Proposed change in the coasting trade.
The fresh consideration which Mr. Labouchere had
given to his measure enabled him now to propose a
plan which, while it did not imply a total abolition
of all restrictions, would effect a considerable modification
of them, and at the same time enable us, as
he conceived, to get, without cavil or hesitation, such
a measure from America as the important interests
of this country demanded, without exposing our
revenue to danger, or exciting alarm among those
engaged in the coasting trade of this country.[1]
Such were the sanguine but vain expectations of
Mr. Labouchere. He tried to make it appear that
there were two branches of the coasting trade,
which, although they went by the same name, were
yet essentially distinct from each other. There
was the trade, conducted principally either by steamboats
or small vessels, consisting in the carrying of
goods and passengers to and fro, and depending on
local connection with the places between which the
trade was conducted. With that trade foreigners
could not compete; and, consequently, he illogically
argued that it was not intended to disturb that trade
or throw it open to foreign competition; so that he
proposed to keep the coasting trade, which consisted
of passing from one port to another of the United
Kingdom, on its present footing. Government had,
however, he said, resolved to abolish restrictions
which prevented the combination of a coasting with
a foreign voyage. It was not proposed that either a
foreign vessel or an English vessel foreign bound
- ↑ It may be said that the reason for maintaining the coasting trade was not so much the fear of injuring the shipowners employed in it as destroying "the nursery for our seamen."
