society is double 
 the value of foreign, or to assert, that the colonial is 
 not, by every sound rule of economy, and of justice, 
 and of policy, essentially a home trade. 
 
 These deductions, however, are all founded upon 
 assumptions, which have before been disproved. For 
 neither is it probable, that such an amount of freights 
 from the Baltic would be paid to British shipping; nor 
 that the sum, set down to the greater cost of the wood 
 and freight from the Colonies, could exceed the more 
 numerous and important disadvantages of dependence 
 on foreigners. Nor is the inferiority in the quality of 
 
( 09 ) 
 
 Canadian wood equal to the amount above assumed, 
 nor even equal to the difference in the market prices 
 of each. Yet as that difference is the limit, beyond 
 which nothing can be challenged for difference of 
 quality, against that, and against all else together, let 
 there be set off, what the public must lose, what the 
 public has lost, by dependence on foreign countries, and 
 the want of colonial competition; and the £1,739,088 
 will appear to be only a part of that wealth, which the 
 British empire gains annually by the Timber Trade of 
 the Colonies. 
 
 Next, let this computation of profit and loss be made 
 with reference to the financial views, for which the 
 measure was first proposed ; and let the statement be 
 founded on, and confined to, what the Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer has assumed in his own favour, and 
 conceded to his disadvantage. By the measure pro- 
 posed, therefore, the revenue, he affu'med, would gain 
 £600,000, and one half of the Colonial Timber Trade, 
 he allowed, would be transferred to the Baltic. 
 
 As it is not pretended that wealth can be created by 
 taxation, the ofBOOjOOO must be taken from the pockets 
 of some class or classes of the community, and conse- 
 quently, though an addition to the revenue, is no gain 
 to the pubHc. There is no shifting of taxes, by which 
 any benefit can accrue to the community, except by 
 taking money from such a class, and in such a manner, 
 and at such times, as to create less inconvenience to 
 the welfare of each and of all. The class, from which 
 it is here proposed to levy the £600,000, is apparently 
 that, which can least afford it, being the very one 
 whose relief is assumed to be most desirable, the con- 
 
 h2 
 
 I 
 
 ill 
 
( 10() ) 
 
 I! 3 
 
 1 ! 
 
 sumers ; and the time, and the manner, in which It is 
 proposed to levy this amount, are such, as far more to 
 depress the principal interests of the country, the co- 
 lonists, emigrants, manufacturers, and ship-owners, and 
 even to impair, not only the commercial independence, 
 hut the maritime defence^, of the empire. Whatever, 
 therefore, the puhlic gains, if it gains any thing, must 
 be in either the reduced price, or superior quality, of 
 the wood consumed. But as the whole supply of wood 
 to this country is thus to cost of600,000 a year more 
 than at present, there is little pretence of reduced prices. 
 And if it be urged, that the gain in the superior quality 
 of the wood will be equal to this sum, because all 
 this is merely the difference of price paid for using 
 Baltic instead of Canadian wood, and that difference 
 must be, in the opinion of the purchaser at least, ex- 
 actly equal to the difference of quality or value; it 
 follows of course, by the same rule, that the existing 
 difference of prices, as at present paid, is exactly equal 
 to the difference of quality or value ; and, therefore, 
 that by substituting Baltic for Canadian wood, no 
 benefit whatever is done to the consumer, but a pure, 
 uncompensated, and gratuitous, injury inflicted upon the 
 other interests connected with the trade. Next, how- 
 ever, it is to be answered, that this difference of price 
 will not entirely consist of the difference of quahty, but 
 may include also the want of competition ; for as the 
 inferiority, in the present market price of Canadian 
 wood, is owing less to the quality of the article, than 
 to the quantity imported ; so if this great source of 
 supply be cut off, or reduced to one half, the price 
 commanded by the Baltic will embrace, not only the 
 
( 101 ) 
 
 dirtbrence in quality, but the profits of a virtual mono- 
 poly. 
 
 It is well known, however, that there are many 
 purposes, for which tlie superior qualities of the Baltic 
 timber over the yellow pine of Canada are not wanted, 
 nor of any advantage, and, therefore, the money paid 
 for them is entire waste ; but as it may be asserted, 
 that for such purposes the trade will continue, egregious 
 as such a mistake may be, let it pass, and let the com- 
 putation be confined to concessions and deductions 
 from ,vhat has been conceded. Sum up then the value 
 of these, and set them off against the mere financial 
 benefit of ot'GOO,000. 
 
 LOSS OF £. 
 
 One-half of llie timber trade with the Colonies 461 ,73 1 
 
 Manufactures from Great Uiitain to the saini; amount 4()1,731 
 
 I-'reights on 300,000 loads from the Colonics, at 40». 
 .tfiOO.ono, deduct £150,000 for freights to be gained 
 
 from the Baltic, at 20s 450,000 
 
 One-half of the emigiation, (being in proportion to the de- 
 cline of the trade) or 20,000 persons, whose support at 
 5s. a week equals £260,000 yearly ; an annuity worth 
 about 4,000,000 
 
 Loss to the British merchants of 25 per cent, on £1,000,000 
 
 of debts due to them from the (Jolonies 250,000 
 
 Loss of one-half the capital of the Colonies invested in mills 
 
 and other establishments for the timber trade 1,050,000 
 
 £6,673,46ii 
 
 The four first items of this account represent the 
 recurring losses of every year, as long as the proposed 
 system is to continue; and the three first are but the 
 multiplicand of such losses, the multiplier of which is 
 the number of subaltern exchanges of industry and 
 production, through all the various trades and employ- 
 ments of society, from the highest to the lowest, and 
 
( lOJi ) 
 
 the piucliift of whicli must be somctliing iinincnsc, 
 tlioujLjh tlillicult to be found;— a tlilHculty the more to 
 be lamented, as almost all tbe common errors made in 
 comparing foreign with borne or colonial trade, are 
 owing to ignorance of tbis value. A greater difKculty, 
 tbougb less important, is to ascertain, bow far tbe re- 
 venue will be indirectly aflected by these losses, which 
 not only diminish tbe general wealth and ability of the 
 public to bear taxation, but all more or less immediately 
 concern tbe consumption of dutyable or exciseable arti- 
 cles. This is another of those quantities, or circum- 
 stances, in political economy, to find the value of which 
 no means are yet discovered, and the importance of it 
 is therefore most unjustly liable to be disputed or over- 
 looked. The more surprising is the audacity of some 
 professors of this science, who, before the facts neces- 
 sary to compose their theory have been collected and 
 determined ; before even any accurate measure of in- 
 crease or decline in production and prosperity has been 
 ascertained, except indeed of that department, which is 
 the least profitable, foreign trade; while so many cir- 
 cumstances are taken upon vague conjectures, and vm- 
 expected results are daily confounding computations ; 
 have, notwithstanding, advanced the most sweeping 
 dogmas, and are ready to try extreme experiments, 
 and the most sudden reverses of policy, upon the most 
 valuable and difficult questions. In the present, how- 
 ever, enough can be exactly ascertained, and has been 
 even conceded, to show the financial acquisition is as 
 nothing, compared with the many and desperate losses 
 involved in this proposal. 
 
( io;i ) 
 
 THE THEORY OE THE QUESTION. 
 
 I\ 
 
 To all these considerations there is still opposed one 
 invariahle answer, that the present state ol' the timber 
 duties is contrary to the principles of free trade, and of 
 sound commercial policy ; that it is therefore but waste 
 of time to enter into the minute details of a subject, 
 which forms only a particular case under a general rule 
 of the science. 
 
 Though there is no one among the advocates of free 
 trade, who does not, in argument at least, particularly 
 apply its principles to corn, few seem to have con- 
 sidered, whether by beginning to apply its operation to 
 any other industry or production before corn, they are 
 not in fact receding farther from the very theory and ob- 
 ject they propose. For if in a country, where protecting 
 duties have been long established, as well for other 
 commodities the produce of labour, as for corn the ne- 
 cessaries of its support, protection be taken away from 
 the former, and continued upon the latter, the effect is 
 much the same, as if in a country, where a free trade 
 had been long established, a monopoly of bread was for 
 the first time introduced. 
 
 After all, the dispute about free trade is probably to 
 terminate, Uke the dispute about free will, when parties 
 
 h 
 
;'1; 
 
 Iti 
 
 I 1^ 
 
 m 
 
 u 
 
 
 ( 104. ) 
 
 shall have discovered, that an epithet, indicative of the 
 greatest good in other applications, is here predicated 
 of a subject, of whose value and character it forms no 
 criterion. For, as the whole advantage of man's liberty 
 depends upon doing what he wills, and as this object is 
 as little concerned in the freedom of the will, as in its 
 colour; no more are the advantages of any system of 
 trade to be determined by such a predicament, ])ut by 
 the test of its promoting those objects, for which only 
 all trade is desirable. For what is trade ? It is but 
 the exchange and distribution of commodities, which 
 industry has prepared for use. And why are either 
 trade or industry to be promoted? That the neces- 
 saries of existence may abound to all, and the comforts 
 and conveniences to the greatest possible number. Of 
 whom? The Norwegians, Danes, Prussians, Swedes? 
 No, but the subjects of that community whose trade is 
 in question. If, therefore, these subjects have, to give 
 and receive, some of them wood, others woollens, cot- 
 tons, &;c. and others have ships for the exchange, will 
 not the necessaries of life better abound to all, and its 
 comforts to the greater number of them, if they ex- 
 change their industry and productions with each other, 
 rather than Avith the woodman and sl)lp-owner of 
 Norway? 
 
 There may indeed be an article, which, entering into 
 the price of all productions, and regulating the wages of 
 all labour, will therefore cheapen the production of all 
 other commodities to such a degree, as to make the uni- 
 versal wants and convenienc'ca of existence so abundant, 
 that whatever labour it displaces at home, can better be 
 supported gratuitously, than by protection; if there be 
 
( 105 ) 
 
 such an article, it is corn ; it certainly is not wood. There 
 may too be articles, whose importation from foreign 
 countries creates a demand in some departments of in- 
 dustry so much greater, than what it displaces in others, 
 as to exceed the loss of the capital there invested. In 
 these cases such a trade may be useful, not because it 
 is free, but because it best answers the object of all 
 trade, to provide for the greatest number of the same 
 commercial society. 
 
 It may be objected that this argument proves too 
 much; that it is as good for prohibition, as it is for pro- 
 tection; since the entire exclusion of foreign produc- 
 tions would most eftectually secure the preference and 
 exchange of British industry. Let the first principle 
 of trade and production be kept constantly in view, and 
 the value of this objection, and the distinction between 
 protection and prohibition will be easily understood. 
 Why is it desirable, that the members of the same com- 
 munity should exchange labour with each other, rather 
 than with foreigners? Because the requisites of life 
 and well-being will thus be most extensively distributed 
 to them all. Now to accomplish this end, it is neces- 
 sary, not only that they should exchange labour and 
 productions with each other, but that they should 
 labour and produce in the greatest possible quantity, 
 and at the cheapest possible rate ; for so the coinmo- 
 dities produced will reach the greatest possible number. 
 To effect the former object, they should give a pre- 
 ference to the industry of each other above that of 
 foreigners; to effect the latter, that preference must not 
 be carried to a prohibition; lest instead of stimulating 
 production and making commodities abundant, you en- 
 
 m 
 
i 
 
 
 m 
 
 ( lOG ) 
 
 coinage indolence, unskilfulness, and scarcity. Foreign 
 articles, therefore, should not be admitted freely, lest 
 some classes of the community by exchanging labour 
 with aliens, leave other classes unemployed and unsup- 
 plied; nor should foreign articles be excluded, lest 
 some classes of the community cease to produce as 
 cheaply, artificially, and abundantly, as they possibly 
 can; but foreign articles should be admitted on such 
 terms, as give a decided preference to our own industry, 
 and at the same time stimulate its utmost production ; 
 not because such a trade is or is not free, (for freedom 
 of trade, in this sense, has as little to do with national 
 prosperity, as freedom of the will with human liberty,) 
 but because the necessaries of life will thus be best dis- 
 tributed to all, and its comforts most improved and ex- 
 tended to the greatest possible number. 
 
 This, therefore, is at once the reason, and the mea- 
 sure, of an adequate protection ; of which some persons 
 profess themselves unable to understand the meaning 
 and amount. And if it be further inquired for what 
 kinds of production this protection ought to be ex- 
 tended, whether to the growth of tea in green-houses, 
 or of corn on the sea-shore ; reference to the first prin- 
 ciple already laid down will readily furnish an answer: 
 that the home production in any community of those 
 articles only should be protected, by which the neces- 
 saries and comforts of hfe are extended to the greatest 
 possible number of that community. Thus, though 
 whatever commodities are paid away for teas and wines 
 (no bad example of foreign trade) are lost to the com- 
 munity ; yet as by attempting to produce them ourselves, 
 we must give up the production of a far greater amount 
 
( 107 ) 
 
 of other commodities, and produce a far less (]uaritity 
 of wines and teas, the conveniences of life would Ichm 
 abound among us, than by purchasing these articles of 
 foreign countries. But by endeavouring to get wood 
 from our own forests, we not only abandon no other in- 
 dustry, but we provide for the wants of supernumerary 
 labourers; and whatever must otherwise have been paid 
 for it to foreigners, is saved and enjoyed among our 
 selves ; and wood is more abundant. 
 
 There are still two circumstances, which materially 
 affect this question, [f the condition of any commu- 
 nity be such, that its productive classes are compelled 
 to pay into the public treasury a portion of the fruits 
 of their labour, greater or lesser, than neighbouring 
 foreigners, a greater or lesser degree of protection 
 must accordingly be required. Again, if there be any 
 department of industry, which is more than others, 
 either connected with the means of national defence, 
 or ihe means of foreign attack, such a trade will, 
 fron) paramount considerations, require, in the former 
 case a greater, in the latter, a lesser degree of protec- 
 tion. 
 
 Let these principles be now applied to the Timber 
 Trade. A million, or whatever be the number, of 
 woodmen are planted in Canada. Some of these have 
 no other object of industry, others none so obvious, as 
 the forest; and all are in want of commodities of cotton, 
 woollen, iron, See. as the indispensable requisites of 
 their comfortable existence. In this country, after pro- 
 ducing those articles to an abundance far exceeding all 
 demand, there remain so many surplus labourers, that 
 40,000 depart, and 80,000 might be better spared 
 
 \i 
 
i 
 
 w 
 
 I 
 
 li m 
 
 ,ii : ;i 
 
 ( 108 ) 
 
 yearly as emigrants to those Colonies. In tliis country, 
 also, is annually required more wood than the United 
 Kingdom affords by 1,100,000 of loads, the freights of 
 above 700,000 tons of shipping. On the seas around, 
 our navigation amounts to 2,170,000 tons, whose only 
 possible employment consists in the transport of com- 
 modities, and whose seamen, amounting to 1 10,000 men, 
 are confessedly the maritime guard of these kingdoms. 
 There are foreign countries lying so much nearer, 
 and from whatever causes fed, that is hired, so much 
 more cheaply, and taxed so much more lightly, that 
 they can not only procure, but bring to us, the wood 
 at a lower rate, than we can do it for ourselves from 
 our own forests. The question, therefore, is, whether 
 the conveniences of existence will most abound and 
 extend to all of our community, as well in the Co- 
 lonies as at home, if we so regulate this trade, that 
 while, on the one hand, a preference is given to the 
 cutting down our own timber with our own hands, 
 and transporting it in our own ships, and exchanging 
 it for the manufactures of other our own labourers, so, 
 on the other, admission is given to the timber of 
 foreigners, to such an extent, and on such terms, that 
 both competitors are obliged to sell it at the lowest 
 possible rates, and neither obtains that enhancement 
 of prices, which would result from alone supplying our 
 whole demand; or, whether the ends of commerce 
 will be better attained, if we adopt a measure, which 
 shall throw half of our woodmen, half of our ships 
 and seamen, half of our manufacturers, enffased in 
 and by this system, out of employment, and throw back 
 upon us half of our emigrants ; which, also, shall build . 
 
( 109 ) 
 
 up the maritime wealth and power of foreign states, al- 
 most as much as it depresses our own; and which shall, 
 at the same time make wood dearer to the consumers, 
 or yield less revenue to the Exchequer, or perhaps do 
 both. 
 
( no ) 
 
 THE GENERAL POLICY OF THE 
 MEASURE. 
 
 r:<t[ 
 
 There yet remains of this subject another, the last di- 
 vision, of which, because incapable of being measured 
 by figures, or represented in parliamentary returns, the 
 value is misunderstood by some, denied or contemned 
 by others. Before the generation has passed away, 
 which saw their country engaged in the most desperate 
 conflict this or any people ever sustained, — (when Eu- 
 rope all conspired against us, and the Americans chose 
 in the very crisis to unite themselves with the same 
 league ; when war was proclaimed and carried on to the 
 uttermost, not only against our empire and indepen- 
 dence, but our commerce and industry;) — it is strange 
 and scarcely credible, that persons should already be 
 found to forget, or to doubt, that we then defied half 
 the world by our arms and revenues, through no other 
 means, no other resources, from abroad, than those de- 
 rived from our maritime and colonial power. It was 
 that vast confederacy of provinces and islands, spread 
 through every climate and quarter of the globe, which 
 continued to pour upon our shores the produce and 
 fabrics of all we wanted, and to receive back in return 
 those of every kind we produced, so that in the midst 
 of war we alone enjoyed the abundance and repose of 
 
( 111 ) 
 
 peace, to such an extent as to be able to supply unspa- 
 ringly the greatest of public expenditures; it was 
 mainly the riches derived from this intercourse ; it was, 
 above all, the bold and skilful seamen this intercourse 
 created and trained, that enabled Great Britain to dis- 
 comfit all her enemies, and after her ancient and laud- 
 able custom, dictate the peace of Europe. 
 
 There are numerous facts to be cited in illustration 
 of this, but that alone must be taken, which relates 
 most to the present question. In the year 1809, intel- 
 ligence arrived from the continent, that the Northern 
 Powers had confiscated the property, proscribed the 
 manufactures, and interdicted the trade of this country, 
 both imports and exports. Immediately the ministers 
 of the crown, who had mocked at the other attempts of 
 the continental system, but who saw by this the very 
 existence both of our maritime power and commerce in 
 instant danger, sent for the Canadian merchants, with 
 no less consternation, than those merchants of late went 
 to the ministers of the crown, to inquire, what must be- 
 come of the Timber Trade. For except supplies of wood 
 and naval timber could then have been procured from 
 her Colonies, not only must the comfort and the in- 
 dustry of this country have become extremely strait- 
 ened, but her very abiHty of carrying on the contest 
 suddenly exhausted. They, therefore, the ministers of 
 that period, did not say to the merchants, — write with 
 speed to your friends in the Colonies, urge them into 
 the forest, extend your credits, bid them invest their 
 capital and industry in mills and wharfs, and other the 
 necessary establishments, save us and the empire, and — 
 when this need shall be overpassed, and your property, 
 
( 112 ) 
 
 to the amount of £2,000,000, staked upon the trade, 
 there shall be brought down a budget, the principle and 
 confessed purpose of which shall be, suddenly to trans- 
 fer half of that trade back a;jain to the Baltic. 
 
 That was tli^,tinie for an arithmetician or a dogmatist 
 to have directed the trade and policy of this great em- 
 pire, as the ship-owners and colonists at least must wish. 
 In that year of grace ought, what is now called, the fal- 
 lacy of commercial independence to have been detected. 
 The pure waste of £1,300,000, which, because not paid 
 by this country into the Exchequer, this country is now 
 cunningly said to be paying yearly to the ship-owners 
 and Colonies for timber, this should have been com- 
 puted and exposed, before ship-owners, colonists, emi- 
 grants, merchants, and manufacturers became involved, 
 to the amount of millions yearly, in the enterprize. It 
 is not enough to be great economists ; they should also 
 speak in due time. The present is something too late, 
 though haply not much too early. A little patience, 
 and fit opportunity may again occur. In the beginning 
 of 1830, to have predicted, that before the end of that 
 year, kings would not be driven into exile, capitals 
 stained with civil bloodshed, and all Europe in arms, 
 and half in revolution, could not have brought more 
 discredit upon a person's prescience, than must now be 
 cast upon his prudence, who shall affirm, that there will 
 be any kingdom, or any republic, in Europe, north or 
 south, from whose ports we may not again be excluded, 
 within no greater period. In that event, if what has 
 happened in this respect before take place a second 
 time, his Majesty's government will have one of three 
 things to provide, either some oihev foreign country, 
 
( 113 ) 
 
 from which wood may conveniently be procured, or to 
 do without it here, or obtain it from our Colonies. The 
 two first are equally difficult, and the last will be far 
 from being easy, if the property of the colonists shall 
 first have been destroyed, their industry ^nade destitute, 
 and their affections disheartened, by the measure now 
 proposed. For though, as before stated, his Majesty's 
 ministers did not, in 1809, invite them into the trade, 
 with any warnings of the reverses now impending, yet 
 whatever language might thereafter be used would too 
 surely receive such an interpretation. 
 
 It is unnecessary to pursue further the advantages 
 derived to Great Britain from her colonial policy and 
 dominions, and particularly from the Canadas. As an 
 asylum for our emigrant population, as a barrier against 
 the United States, as the key of connection between these 
 kingdoms and the West Indies, as the only independent 
 resource of supplies in wood and corn both to the West 
 Indies and to this country, as the grand assurance of 
 the Atlantic trade, as the best vend of our manufactures, 
 these provinces, with their fisheries, their forests, their 
 mines, their agriculture, their loyal, industrious, and in- 
 creasing population, by their pecuUar situation, their 
 great extent of sea coast, their numerous, large, deep, 
 and secure, harbours, their immense rivers, their canals, 
 and their Mediterranean lakes,— these Colonies oflTer 
 the most interesting prospects of extending for ever the 
 industry and commerce, the maritime wealth and ascen- 
 dency, and the independence, the power, and the glory 
 of the British empire. Woe to the fame, if not to the 
 fate, of that minister, who shall gratuitously dissolve 
 the connection between them and us; or who shall be 
 
 I 
 
'. \m 
 
 M 
 
 ( 114 ) 
 
 unwilling, or unable, to understand, that the great bond 
 of that connection, " the golden everlasting chain, whose 
 strong embrace holds" them, and holds all the divisions 
 of the empire together, is mutual interest and com- 
 mercial preference. The idea of such a voluntary dis- 
 memberment of our dominions has its advocates amonir 
 those only, wlio have most loudly, and incessantly, and 
 alone, demanded the present measure, and who have, 
 in this at least, one merit, wanting to some followers of 
 their opinion?, the most thorough consistency. It is a 
 proposition, however, which even those, who have been 
 persuaded to adopt its means, abjure as an end ; it has 
 attracted attention, neither by the soundness of its 
 policy, nor the character of its promulgators, but solely 
 from the place in which spoken; and it rests entirely 
 for interest, upon its audacity, and its mischievous ten- 
 dency. 
 
 It is less necessary to add a word upon the importance 
 of a numerous mercantile marine, or to repeat how much 
 the marine of this country depends upon the Timber 
 Trade. But there are, who have said, ours is abundantly 
 large and abundantly secure, and that to attempt to 
 increase it, or even to maintain in its present extent, is 
 extravagant and impolitic. Let such reasoners consider, 
 first, whether, if indeed it be so desirable to reduce the 
 quantity of our mercantile tonnage, that reduction is 
 not already taking place, in sufficient rapidity and ex- 
 tent to answer their utmost wishes; for since the peace, 
 the registered shipping of the United Kingdom is found 
 to have declined from 2,503,350 to 2,170,458 tons. 
 Next, let it be well weighed, whether a similar decline 
 has occurred in the shipping of our rivals and oppo- 
 
. 
 
 ( 
 
 115 
 
 ) 
 
 ncnts; and if it be found, that there is a power, whose 
 tonnage has increased just in the amount ours has 
 diminished, and that power be one, whose maritime 
 means and pretensions come most into collision with 
 our own ; and that its tonnage has increased since ISIG 
 from l,341,119to 1,706,240, while that of England has 
 declined from 2,152,968 to 1,758,063, (being a de- 
 crease on our side of 394,905 tons and an increase in 
 our opponent's of 365,121 tons,)-then it becomes a 
 subject of the gravest consideration, not how we may 
 most easily diminish the number of our ships and sea- 
 men, but how we may most speedily and effectually 
 provide their support and increase. For it has already 
 come to this, that a confederacy not of all the maritime 
 powers is now required to equal ours, but if any one of 
 them be allied with the United States of America, they 
 will oppose to us a body of seamen, either superior, or 
 nearly equal, to the uttermost number of Great Britain 
 and Ireland. May such a trial be far from the fate of 
 this country ; but still farther be the inability to meet 
 it, and overcome ! And as far, too, from governing the 
 councils of this mighty empire, be that delusion, which 
 must go little before its fall, indifference to the means, 
 by which its power was established, and has hitherto 
 been preserved. 
 
 It is the general Colonial policy, that is put in ques- 
 tion no less, than the trade of Colonial wood; it is no 
 less the shipping interest, than either; it is no less the 
 integrity and maritime ascendency of this empire, than 
 all together. Whoever is concerned in the prosperity 
 of our Colonies, east or west, northern or southern ; 
 whoever understands them to be, and wishes to remain, 
 
 1 /v 
 
( NO ) 
 
 integral parts of the empire ; wlio prefers home trade 
 and pro(kicti()n to foreign, the weaUh and employment 
 of British suhjects to the industry of Norway and 
 Prussia ; whose pride is the navy of England ; whoever 
 helieves the riches, the safety, and the glory, of these 
 kingdoms, under the good providence of God, to de- 
 pend upon ships, colonies, and commerce, let him stand 
 ready to come forward and support their cause. And 
 let all, who can be moved to cherish and maintain it, 
 unite, and speak, and vote, for its defence. To those, 
 who have late so powerfully done this; whom neither 
 the disposition to support His Majesty's ministers, nor, 
 more, disinclination to oppose them, has prevented 
 from rallying round a cause paramount to all ephemeral 
 theories, abortive budgets, or changes of administra- 
 tion ; the niost grateful acknowledgments are due, and 
 have been paid, and will ever be retained, by all the 
 interest concerned at home, and throughout the whole 
 Colonial dominions of Great Britain. By that vote, no 
 less has been done to confirm, and draw closer towards 
 the Mother Country, the affection of her distant pro- 
 vinces, than to secure the prosperity and safety of the 
 whole confederacy. But the attack, late so signally 
 defeated, may yet, as is threatened, be renewed. The 
 danger continues extreme; the consequences fatal. Let 
 then every eftbrt be zealously continued. Either they 
 will still prove successful, and conserve at once both the 
 shipping and colonial interests, and those of the whole 
 empire; or if less fortunate, upon others at least, be the 
 credit of whatever may follow, not upon those, who 
 shall have discharcjed every duty t themselves, and 
 their fellow-sub? vrt.*^!- 
 
( in ) 
 
 I ( 
 
 //At /fcmurit of alt /Articles of Wood, and the Number of Loads, 
 imported into the United Kinffdom from the British Colonies, 
 and from Foreign Countries, in the Year 1829. 
 
 I 
 
 Quantity by 
 OfTicial Returns. 
 
 ARI'ICLES. 
 
 From the 
 Colonies. 
 
 Battens Great llundredn 
 
 Camwowl Tom 
 
 f^edar TVms 
 
 Lathwood Fathoms 
 
 Masts under 12 Inches. ..J< umber 
 
 Ditto, 12 Inches and upwards, ^ 
 Loads ) 
 
 Oak Plank Loads 
 
 Red and Bar Wood Tons 
 
 Spars Great Hundreds 
 
 Staves Great Hundreds 
 
 Teake Loads 
 
 Wainscot Logs Loads 
 
 Timber Load 
 
 Deals Great Hundreds 
 
 — — from Russia 
 
 Prussia 
 
 Sweden 
 
 ■ Norway 
 
 677 
 122 
 
 373 
 
 5,057 
 5,069 
 
 3,593 
 
 2 
 
 249 
 
 358 
 
 72,742 
 
 16,015 
 
 393,531 
 18,258 
 
 From 
 Foreign 
 Countries 
 
 Reduced into 
 Loads. 
 
 lo.-iea 
 
 5,324 
 8,328 
 
 867 
 
 1,306 
 
 590 
 17,729 
 
 4,147 
 150,974 
 
 14,887 
 5,339 
 3,265 
 9,809 
 
 From the 
 Colonies. 
 
 54 
 
 97 
 
 218 
 
 18,186 
 
 2,534 
 
 3,593 
 
 2 
 
 199 
 
 19 
 
 72,742 
 
 16,015 
 
 393,531 
 105,895 
 
 From 
 
 Foreign 
 Countries. 
 
 994 
 
 615,085 
 
 19,150 
 4,164 
 
 867 
 
 1,306 
 
 53 
 
 26,580 
 
 4,147 
 150,974 
 
 163,757 
 
 54,244 
 
 23,508 
 
 63,954 
 
 513,798 
 
: i' 
 
 1^ 
 
 Jj:i 
 
 In 8vo. with an Appendix, price 3s. Gd. 
 
 ON COLONIAL INTERCOURSE; with an Ap- 
 pendix containing u Memorial to the lit. Hon. the Board of Trade 
 against opening the West Indies to Ships of the United States, with 
 Tables of Comparative Prices, Tonnage, &c. By Henuy Bliss, Esq. 
 of the Inner Temple. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 C. ROWORTH AND SONS, BEI.L YARD, 
 TEMPLE BAR. 
 
fim|)robtmcnt of ^gt-irultum 
 
 \ I 
 
 Published every Three Months, price Four Shillings, 
 
 THE 
 
 BRITISH 
 FARMER'S {Quarterly) MAGAZINE, 
 
 DEVOTED EXCLUSIVELY TO 
 
 AGRICULTVRAL AND RURAL AFFAIRS. 
 
 VOLUME THE FOURTH, fob 1830. 
 
 Illustrated by Four fine Engravings of Celebrated Cattle. 
 
 Price 16s. boards, or neatly Half-bound 18s. 
 
 Ap- 
 
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 with 
 Esq. 
 
 
 Contents.— Mr. Shirreff on the Wheat Fly.— Mr Bprrv'« S„,r^»<,*- . .i 
 Landed Proprietors and Tenantry of the IslJndof LgeZ -Sl^DW^ 
 Opunon on Fallowing Lancl.-Observations on Mr. ShTrreif"s S?rie ures Sf Dr 
 Flernmgs Law of Vegetable Life. -Critical Remarks on Agncu S VVriti^S'' 
 By J. Hayward Esq.-Mr. Gray on the Corn Law of 182^, S o„ the S 
 Importance of Agi'iculture.-Fm-ther Remarks on Mr. G. SincS Andvsis of 
 
 Ubservci. By Mr. Gray.— On the Present Distress on the Country Bv 1 e^vk 
 Kennedy, Esq. (Anthor of '< Tenancy of Land and Customs of Coundes in Grea 
 I5ritam. )_Mr. Gray on the Causes and Cure of our Present dSSs -On tho 
 
 lireeds ot Cattle.— On Sheep s Fescue Grass.— Mr. Hayward to the Ed tor 
 Observer's Reply to Mr. Gray.-On Bullock Husbandry^ By Tho He berZ 
 Reply to Mr. Hayward s "Critical Remarks on AgriculLal Wr h gs '' By mT 
 Ajton.-Mr. Gray on the Currency.-On the Anglesea Breed of C itS' On H 
 Improvement of Waste Land. By Mr. Aiton -On t e Adv-mtn^l f~^? n 
 Sowing -0„ the Wheat Fly. By Mr. S. T.yi:;r.^Z^r^ ^^:^ 
 of Shallow Sowing ' -Remains on Mr. Taylor on the Wheat Fly. By De ta - 
 Mr. Berry on the Improved Breeds of Cattle, in Reply to Mr IiJILa Xr 
 Beny on the Anglesea Breed of Cattle-On the ClS of a F^rmT^^ CW'; 
 Address to the Electors of Great Britain at.d Ireland.-On T^ies -Inaufrv 
 into the Causes of Agricultural Distress. By W. Aiton Fso Mr clT ^ 
 
 1 rice ot torn.— On Sheep Husbandry. By T. Herber<^ —Mr Crv^^r .„ fl.„ r 
 
 nectjon between the Rat^es of Prices,'andVealth ami Ywb^?s;^ 
 1 'f'"^"'»I Burning. By W. Aiton, Esq.-Remarks on the Ob^rvS^Tf 
 the la e Mr. Chne, on the Breeding and Form of Domestic \ im- 17 "I'l. 
 Statistics or Political llconomy of the Operatives of S;i^lm Ids'^^^^^^^^ 
 New Pub , cations re ating to Agriculture and Rural Economy.-QuarterW Re 
 ports for England and Scotland-Agricultural Society's MeetiL of M Sstcr 
 
 Intelliger'^cs, &c. &c. 
 
 -Sporting 
 
 » * 
 
 The First Number of tiie F 
 
 Work,) iilustnited by finely Engraved Portraits ol 
 
 iFTii Volume, (or the Kmhteenlh of the 
 
 entire 
 
 Vopcity of the Duke of J,eed 
 
 nml Mr. S. (irnntl 
 
 exhibited .il il„> SmithllchI Clul, Cml. M 
 
 an AV1{S1IIHK COW," the 
 lam's I'ri/e Soulh-down Wcth 
 
 F 
 
 tiuu'Miv I I, ir..')i, 
 
 iov\ ol Drrcmlnr, lO.'jO. was published on 
 
LATELY PUBLISHED BY RIDGWAYS, PICCADILLY. 
 
 1. 
 SHEEP HUSBANDRY. 
 
 EARL STANHOPE on SHEEP HUSBANDRY; beinL' a Letter 
 to the Owners and Occuoiers of Sheep Farms; with the Evidence taiveii before a Select 
 Conimutee of the House of Lords, appointed to take into consideration the State of the 
 ilntish Wool Trade; classed under different heads. Price 4s. 
 
 2. 
 PRACTICAL OBSERVATIONS < n the National Advantages of 
 Sm^'^.v^S^/''''^ of sheep husbandry, and on the Improvement of liRlTISH 
 rrfTrt^^^'^' ;r'f' '""* deteriorating the Value of the Carcass. By JOSHUA KIRBY 
 inlMMEK. Price 3s. 
 
 3. 
 
 DAIRY HUSBANDRY. 
 The COMPLETE HISTORY of DAIRY HUSBANDRY- and 
 
 particularly with refercnc-e to the System pursued for many years at the celebrated 
 Establishment ,2tWdlow Bank, near Glasgow; including Improved Modes for Venti- 
 lating Stables, Reclaiming Waste Lands. Management of Hedge Row Fences, and 
 u A «T li^^"'"'*"'" ^'^ ' ^' ""P"""""'* 10 the Farmer and Rural Economist. By WILLIAM 
 HARLLY. 1 vol. 8vo. Copper-plates. Price 21s. bound in Cloth. 
 
 IMPROVEMENT OF MEADOW AND PASTURE LANDS. 
 HORTUS GRAMINEUS WOBURNENSIS; or, an Account of 
 
 the Results of various Experiments on the Produce and Fatteninc Properties of 
 different Grasses, and other Plants, used as the Food of the more valuable domestic 
 Animals; carried on for a number of years at V\ objin Abbey, by command of the 
 Duke ot Bedford, and being now matured, are pieaeiited for the benefit of the Igri- 
 cultural community. Illustrated with numerous Specimens of tiie Plants and Seeds in 
 Sixty Plates; with Practical Observations on their natural habits, the Soils best suited 
 to their Growth, with Instructions for the Preservation of their Seed; pointing out the 
 kinds most profitable for Permanent Pasture, Irrigated Meadows, Dry or Upland Pas- 
 ture, and the Alternate Husbandry. Accompanied with the discriminating Character 
 of the Species and Varieties. By G. SINCLAIR, F.L.S. and F.H.S.. Gardener to 
 his Grace the Duke of Bedford, &c. &c. Third Edition. Price £l : lOs. plain- and 
 coloured, £2 : 2s., under the Atthor's immediate inspection. ' 
 
 " The Hortus Gramineus Woburnensis does honour to our country."— MonrA/v Cn- 
 tical Gazette. ^ 
 
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 PONTEY'S FOREST PRUNER- or, Timber Owner's As 
 
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 SSISTANT. 
 
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 THE CAN ADAS : the onerous Nature of their existing Connection 
 with Great Britain stated, the Discontents of these Colonies discussed, and a Remedy 
 proposed ; in a Letter to Lord Viscount Howick, Under Secretary for the Colonial 
 Department, &c. &:c. By Sir Ali;xanulr Malkt, Bart. Is.&L