Manual of Ship Subsidies | Page 3

treaty of 1815 with the United States was renewed. In 1830 a treaty for regulating the commercial intercourse between the British colonial possessions and the United States was executed.[P] Under these conventions, repeatedly interrupted by British Orders in Council and by Presidents' proclamations,[Q] the trading intercourse between both countries was regulated till the abrogation of the code of 1660.
In 1844 an indirect move against the code was made, with the appointment of a committee of the House of Commons to inquire into the working of the reciprocal treaties and the condition of the mercantile marine of the country.[R]
At this period the competition of the United States in the overseas carrying trade of the world was hard pressing England. The Americans were building the best wooden ships, superior in model and seaworthiness, the fastest sailers. They were leading in shipbuilding. Much of the British shipping trade was carried on in American-built vessels. The splendid American clipper ships were almost monopolizing the carrying trade between Great Britain and the United States. Most of the shipping of the world was yet in wooden bottoms. Iron ships were in service, but iron-shipbuilding was in its infancy.
The Parliamentary inquiry of 1844 was followed up in 1847 with a move openly against the ancient code. Its principles as they then stood, essentially as in 1660, despite the multitude of regulating statutes, are thus enumerated:
1. Certain named articles of European produce could only be imported into the United Kingdom for consumption in British ships, or in ships of the country of which the goods were the produce, or of the country from which they were usually imported.
2. No produce of Asia, Africa, or America could be imported for consumption into the United Kingdom from Europe in any ships; and such produce could only be imported from any other place in British ships, or in ships of the country of which the goods were the produce and from which they were usually imported.
3. No goods could be carried coastwise from one part of the United Kingdom to another in any but British ships.
4. No goods could be exported from the United Kingdom to any of the British possessions in Asia, Africa, or America (with some exceptions with regard to India) in any but British ships.
5. No goods could be carried from any one British possession in Asia, Africa, or America, to another, nor from one part of such possession to another part of the same, in any but British ships.
6. No goods could be imported into any British possession in Asia, Africa, or America in any but British ships, or in ships of the country of which the goods were the produce; provided, also, that such ships brought the goods from that country.
7. No foreign ships were allowed to trade with any of the British possessions unless they had been especially authorized to do so by an Order in Council.
8. Powers were given to the Queen in Council which enabled her to impose differential duties on the ships of any foreign country which did the same with reference to British ships; and also to place restrictions on importations from any foreign countries which placed restrictions on British importations with such countries.
Finally, in 1849, with the adoption of the commercial policy founded on freedom of trade, came the repeal of the restrictive code, excepting only the rule as to the British coasting trade; and in 1854 the restrictions on that trade were removed, throwing it also open to the participation of all nations.
Meanwhile the British ocean-mail subsidy system for steamship service, instituted with the satisfactory application of steam to ocean navigation, in the late eighteen-thirties, had become established: the first contract for open ocean service, made in 1837, being for the carriage of the Peninsular mails to Spain and Portugal. Although successful ventures in transatlantic steam navigation had begun nearly a score of years earlier, the practicability of the employment of steam in this service was not fully tested to the satisfaction of the British Admiralty till 1838.
In this, as in so many other innovations, Americans led the way. The first steamer to cross the Atlantic was an American-built and American-manned craft. This pioneer was the Savannah, built in New York and bought for service between Savannah and Liverpool. She was a full-rigged sailing-vessel, of 300 tons, with auxiliary steam power furnished by an engine built in New Jersey. Her paddles were removable, so fashioned that they could be folded fan-like when the ship was under sail only.[S] She made the initial voyage, from Savannah to Liverpool, in the Summer of 1819, and accomplished it in twenty-seven days,[T] eighty hours of the time under steam. Afterwards she made a trip to St. Petersburg, partly steaming and partly sailing, with calls at ports along the way. Her gallant performance attracted