Claims of Shipowners,
and fear of competition. enable them to compete with foreign shipowners upon equal terms, before the Act came into operation. The time allowed for preparation, he continued, was only seven months; but, during that period, a large number of British vessels would not have arrived from distant places abroad, and, therefore, there would be no means of making changes in the modes of sailing and manning them. The contemplated reduction of men required to be made by the owners of ships to enable them to compete with the foreign owners was held to be of great importance. It was computed that five men were employed in every British vessel to every 100 tons; while, in foreign vessels, only three or four men were required for the same amount of tonnage. Assuming 230,000 as the number of seamen employed by British shipowners, there must be a reduction of one-fifth; in other words, 47,500 British sailors must be thrown out of employment.
In mercy, therefore, exclaimed his Lordship, to all parties interested, a sufficiently long time ought to be given for preparation. There was not less, it was said, than 200,000 tons of American[1] shipping in California, which might return by the port of Calcutta, and then be brought into competition with the tonnage of this country. The effect of the sudden competition from the Americans in the freight-market of India on the trade of Australia would, in his opinion, be most detrimental. Our own vessels carried out emigrants to that dependency, and they could only find return cargoes by going to the ports of India; but there, again, they
- ↑ The discovery of large quantities of gold in California had attracted the enormous quantity of tonnage to that region.
