General effect of the Navigation Laws on the Customs.
With the Northern ports.
- factured goods were either positively or virtually
prohibited by the imposition of the high duties. It appeared, however, that butter and cheese, and also the spirit named geneva, could be imported in foreign ships, but no advantage was taken of this privilege. The timber trade differed, as that article could be imported in a ship of the country where it grew, or in a ship of the country from which it was usually brought, but this privilege, with these exceptions, was given entirely to British vessels. Nevertheless, British ships did not generally bring timber from the Baltic ports to England; while in the unprotected trade of butter and cheese, which was considerable, British shipowners, by means of steamers, monopolised the chief part of it.[1] The inference from these circumstances was drawn that Protection had very little to do in controlling the course of this trade. Russia was, however, an exception, as the vast proportion of that trade was carried on by British ships; and this, necessarily, arose from, Turkey, the Morea and Egypt, Tripoli, Barbary and Marocco, China, Sumatra and Java, the foreign West Indies, the United States of America, Mexico and the States of South America, the Ionian Islands, the Cape de Verde and the South Sea Islands. In these two categories, protected and unprotected, the whole of the British trade was then comprehended.]
- ↑ It followed from the system, that there was coincidently a protected trade and an unprotected trade. The protected trade included in 1847 the whole coast of Africa and Cape of Good Hope, St. Helena and Ascension, Mauritius, British India, the British North American Colonies, the Australian Colonies, the British West Indies, the Fisheries, and the Channel Islands. The unprotected trade included Russia, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Prussia, Germany, Holland, Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Gibraltar and Malta[a
