oyed in the fishery, but to their nationality and vocation,
to which I attach importance, in order that our fisheries shall form
hardy British seamen in oceanic vessels, like those employed under the
bounties paid by North America and France. These being the
considerations, the question is not whether it is consistent with the
enlightened theory of free trade to pay a premium which shall transfer
capital from the pockets of one class to those of another, but whether
it is wiser and more economical for the community at large to uphold
such nursery, or to maintain even a skeleton of warlike
establishments--perhaps to build, equip, and employ additional ships of
war, squadrons, or fleets, to watch, perchance to contend with, power
thus cheaply developed by rival nations. I ask whether the bounty given
to enable steam-packets to cross the ocean is more consistent with
free-trade principles than a bounty awarded to our fisheries as a
nursery for seamen. A colonial premium is indeed talked of, and by those
unacquainted with facts, who do not foresee its operation, it may be
deemed a substitute for a bounty by the parent State; but I advisedly
assert that such colonial premium would not rear one disposable seaman
for our naval service, and that even the colonial fishermen would derive
no commensurate advantage, such is the impoverishing effect of the
inveterate system of truck-dealing that boat fishermen, even from the
harbour of the capital of Newfoundland, are chiefly paid by daily wages;
the advantages derived from the employment of two half-idle fishermen
being greater to the truckmaster, in the absence of an available market,
than the like amount of fish caught by one customer. It is manifest, by
the true theory of free trade, that it is unimportant whether the French
and Americans obtain their bait and catch fish within our limits or not,
or even whether the world is supplied by them or by us; but it is not so
if foreign nations thereby rear, employ, and maintain in time of peace
fifty thousand seamen, who, in the event of war, are at the beck of
their respective Governments, while Britain, the rightful owner, has not
one available seaman from the fisheries. On subjects of such vital
importance it is essential that general theories, however good, shall
not be supported in detail by false reasoning, or by captivating
appellations inconsistent with truth. Nine-tenths of our western
colonies are still taxed on every article o