that may hereafter be submitted to the House.

The policy of a legislative preference being given to the importation of tim ber in the log, and the discouragement of the importation of deals, seems to your Committee very doubtful, both because they are of opinion that any advantage to be expected from the conversion of timber into deals in this country, will not be sufficient to compensate for the corresponding disadvantage to the general consumer, (to whom the deals would come with a considerable increase of cost,) and because it is founded on a principle of exclusion, which they are most averse to see brought into operation in any new instance, without the warrant of some evident and great political expediency.

Your Committee have discovered, in the accounts before them, that the protective duty in favour of British shipping has been made to operate in different degrees on the importation of wood of different descriptions, varying from two and a half to five per cent, and in some unimportant instances fall ing below, as in others considerably exceeding these rates, on the value of the particular article imported; for this inequality, which introduces much perplexity into the collection of the duty, there does not appear to be any sufficient reason, and they therefore submit to the consideration of the House, the propriety of making the same duty attach on all importations of wood in foreign ships alike, and that the amount of difference between the importation in the foreign ship, and that in the British ship, should be fixed for the future at five per cent.

One only farther recommendation has suggested itself to your Committee, which, in concluding their report, they are desirous of offering to the

House. It has appeared in the evidence, that a great proportion of the timber which is imported from the province of Canada, is the growth of the United States, and has been permitted to be received into that pro vince free from duty, and has from thence been exported to the united kingdom, with all the benefits and immunities conceded to the produce of the British territory. To obviate the objection to which this practice appears to your Committee to be liable, they are of opinion, that with every exportation of timber from the British provinces in North America, a certificate of its being the produce of those provinces should be required, and that timber imported without such certificate should be hereafter charged with the same rate of duty as would be payable on it, if imported directly from a foreign state.

In submitting the result of what has occurred to them in the course of their inquiry into this important subject, your Committee have only to add, that in the recommendations which they have tendered, it has been their endeavour, to the utmost of their power, to conciliate the claims of adverse interests, and the contending considerations of policy that demanded their attention. If what they propose falls short of a recurrence to those sound principles by which all commerce ought to be regulated, they trust it will appear to the House, that they have proceeded as far as, under present circumstances, is consistent with an equitable regard to the protection due to extensive interests that have grown up under an established system, and which must be deeply affected by any material and sudden change to which that system is subjected.

9th March, 1821.

SECOND REPORT, ORDERED TO BE
PRINTED 18TH May, 1821.

The Select Committee appointed to consider of the means of maintaining and improving the Foreign Trade of the country, and to report their opinion and observations thereupon from time to time to the House ;-have, pursuant to the order of the House, considered the matters to them referred, and have agreed to the following Report:

From the period of their submitting to the House their last report, the attention of your Committee has been directed to the commerce of the united kingdom with India and China, and the trade between those countries and other parts of the world. The advanced state of the public business, and the additional evidence yet to be received, before they can consider themselves as having completed their investigation into that branch of their inquiry, afford them no expectation of being able to produce a report, embracing a general view of the subject, in sufficient time to admit of any measure being founded upon it, and receiving the approbation of Parliament previously to the close of the session.

It has, however, occurred to your Committee, in the course of their inquiry, that there are some branches of the trade, in reference to which farther facilities may be afforded, with great advantage to the interests of British commerce and navigation; and that such facilities cannot be delayed to a future year, without the risk of losing much of the beneficial results which, at the present time, may be expected from them. This impression is founded rather upon general principles, and circumstances of general notoriety, than upon any particular evidence ad

duced before your Committee, however the tendency of that evidence may have been farther to establish the expediency of the measures about to be proposed.

In adverting to the peculiar system of laws by which the trade of the East Indies is regulated, the House cannot but observe, that the subjects of foreign nations, whether European or American, are in possession of privi leges far more extensive than those which are enjoyed by his Majesty's subjects generally, and greater, as to many branches of circuitous and foreign trade, than have been accorded to the East India Company itself. To relieve the commerce and shipping of this country from a situation of such comparative disadvantage, (for the continuance of which your Committee can discover no sufficient reason,) they feel the expediency of some measure, the principle of which may be, to allow British subjects, as well private traders as the East India Company, to carry on every sort of traffic between India and foreign countries, (with the exception of the trade in tea, and that with the united kingdom and the British colonies, with which they do not propose any interference,) which foreigners are now capable of carrying on; and have, therefore, come to the following resolution, which they submit to the House:

Resolved, "That it is expedient to permit his Majesty's subjects to carry on trade and traffic, directly and circuitously, between any ports within the limits of the East India Company's charter, (except the dominions of the Emperor of China,) and any port or ports beyond the limits of the said charter, belonging to any state or countries in amity with his Majesty.

18th May, 1821.

EAST INDIA TRADE.

Report relative to the Trade with the East Indies and China, from the Select Committee of the House of Lords, appointed to inquire into the means of extending and securing the Foreign Trade of the Country, and to report to the House :-Ordered to be Printed 11th April, 1821.

By the Lords Committees appointed a Select Committee to inquire into the means of extending and securing the Foreign Trade of the country, and to report to the House; and to whom were referred the Minutes of the Evidence taken before the Select Committee appointed in the last Session of Parliament for the like purpose; and also the several Petitions, Papers, and Accounts which had been referred to that Committee; and also the several Petitions presented in the present Session of Parliament on the subject of Foreign Trade :

ORDERED TO REport,

That the Committee have met, and have proceeded in the inquiry, which had been entered upon by the said Committee appointed in the last session of Parliament, into the state of British commerce with Asia, including as well that which is carried on with the territorial possessions of the honourable East India Company, as that with the independent States in the same part of the globe.

In the conduct of this inquiry, the Committee have not thought it neces sary to direct their attention to the commercial concerns of the East India Company, as administered by the Court of Directors, with a view to the interests, both political and financial, of that corporate body, farther than was necessary to elucidate the present state

and future prospects of free trade, as affected by existing regulations.

This subject, therefore, naturally divides itself according to the various restrictions to which different descriptions of commerce in these regions are now subjected by law; that to the territorial possessions of the Company being carried on by licence only from the Company; that to other parts of Southern Asia, (China excepted,) and to the islands of the Indian ocean, by licence from the Board of Control; that to China being entirely prohibited to all British vessels but those in the actual employment of the East India Company; and the whole trade confined to ships of a certain fixed amount of tonnage.

The trade which is carried on by licence with the territories of the East India Company, is confined to the presidencies of Bombay, Madras, and Calcutta, and the port of Penang.Some inconveniences and injury to individuals are stated to have arisen where circumstances have made it desirable to change the destination of vessels from one of these ports to another, after their arrival in the East, in consequence of the delay attendant upon obtaining a permission to do so from the local government. This, indeed, may be obviated by obtaining licences including the above-named ports generally, which have been sometimes applied for, and do not appear to have been refused. But the system of requiring licences does not appear to be attended with and public benefit; and a fee is charged for each of them.

A more material advantage might probably accrue to the free trader from being permitted to trade with other smaller ports on the coasts of Coromandel and Malabar, where the Company have already collectors of the customs established, who might effec

tually counteract an illicit trade; whereby a wider field of adventure may be opened, and an additional stimulus to commercial intercourse afforded to the native inhabitants. It would, however, be necessary in this case to provide by regulations, which it could not be difficult to establish, against any abuse of this extension of privilege by British vessels carrying on the coasting trade, in which there is every reason to believe they might successfully compete with the native ships, which have hitherto been considered as enjoying a monopoly of that trade, of which the East India Company could not reasonably be expected to deprive their subjects, as long as they are precluded from carrying on the direct trade to Europe in Indiabuilt vessels. It must be observed, however, that the coasting trade is now open to vessels of other nations, those of the United States not being excluded from it, and instances have been stated to the Committee in which the Portuguese flag has been allowed to pass from one port to another car rying on trade, from which British European ships are excluded.

The Committee cannot dismiss this branch of the subject without observing, that although it is difficult, from the great fluctuation which the free trade to the Peninsula of India has experienced since it has been admitted upon the terms of the renewed char ter granted to the East India Company in 1813, to estimate fairly the precise amount of its increase, it must be admitted that its progress has been such as to indicate, that neither a power to purchase, nor a disposition to use commodities of European manufacture, is wanting in the natives of British India, whilst the minute knowledge of the wants and wishes of the inhabitants, acquired by a direct inter. course with this country, would naturally lead to a still farther augmen

tation of our exports. The great increased consumption cannot be suffi ciently accounted for by the demand of the European residents, the number of whom does not materially vary; and it appears to have been much the greatest in any articles calculated for the general use of the natives. That of the cotton manufactures of this country alone, is stated, since the first opening of the trade, to have been augmented from four to five-fold. And the taste of the natives for such articles may not improbably have been created in some instances, and extended in others, by that very glut in the market, which has doubtless, by its excess and consequent lowering of prices, frequently defeated the speculations of private merchants. The value of the merchandize exported from Great Britain to India, which amounted in the year 1815 to 870,177, had, in the year 1819, increased to 3,052,7411.; and although the market appears then to have been so far overstocked as to occasion a diminution of nearly one-half in the exports of the following year (1820,) that diminution appears to have taken place more in the articles intended for the consumption of Europeans than of natives; and the trade is now stated to the Committee by the best-informed persons to be reviving. When the amount of population, and the extent of country over which the consumption of these articles is spread, are considered, it is obvious that every facility which can, consistent with the political interest and security of the Company's dominions, be given to the private trader for the distribution of his exports, by increasing the number of points at which he may have the option of touching in pursuit of a market, cannot fail to promote a more ready and extensive demand.

If the restriction of trade to vessels of the burden of 350 tons and up

wards, in all seas and countries within the limits of the East India Company's charter, has any tendency to check the operations of the private trader in a direct commerce with the dominions of the East India Company, it can hardly fail to operate still more as an impediment to his exertions in seeking new channels of commerce, or extend ing those which already exist with other countries and islands in the same part of the globe. Here a field, in a great measure new, would be opened by the free admission to trade of yessels of a smaller burthen. It is stated to the Committee, by persons who have been most interested in forming a correct opinion upon the subject, that in a trade with the native powers in the Gulph of Persia, along the Red Sea, and on the eastern coast of Africa, as well as with the islands and countries to the eastward of the Company's dominions in Asia, small vessels would be employed in preference to large, from the nature of the navigation, and the great value and small bulk of some of the articles, as well as the description of markets where such trade would be carried on. Some apprehension, indeed, has been stated to exist, that vessels of that description might be exposed to frequent depredations from pirates, who infest those seas; but it does not appear that there is any difference in the rate of insurance required from large and small ships; if there is a risk, however, the private merchant might safely be left to consider how far it applies to his particular case; while the American trade in those seas, which is carried on as well in vessels below as above the burden of 350 tons, is not stated at any time to have suffered materially from such dangers. It may be remarked, that although the native governments of India have been generally supposed to be unfavourable upon system to foreign commerce, no recent instance of such

disposition has been adduced; the French, on the contrary, are stated to have been remarkably successful in some recent attempts to open a commercial intercourse with Cochin China; and the recent knowledge which has been acquired of the manners and habits of the inhabitants in some of the islands of the Malay race, leads to a much more favourable opinion of their character and aptitude for civil and commercial intercourse than was previously entertained.

The maintenance of a free port, eligibly situated amongst the Indian islands under British protection, which the magnitude of our establishments in that quarter of the globe may enable us to support at much less expense than any other nation, may be attended with the greatest benefit to commerce and civilization. The importance of such a station, and the quick perception of its advantages, formed by the native traders in that part of the globe, may be estimated by the rapid rise of the port of Sincapore, during the year that it has been in the possession of the British government, and opened for the purposes of general trade. The population, which had before scarcely amounted to 200 souls, in three months increased to not less than 3000, and now exceeds 10,000 in the whole-while 173 sail of vessels of different descriptions arrived and sailed in the course of the first two months.

The commerce with China is carried on by the East India Company, in whom the sole and exclusive right of trading with the ports of that empire, as well as the sole and exclusive right of trading and trafficking in tea to and from all the islands and ports between the Cape of Good Hope and Straits of Magellan, is now vested by law. The value and extent of this trade has naturally attracted the attention of the private merchant; and