Free port

“ Free Port, name given to a port at which ships of all nations may discharge or load cargo without payment of customs or other duties, save harbour dues. They were created in various Continental countries during the Middle Ages for the purpose of stimulating trade, but Copenhagen and, in a restricted sense, Hamburg and Bremen are now the only free ports in Europe. The system of bonded warehousing has superseded them.
Free Soilers, a political party which arose in the United States in 1848 to oppose slave-extension. ”

“ It dealt with the question of making Dover a free port for composition trade and took the ground that the Acts of Navigation should be inviolably kept. On this question the Earl of Southampton, the Treasurer, and Lord Ashley (Cooper) , Chancellor of the Exchequer, took the opposite ground, favoring the freedom of the port, "Dover having formerly been a port for free trade," and adding that "a free trade thus settled we conceive might conduce to the advantage of your Majesty's customs," trade being injured by the "tyes and observances which the Act of Navigation places upon it." ”

“ The National Assembly in 1790 maintained this policy, and created free ports in the French West Indies. In 1795, however, all such privileges were abolished, but large bonding facilities were allowed at Marseilles to favour the Levant trade. The government of Louis XVIII. in 1814 restored, and in 1871 again revoked, the free port privileges of Marseilles. There are now no free ports in France or in French possessions; the bonding system is in force. ”

“ This, of course, improves the condition of these workingmen and of all others in the country; as it is self-evident that the employment of each workingman in an industry, which would not exist except for the existence of the free port, withdraws that workingman from the general labour market and, therefore, benefits the position of his remaining fellow labourers.
Although free ports do not exist in the United States, an attempt has been made to give certain industries, by means of what are known as "drawbacks," the same benefit that they would enjoy were free ports existant in our country. ”

“ In 1899, the company obtained concessions to build and run a dockyard at Ada-Bazar, to issue writs, to build corn-elevators and storerooms for goods of every description, further the right to employ its own staff for loading and unloading and, finally, in the sphere of customs policy, the creation of a kind of free port. ”

“ And if a vessel shall be forced in whatever way to take refuge in any port other than one of the free ports, then in like manner the persons on board shall receive friendly treatment and the means of safety and security.
Article XXVIII.
Citizens of the United States, their vessels and property, shall not be subject to any embargo; nor shall they be seized or forcibly detained for any pretense of the public service; but they shall be suffered to prosecute their commerce in quiet, and without molestation or embarrassment. ”

“ I have never been able to see that these free ports were worth one copper to us. To Bayonne our trade never went, and it is leaving L’Orient. Besides, the right of entrepot is a perfect substitute for the right of free port. The latter is a little less troublesome only, to the merchants and captains. I should think, therefore, that a thing so useless to us and prejudicial to them might be relinquished by us, on the common principles of friendship. I know the merchants of these ports will make a clamor, because the franchise covers their contraband with all the world. ”

“ First, I believe it is impossible to realise the effect on our trade of having London, Liverpool, etc., free ports. We possess at present half the ocean trade of the world: with our ports free, we should get a yet larger share of the world's trade, and secure it permanently. ”

“ Persons, goods, postal services, ships, vessels, carriages, wagons and other means of transport coming from or going to the free zone, and crossing the territory of the State under whose sovereignty or authority the port is placed, shall be deemed to be in transit across that State if they are going to or coming from the territory of any other State whatsoever. ”

“ Unto this Discourse of Customs appertains that of |42| Free Ports, which (in a Nation that onely trades for it self, viz. vents its own superfluities, and imports onely Necessaries for it self) are of no use, but rather harm ”

“ Now, though both countries have every reason to be much satisfied with that treaty, the want is to me very apparent. Free navigation must accompany freedom of commerce. The ramifications of commerce are so numerous and the competition so close that the slightest hindrance to its natural flow, or the smallest increase of freight, either retards, paralyses, or destroys vast branches of it. The trade which your people are now carrying on with England and its colonies and possessions is greatly retarded by the restrictions of the Navigation Laws. ”

“ Meanwhile, the ensign of the United States no longer contributes in any marked degree to the gayety of foreign seaports; whereas, Great Britain, with inferior coal and iron ore, compelled to import the food and clothing material for her shipwrights from distant lands, and with certainly no keener intelligence nor greater energy among her ship-owners and builders, but guided by the enlightened policy of Free Trade, sends her endless procession of merchant ships, both sail and steam, to every seaport upon the globe. ”

“ It is a well-established principle of prize law, as administered by the courts, both of the United States and Great Britain, that sailing from a neutral port with intent to enter a blockaded port, and with knowledge of the existence of the blockade, subjects the vessel and, in most cases, its cargo to capture and condemnation. ”

“ The right of the public upon the waters of a port or navigable river is not confined to the purposes of passage; trade and commerce are the chief objects, and the right of passage is chiefly subservient thereto. Unless there are facilities for loading and unloading of shipping and landing, much of the public benefit of a port is lost. In the infancy of a port, when it is first applied to the purposes of trade and commerce, unless the water by the shore be deep, the articles must be shipped in shallow water from the shore, and landed in shallow water on the shore. ”

“ That all the ports of the world being thus permitted to the commerce of the United States, no subject would remain on which the 3d section would operate; and, consequently, there could be no necessity for giving a bond not to go to an interdicted port. ”

“ If to give the right, it was to enter and navigate the ports and harbors of the United States, at a less tonnage-duty, and without the necessity of entry on every voyage. If it was to limit a preexisting right to trade, it licensed such trade at less than the ordinary tonnage-duties, and relieved from the necessity of entry at every voyage, as required of all other vessels. ”

“ No nation can, indeed, safely do so, until a reciprocity, at least, be insured to it. Take, for a proof, the familiar case of the navigation employed in a foreign commerce. If a nation, adhering to the rule of never interposing a countervailing protection of its vessels, admits foreign vessels into its ports free of duty, whilst its own vessels are subject to a duty in foreign ports, the ruinous effect is so obvious, that the warmest advocate for the theory in question must shrink from a universal application of it. ”

“ No foreign-built vessel can, under penalty of confiscation, enter our ports and then sail to another domestic port with any new cargo, or with any part of an original cargo, which has once been unladen previously, without touching at some port of some foreign country. {3723} This law is construed to include all direct traffic between the Atlantic and Pacific ports of the United States via Cape Horn, the Cape of Good Hope, or the Isthmus of Panama; and being a coasting trade, foreigners cannot compete. ”

“ But however great have been the strides in the improvement of the merchant vessels of Great Britain, their rapid increase in number since the repeal of the Navigation Laws has been equally astonishing; while the freedom of our laws has given an impetus to [Pg 421] maritime commerce far beyond the most sanguine hopes of those who, a quarter of a century ago, most strenuously advocated the policy of Free-trade. ”

“ In some cases, too, he held that the Navigation Laws acted as a protection to foreign at the expense of British ships; and while, practically, of little benefit to the shipowner, there could be no doubt that these restrictions operated injuriously, especially in emergencies, on consumers, and, ultimately of course, on shipowners themselves. If a commercial marine was necessary to support our navy, Free-trade had increased and would increase that marine. ”

“ National vessels shall be liable to the same penalties on coming from a foreign port, and entering any of those not open to foreign commerce, if found shipping any effects whatever for a foreign country, and when they are found loading or unloading any kind of goods whatever at ports or places not open to foreign commerce or to the coasting trade. ”

“ Nor can a port become highly important if its trade is all in one direction. If it imports but does not export, ships can come loaded but must go away empty, and to do that they must charge very high and possibly prohibitive rates for the freight they bring. If the port exports but does not import, then ships must come empty before they can secure their cargoes, and the result is the same. A healthy port, then, must have a constant and steady stream of freight bound in both directions. ”

“ By it we yielded the favorite principle, long ago enunciated, that “free ships make free goods,” and had actually added naval stores and even provisions to the list of contraband articles. He severely animadverted upon the provisions which conceded to British subjects the right to hold lands within the territory of the United States; the stipulation concerning the navigation of the Mississippi; and the permission to open all American ports to British shipping, while our own vessels were excluded from the colonial harbors. ”

“ If the fishermen were driven into port by the violence of the wind, or other cause, they were to be received freely and treated reasonably, paying the dues and customs as of old, and be at liberty to return to their own ports. ”

“ The third and fourth articles subject the vessels of each nation to pay in the ports of the other, only such duties as are paid by the most favored nation; and give them reciprocally, all the privileges and exemptions in navigation and commerce, which are given by either to the most favored nations. Had the contracting parties stopped here, they would have been free to raise or lower their tonnage, as they should find it expedient; only taking care to keep the other on the footing of the most favored nation. ”

“ As if to perfect this strange, eventful history, a third edict, at once inhospitable and unjust, was launched by the Directory, January 18, 1798, prohibiting “every foreign vessel which in the course of her voyage shall have entered into an English port from being admitted into a port of the French Republic, except in case of necessity,” and, still further, handing over to condemnation “every vessel found at sea loaded in whole or in part with merchandise the production of England or of her possessions.” ”

“ But it is no wonder, or, at least, we shall see so much farther into it, when we consider the innumerable ports and places where they have a free commerce, that it will then be no wonder; and much less will it be so, when we consider, that at all those places and ports where the English ships come, there is so much, and such constant demand for the growth of all other countries, that there is a certain vent for the return, as well as a market abroad for the goods carried out. ”

“ If they are not so accepted, the owner first becomes chargeable whenever, and, it may be safely affirmed, wherever, they so reach his hands. But when the voyage is strangled in its inception, there is no port referable to but the home port of the shipper. Destruction of the vessel there necessarily leads to a return of the cargo into the hands of the shipper. If, permissively, or by express retainer, the master of the disabled ship hires another vessel, transships the cargo, and carries it to the port of original destination, this is a new adventure, voyage, and agency. ”

“ In this matter the American people, moved, as it would seem, entirely by an instinctive sense of self-interest, became the champions of a free-trade policy in shipping, while their shipowners, relying on the provisions of the Navigation Act, assumed the character of exclusionists. ”

“ The ships of every kind belonging to the other contracting parties, shall be allowed to enter the said port, and there to purchase what provisions they may stand in need of, as heretofore, without [50] being liable to pay any other imports than such as the Batavian Republic compels the ships of its own nation to pay. ”

“ By a pragmatic of 1500, all persons, whether natives or foreigners, were prohibited from shipping goods in foreign bottoms, from a port where a Spanish ship could be obtained. [59] Another prohibited the sale of vessels to foreigners. [60] Another offered a large premium on all vessels of a certain tonnage and upwards; [61] and others held out protection and various immunities to seamen. [62] The drift of the first of these laws, like that of the famous English navigation act, so many years later, was, as the preamble sets forth, to exclude foreigners from the carrying trade ”