The Congressional Globe: Containing the Debates and Proceedings of the Second Session of the Thirty-Seventh Congress Page: 289

                                
1862.]
APPENDIX TO THE CONGRESSIONAL GLOBE.
289
37th Cong....2d Sess. Commercial Relations with the British IJrovinces—Mr. Pike.
Ho. of Reps.
wise voyages employed considerably more than
the foreign. .
But while the war had little effect upon the con-
test of antagonistic navigation laws, it gave birth
to another enemy of British supremacy. The ces-
sation of intercourse with England necessitated
the production of what we consumed, and while
the embargo and blockade largely diminished the
tonnage, it created manufacture's.
From this time for a series of years we discussed
the doctrines of protection to domestic industry;
we cultivated an American system, whose leading
feature was to render us independent of foreign
looms; and afterwards we carried along the two
contests hand in hand.
Having arranged the terms of intercourse with
Great Britain, the trade of the colonies naturally
presented itself, and became of increasing import-
ance. As early as 1773 the trade of the colonies
with the West Indies was about three million dol-
lars. But we were not allowed to carry our tim-
ber, fish, cattle, and provisions to the West Indies,
and receive in exchange their coffee, sugar, molas-
ses, and rum. Nor could we go in our vessels to
Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and get their
plaster. The rigidity of the old navigation laws
was nowise relaxed as to the colonies.
Immediately after the war we passed an act
making an offer of reciprocity with any nation that
chose to have intercourse with us. But this pro-
duced no effect. In 1818, and again in 1820, Con-
gress acted upon the subject, and the legislation of
the latter yearamounted to prohibition. As Nova
Scotia would not allow our vessels to go up the
Bay of Fund v for plaster, so we prohibited English
vessels from bringing plaster to us. American and
provincial vessels met on the lines'and exchanged
cargoes. In the West Indies our vessels carried
our produce to the free port of St. Thomas, and
brought from it the productions of tile British
West Indies carried there in British vessels.
Persistence in our demands for reciprocal trade
at last induced a relaxation in the navigation laws,
and a few ports in the colonies were opened to us.
But, unfortunately, we relented too soon; in 1830
Mr. McLane made his arrangement for trade with
Great Britain, which, although nominally recip-
rocal, worked so badly as to drive our vessels al-
most entirely out of the trade in provincial pro-
ductions, and gave an immense impetus to colonial
tonnage. Itwa3, like the present arrangement for
exchange of products with thecolonicsjying north
of us, nominally a reciprocity treaty. Like that,
it was avoided and evaded by our nimble neigh-
bors, and inured entirely to their ad vantage. Our
ports were thrown open freely to their vessels, and
m turn our vessels were allowed to go only to such
ports as produced nothing for shipment to us.
Complaints were made,butwere ineffectual until
the arrangement had been along time in operation,
and then were only partially successful. But the
history of it is interesting, as showing the inge-
nuity of our neighbors of the provinces m evading
the plain intent of a commercial treaty.
And the Ashburton treaty of 1842, negotiated
while we were complaining of the operation of the
McLane arrangement, is another illustration ofco-
lonial bad faith. It provided for the free navigation
of the St. John river, and that the lumber of the
valley of the upper St. John might be shipped on
the same terms as provincial lumber. But almost
the whole of the lumber of New Brunswick was
cut on provincial land, and immediately on the ne-
gotiation of the treaty of 1842, New Brunswick
struck off all charge for stumpage on her land,
and instead of it put on an export duty which
should be alike applicable to British and Amer-
ican lumber. Thus, while partingwith her claim
to the territory, she made our people pay her
for what constituted its chief value, the lumber
'"But these contests about the rights of navigation,
marked as they are in our history by treaties, com-
mercial arrangements, antagonistic laws, congres-
sional speeches, diplomatic correspondence, em-
bargoes, and even war itself, came to an with
the repeal of the British navigation act m lo4y.
They commenced with our existence as a nation,
when we had less than two hundred thousand tons
of shipping, and ended with a grand American
commercial marine of three million three hundred
and thirty-four thousand tons—surpassing that
" New Series—No. 19.
of any nation in the world, except Great Britain,
and nearly equaling hers.
Thus ended one of the great industrial strug-
gles of which I have spoken.
Let me say here, that those who think this
southern derangement of trade is to be destruc-
tive of our commerce, have but a limited idea of
its mission and employment. We deal with the
world. No portion of the thousand million inhab-
itants of the earth who desire to buy and sell—
to obtain the productions of other nations or send
theirs abroad—are unfamiliar with the American
flag. If England is to obtain cotton from India,
our vessels will be there to carry it, well satisfied
that the longer the voyage the larger Jhe freight.
So long as nations continue to produce variously,
according to their climate and soil, and thus keep
up an interchange of products, our ships will be
needed; and, although we may suffer inconven-
ience from the loss of special trades, others will
supply their places, and the increase of our ton-
nage will keep pace with the increasing wealth of
the world.
The primary object of the other effort of which
I have spoken was more limited in its scope. We
began with an effort to supply ourselves. We
endeavored to conquer our own market. It was a
contest between the high-priced labor of America
and the low-priced labor of Europe. Tariffs were
invoked by our labor; but commerce was restless
under restraints on trade, considering them her
natural enemies. Had it not been that the tariff
afforded statesmen the easiest modes of revenue,
the contest would have been much longerand more
doubtful. The discussions of the great presiden-
tial campaigns of Clay turned upon this issue, and
although the candidate was defeated, the system
continued. The improvements in machinery and
our constantly increasing wealth prevailed, and
besides supplying ourown wants, we now export
nearly forty millions of manufactures to places
where we come in direct competition with the
manufactures of Europe.
You will have noticed, sir, that the navigation
contests which I have alluded to rather than
sketched, were mainly for colonial trade. The
British provinces are contiguous, and our trade
with them goes back to the early history of the
country. The early exchange of products with
the West Indies, and afterwards with the mari-
time provinces east of us, was almosta necessity
to both countries. The people of these northern
provinces are, like ours, active and thrifty, and
of course great and profitable consumers of man-
ufactures. However the laws were, there would
be trade between us. On our part we were always
quite willing to have a free exchange of products
with them, and make the same arrangement with
regard to shipping that we made with the man-
tune nations of the world. But Great Britain had
the expense of maintaining fleets and armies to
protect them, and always insisted upon a monop-
oly of trade as compensation for the outlay; and
when at last she gave up her navigation laws and
threw open the trade of the provinces to the rest
of the world, it was rather in, obedience to her
own interests than the wishes of the colonies.
We are accustomed to think of Great Britain as
having only about thirty millions of population,
but we should recollect that she has machinery
equivalent in its power of production to eight mil-
lion laboring men; and it js this immense popu-
lation for which she acts. This drives her along
in her progress towards unrestricted trade, be-
cause it needs constantly increasing markets, and
the more intimate the connection shecan have with
other nations of the world the more goods she can
sell them. The English trader will sends his good
abroad, and he demands of the Government full
liberty to use any ship to go to any port wjiere
there are consumers who can pay a profit.
This arrangement made in 1854 for exchange of
products with the provinces was one of the inci-
dents in the history of commerce and navigation
which was intended on our part to mark the ad-
vanced ideas of the time in which it was made.
Both countries had tired of commercial contests
by means of legislative enactments, and were will-
ing to resort to the other means specified by Jef-
ferson, "friendly arrangements." The provinces
were trading with Great Britain as they were with
the rest oflhe world. Baltic timber was admitted
into British markets on the same terms as pro-
vincial, and provincial ships sent for sale to Liv-
erpool found Maine ships there as readily taking
a British register as themselves. On the other
hand, the provinces were enjoying what they call
a "responsible Government," and charged the
same duties on Manchester cotton and Sheffield
cutlery as they did on that made in Massachusetts
and Connecticut. They were rapidly increasing
in population, and our trade with them had grown
with their growth, and, in the various ways! have
described, checked and encouraged alternately,
helped and rebuffed by turns, in 1854 it had come
to amount to the very considerable sum of
$33,000,000, of which nearly three quarters was
our export to them. We were selling to the prov-
inces nearly one third of our whole export of man-
ufactures.
This certainly was a favorable state of things
for us. The population of the provinces did not
exceed two millions and a half, and in the year end-
ing in June, 1854, the last year before the treaty,
we sold them $24,566,000, of which overeightmil-
lions were our domestic manufactures, and took of
them in return about eight millions of raw mate-
rials, and the balance in money.
But nations, sir, any more than individuals, are
not satisfied with doing well. Certain interests
among us aimed to improve their condition, and
we cannot do better, in making up our judgment
of the effects of the commercial bargain then made,
than to enumerate the expectations formed by the
various interests of the benefits to result to them.
Manufacturers were clamorous for the treaty.
Massachusetts was willing to sacrifice the inter-
ests of Maine, if thereby she could get the cheap
wood of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia; and
while thus cheapening these productions, would
at the same time enlarge the circle of her custom-
ers, and increase her sales in provincial markets.
She expected great gains from this treaty.
Commerce would, of course, share in the busi-
ness necessary for ihe transportation of the in-
creased bulk of exports and imports, and was
easily persuaded into a desire for the adoption of
the measure. Ships are supposed to abhor all
burdens upon trade, or restrictions imposed at
custom-houses.
The great West was promised the free naviga-
tion of the St. Lawrence. John GLuiucy Adams,
before Stevenson perfected the locomotive, or De
Witt Clinton dug his "great ditch," had written
of the free navigation of the St. Lawrence as one
of the desirable events of the future, and now en-
thusiastic western gentlemen in their imaginations
saw long lines of vessels carrying their cereals
down the lakes and out of the St. Lawrence in the
fall of the year, finding a profitable market for
them in Liverpool, and after doing a thrifty busi-
ness during tkc winter, return in the spring at the
opening of these inland seas, bringing with them
the riches uf Europe.
Two political interests were invoked in aid of
these material ones: the free trade cotton interest
was called upon with confidence to encourage this
movement m the direction of unrestricted inter-
course with foreign countries, under the full expect-
ation that in time it would ripen into an abolition
of custom-houses, and the opening of the coast-
wise trade to free competition. They were in the
latter years of their dynasty infatuated with the
idea of free trade, and anything having a tendency
towards it commanded their ready assent.
And in the disappointment and chagrin felt at
tlfc North on account of the passage of the Kan-
sas-Nebraska bill, the suggestion was favorably
entertained that by increasing the exchanges be-
tween the two countries,and multiplying the inter-
course, " ail era of good feeling" would occur,
and these valuablo provinces drop easily into our
circle of States, and lend a powerful aid in futute
struggles with the slave power for the control of
the General Government.
Thus I count upon my fingers the five causes
of this commercial arrangement.
It is true the fisheries were talked of and ad-
justed; and so was the free navigation of the St.
"John; but neither interest lent much aid in the
initiation of the treaty.
Were the private history of the treaty to be
written, I believe it would be found that provincial
interests were chiefly instrumental in placing it in