The Merchants' Magazine and Commercial Review

to the same privileges at the ports of delivery designated by a circular of Mr. Secretary Meredith in 1849.

What is the precise effect of the navigation act of 1849 upon the restrictions which the arrangement of 1830 still left upon colonial intercourse, we are not prepared to say, nor do we know that there has been any official declaration or announcement of the entire removal of the restrictions as to ports of entry. If, as we suppose, the effect of that act is to open all colonial ports as well as the navigation of the St. Lawrence, then it is the duty of our government, in the spirit of the rule of reciprocal equality which has guided our commercial policy, to sweep away the restrictions as to the ports of delivery which that same rule dictated in Mr. Secretary Meredith's circular.

Navigation and trade are the two great subjects of commercial legislation and arrangement. We have traced the progress of freedom in the Provinces, in regard to navigation. The growth of freedom of trade is equally marked. The restrictions of the British tariff, to which, at first, the imports and exports of the Provinces were entirely subjected, excluded foreign products, and particularly foreign manufactures, as rigidly as the navigation act excluded foreign shipping. Subject to the control of Parliament, the colonies imposed duties for revenue; but for a long period the receipts from this and all other sources were insufficient for the ordinary expenses of government and the military force maintained among them. The provinces were dependent upon England for the payment of their civil list. The territorial receipts from public lands were entirely insufficient to cover this outlay, or reimburse the home government. In 1806, according to Martin, the public income of Canada was £29,116, and the expenditure £35,134. Thus all control of the supplies, that great lever of modern liberty, was beyond the reach of the people of the Provinces. The business of legislation amounted to little more than municipal arrangements, like parish matters in England, like proceedings of Supervisors in New York. But the Provinces grew; population came; wealth came. The people became able, they were expected, they were willing, to pay for their own government. hand, they naturally felt that they were entitled to the benefit and control of revenues from all sources, including the government lands. With the control of supplies, with the civil list to vote or not to vote, the Assemblies become a power in the State. We have already spoken of the political affairs of the Provinces, and we only return to the point again on account of their direct bearing on the regulations of trade. Tariffs are measures so mixed in their nature, partly political, partly commercial, enacted with the two fold purpose of controlling trade and raising revenue, that it is impossible to understand the course of commercial legislation without keeping in view the course of political affairs.

On the other

The policy of England admits and acts upon the fact of colonial growth and strength. It is only justice to say that the British cabinet is seldom now apt to be guilty of the mistake of acting with its eyes shut upon the progress of the world, and of being "too late." At the same time that English policy has removed the restrictions which swathed and choked colonial trade, it has also withdrawn the bounties and monopolies with which it was favored in its infancy. Discriminations in favor of colonial trade and ships, and discriminations in favor of English production at the expense of the Provinces, have alike disappeared.

Until 1843 the colonial tariffs discriminated in favor of British produce and manufactures. Lord Stanley's circular of June 28, 1843, put an end

to these discriminations, and marked the first era in the commercial legislation of the colonies. From that time the products of the United States entered the Provinces on the same footing as those of England and her colonies. The next great step was taken in 1846. Chapter 94 of the 9th and 10th year of Victoria, is an act to enable the Legislatures of certain British Possessions to repeal or reduce certain custom duties." It enables the Provinces, in effect, to enact their own tariffs. The Canadian Legislature has actually repealed (July, 1847) several English acts, and enacted a tariff of its own. The Provinces might, under this law, discriminate against each other. But a wiser spirit animates their councils. Since 1848, Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have enacted reciprocal tariffs on animals, grain of all kinds, timber, and many other articles. And there is now almost as complete free trade throughout the States of British America as between the United States.

In 1846, also, were passed the Corn Law, and the act regulating duties on timber, by which all di-crimination in favor of colonial grain was abolished, and the monopoly of colonial timber in the British market destroyed. On the other hand, by the Canadian tariff of 1849, all discrimination in favor of English products is done away.

The principle of the tariff, according to Mr. Andrews, is as follows:

The rate of duties upon British manufactures is said to be 21 per cent higher than was allowed by previous tariffs under the control of Parliament. On the other hand, colonial timber, as we have seen, lost its monopoly in the British market. In short, the policy of England in regard to trade seems to be to treat the Provinces as independent States; and this policy found its last and fullest expression in the Corn Law and Timber Act of 1846, which have done for colonial trade what the navigation act has done for colonial shipping. Together they have nearly completed the work of commercial emancipation.

In the United States the acts of legislation bearing most directly upon the trade of the Provinces, are the Tariff of 1846, the Warehousing Act of August 6, 1846, and a law of the same year for the allowance of drawback on foreign merchandise imported from the Provinces, and of the "transportation of the same from ports of entry on the northern frontier by land and by water, to any port or ports from which merchandise may, under existing laws, be exported for benefit of drawback, and of export with such privilege." The benefits of drawback and debenture, thus secured, remove all legal obstruction in the way of transit trade through the United States to and from the Provinces. The direct trade for domestic consumption is controlled by the Provincial tariffs and by our own. The rates of the Canadian tariff, upon manufactures in particular, are lower than those of the tariff of 1846. We charge, on an average, 23 per cent; their duty on manufactures is but 12 per cent. A few figures will illustrate this difference. They show the duties collected under the Canadian tariff in 1849, and the

For the tariff see Merchants' Magazine, vol. xv., p. 300.
+ For the act at length see Id., p. 308, September, 1846.
The act is given the Merchants' Magazine, vol. xv., p. 309.

amounts that would have been received under the American act on the same articles :

What then are to be the future commercial relations between the United States and the States of British America? We have attempted to trace the past progress of the Provinces in government, in trade, and in navigation. Mr. Andrews' elaborate statistics exhibit with great clearness and fullness the course of trade, particularly with the United States, during the last twentythree years. The future commercial policy to be adopted must be dictated by the wants and the products, the geographical position and facilities of communication of each, and we may add, by natural political sympathies and just feelings of good neighborhood. Is there anything in the colonial position of the Provinces to prevent a free choice of policy? Is there anything in the condition of either the States or Provinces which should determine that choice against the most liberal policy of trade?

If this commercial intercourse is free from foreign control, open to the natural laws of trade, and may be determined by the wants and products of each, it is time that we study each other's resources, that we inquire what the Provinces have to sell that we want to buy, and what wants of theirs we can supply.

The wealth of the Provinces is the natural products of the soil, the sea, and the forest. Their industry is mainly agricultural; and we are inclined to think their advantages of soil and climate have been generally underrated. There is, of course, great variety of climate in a region extending through 27° of longitude from Cape Race, the eastern extremity of Newfoundland, to Fond du Lac, the western end of Lake Superior, and from the latitude of Southern New York to Labrador. The Territories of the Provinces are not bounded with any certainty on the north. They are considered as extending to the region which divides the waters flowing into Hudson's Bay, from those running into the St. Lawrence, about the parallel 50° north. The rest of British America, with the exception of Lord Selkirk's settlement at Red River, west of Lake Superior, the vast region, stretching north and west so far as science can explore, or the enterprise of the Hudson's Bay Company's trappers can penetrate, belongs to the waste lands of the earth; those immense tracts, such as the plains of Siberia, and Tartary, the deserts of Africa, and wildernesses of South America, constituting a vast proportion of the earth's surface, which are never destined to become the seats of fixed and sedentary civilization.

Nor is there wanting any variety of production within the area of 500,000 square miles embraced within the limit of the Provinces. There are the codfisheries of Newfoundland; the bituminous coals, the gypsum, limestone, freestone, and iron of Nova Scotia; the immense pine forests of New Brunswick and Lower Canada, whichmake the waters of the St. John's, the Ottawa, and the Saguenay, the avenues of an immense and growing lumber trade; and there are the grain fields of Western Canada, rich in oats and wheat.

We can only very briefly review the imports and exports of each Province. Merchants' Magazine, vol. xxil., p. 563.

The wealth of Newfoundland is its fisheries. Dried codfish, fish oil, seal skins, and herrings are the leading articles of its export trade. The exports in 1848 and 1849 are given by Mr. Andrews as follows :—

QUANTITY AND VALUE OF STAPLE ARTICLES EXPORTED IN 1848 AND 1849.

The deals, ship-timber, and lumber of New Brunswick are its staple exports. We extract a few figures from Mr. Andrews' detailed statements, showing exports for the year 1849 :—

The total exports amounted in value to $2,824,636.

The chief items of the natural wealth of Nova Scotia are its coal, and gypsum, its wood, and its fish. In 1849 the value of these articles exported

From Cape Breton there were exported coals of the value of $20,092. Canada may take its place among the great wheat regions of America. We speak now of Canada West. When we think of the Canadas as a region of almost arctic climate, we forget that while it touches Labrador, on the north, the Peninsula of Canada West stretches down between Lake Huron and Lake Erie to latitude 42°, the latitude of Connecticut. Canada produces large quantities of oats also, and is rich in the products of the forest. The leading items in Mr. Andrews' tables of exports are oak timber, white and red pine, boards, plank and deals, ships' knees, spars of masts, pot and pearl ashes, butter and lard, flour and oats, horses and cattle.

Of these exports from all the colonies, a very large proportion went to

690

.pieces

105,556

Great Britain. Out of £1,357,326, the total exports from the port of Quebec in 1848, £1,034,121 are for exports to Great Britain. The proportion in 1849 is £943,933 out of £1,044,101. Out of £460,769, the value of all exports from Nova Scotia in 1848, the value of exports to the British West Indies was £199,936. The total value of exports from New Brunswick in 1849 was £601,462, of which £463,814 were for exports to Great Britain.

The chief items of the import trade of Newfoundland, in 1849, were as follows: