curities for money, and other effects, deposited in the hands of bankers, merchants, brokers, attorneys, or other agents; save only as to such cases in which the factor or agent shall not have made over the goods of his principal as a security for any greater sum than the amount of his own interest therein, at the time of his so making the same a security; but bills of exchange accepted by such agent or factor, on account of his principal, are not to be considered as giving an interest to the factor, in the event of the same being dishonoured when they become due."

This gives the factor no right to pledge beyond the amount of his advances; but protects third persons against him, in case he thinks fit to violate his duty. In the plan of alteration thus suggested, the committee contemplate" a very liberal interpretation, on the part of Parliament, of what is termed an apparent symbol of property."

REPORT FROM THE SELECT COMMIT

TEE APPOINTED TO CONSIDER OF THE MEANS OF IMPROVING AND MAINTAINING THE FOREIGN TRADE OF THE COUNTRY.

On the West India Docks.

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 to the House, and to whom the several petitions, which were presented to the House in the last session of Parliament, on the subject of the extension of the exclusive privileges of the West India Dock Company, were referred, have agreed to the following report :

Your Committee, having taken in to consideration the petitions referred

to them, and continued their investigation to the close of the last session, have thought it their duty, on their re-appointment, to apply themselves immediately to the farther prosecution of the inquiry, which had been interrupted by the prorogation. In the course of their proceedings they have called for various documents which were calculated to throw light upon the subject of their investigation, and have examined a great variety of witnesses, as well in support of the allegations contained in the petition of the West India Dock Company, as of those in the other petitions that have been referred to them,-the respective prayers of which involved the expediency of farther continuing the exclusive privileges granted to the West India Dock Company by the 39th George III.

Under this act the dock in question was constructed, and the subscribers were constituted a joint stock company, by the name of The West India Dock Company.' Certain conditions were at the same time imposed upon them, in respect to the amount of the sum to be raised as a capital or joint stock-the period within which the works were to be completed-the amount of the dividend to which they were to be entitled-and the application of the surplus receipts, if any

should exist. In addition to these was a clause, compeiling all West India ships to land their cargoes in this dock for the term of twenty-one years; and the privilege of warehousing all West India produce brought to this port was subsequently added by the Warehousing act of the 43d George III.

In referring to the evidence adduced before your Committee it will be observed, that a considerable part of it tends to shew the advantages derived from the establishment of closed docks both to the revenue and trade of the country, as compared to the system

that previously prevailed. The value of these institutions, whether in giving facility to commerce, in securing the collection of the revenue, or in protecting the interests of the merchant, is so unquestionable, that your Committee feel it would be unnecessary waste of time to enter into any detailed discussion on that branch of the subject; and the more so, as the question of a recurrence to the former imperfect system does not appear to your Committee to be at all involved in that of discontinuing or prolonging the exclusive privilege enjoyed at present by the West India Dock Company.

The maintenance and encouragement of the dock establishments are objects of equal interest to all parties concerned in the commerce of the country; and the principal question for the consideration of your Committee appeared to be, whether the advantages confessedly resulting from them could be preserved to the public most effectually under a system of exclusive privilege granted to each dock respectively, by which the trade should be by law divided and apportioned; or one of competition, operating freely amongst them, in which the convenience of commerce, whether arising from local position, regulation, or charges, should be alone the measure of employment and advantages enjoy. ed by each several establishment.

The points into which the subject may be divided, and to which the evidence in the appendix applies, are very numerous. The material ones, however, and those on which the decision appeared to your Committee to rest, were those only which are connected with the security and facility of collection of the revenue, and protection of the property of the merchant inseparable from it; and how far these advantages are dependent, either generally, or in the case of the West India trade in particular, upon

the continuance of the system of exclusive privilege.

The advantage to the public of open competition, wherever applicable, will not as a general principle be questioned. It is not, however, to be adopted without limitation, or to be presumed that various cases may not present themselves, in which a departure from that principle may not be of such importance to the public interests, as to be fully warranted by every consideration of prudence and expediency. This was the case in the original establishment of the docks, when it was necessary to hold out liberal compensation to those who invested their capital in a speculation, which, whatever advantages it might eventually promise to the adventurers and the public, was, in its commencement, of doubtful success. It appears, however, to your Committee, that admitting the exist ence of cases to which this exception applies, it belongs to the parties soliciting exclusive privileges to shew, that so strong an especial case exists in the particular instance, as to offer advantages sufficient to preponderate against the generally recognized beneficial principle of competition.

In the present case, all the claims that arise from the hazard of doubtful experiment, which originally recommended the grant of exclusive privileges, have long vanished. The success of the experiment is decisively ascertained-the investment of capital has been fully compensated-and the advantages of docks are universally acknowledged. To sustain the claim, therefore, it must have been shewn, that there is something in the nature of the trade received into the West India Docks, that indispensably requires a particular system of separate accommodation, protection, and management; or that the advantage derived to the public from the dock system is

inseparably dependent upon a continuance of exclusive privileges to each of the various establishments.

In confining their report and opinion chiefly to these points, your Com-, mittee feel, that they shall best consult the intentions of the House in the reference made to them; and they are the more inclined to this course, because, if the House should concur with them in their view on these questions, and adopt the conclusion to which they have come, the various subordinate points will be, as it appears to your Committee, sufficiently provided for in the practical measures that must obviously result from it.

Much evidence has been adduced to shew the perfection of the system, and the value of the regulations introduced and practised in the management of the West India Docks; and the effect produced by them in affording security to the collection of the revenue, protection to the property of the merchant, and facility in the conduct of his business. With some slight exceptions in the latter point, your Committee are disposed to give a ready concurrence to all the claims preferred by the directors of the dock company on this head. Both from the evidence they have received, and from their personal observation, they can venture to state, that no establishment of this kind can, in their opinion, surpass, in these particulars, the establishment of the West India Docks. it is not the positive excellence alone which it is their duty to consider; it is the comparative, or rather exclusive excellence belonging to them that must be regarded, and by which the grounds of their decision are to be furnished. And here your Committee cannot but observe, that whatever degree of perfection, in regard to dispatch and regularity, may distinguish the West India Dock, great facility towards these objects is incident to the warehousing

But

in that dock being confined to the cargoes of peculiar ships, and the articles of merchandise to a comparatively confined number; and to this circumstance of strict limitation in respect to goods and ships, it must be ascribed, if exactly the same degree of perfection in the conduct of business, and in the classification of merchandise, is not to be found, nor is indeed attainable, in a dock of more extensive use, and more general resort.

Admitting the advantages arising from this circumstance, your Commit. tee has directed its attention to ascertain, how far the very strict measures of precaution adopted in the West India Dock are necessary to the chief practical purposes of the dock establishment, and whether the effect of the system of exclusion and separation, which is said alone to admit of these precautions, so much exceeds in value to the public interests, the more open system prevailing in other docks, as to call for its preservation, if involving the continuance of a general system of exclusive protection, as it appears to your Committee must be the consequence of maintaining it in this instance. In proceeding to offer an opinion to the contrary, your Committee are fully prepared to believe, that the directors of the West India Dock Company, in contending against alteration, are actuated by no feeling of pecuniary interest,-that their interests in fact as planters or merchants are infinitely superior to any they can have as dock directors, and that they are influenced only by their impression of the utility and advantage of this establishment, as affecting the public through the peculiar branch of commerce to which it is appropriated; increased, perhaps, not unnaturally, by a solicitude for the preservation of that which they have, with great care and attention, fostered and brought nearly to perfection.

defect of the system, and the conduct of the revenue-officers, goods had been delivered without payment of duty, since the reform then introduced, no depredation on the property, or difficulty in the collection of the revenue, is known to have occurred.

Of the witnesses who appear to have some knowledge of both establish. ments, some seem to give a preference to the protection afforded by the West India Docks, in consequence of the exclusion of persons from the quay, and the separation of the import and export dock. Others rather incline to believe there may be some advantage from particular regulations; (on which, however, there exists a difference of opinion;) and some of the officers of the revenue speak confidently to equal or sufficient security being to be found in both establishments; and, as stated by one, that to neither can a decisive preference be given. In reference to this point, your Committee called for the establishments of the excise and customs, maintained for the protection of the revenue in each of the docks respectively. In the London Docks, the establishment of the excise is near. ly the same as in the West India Docks, the excess being rather in the latter; while that of the customs in the West India Docks falls very far short of that employed in the Loudon Docks. The revenue collected, too, in the West India Docks is much more considerable, and collected at a less per centage than that in the London Docks. The difference, however, of the systems pursued in these two docks, necessarily arising from the difference in the nature of the trade received into the one and the other, makes it impossible to draw any conclusion from the circumstances adverted to, of the opinion entertained by the revenue depart ments in regard to the comparative security belonging to each.

It has already been stated, that the

prospect of great and otherwise unattainable advantages to the public interests, incontestibly shewn by those who claimed exclusive privilege, could alone warrant a departure from the principle of open competition. The particular advantage in this case could only be shewn, in the inseparable connection of those privileges with the se curity of the collection of the public revenue, and the property of the merchant. That such advantage is not to be found alone in the exclusive system of the West India Dock Company, the result of the testimony received by your Committee, and to which they hereto refer, appears to them clearly to establish. Whatever merits may belong to the system of the West India Docks in other respects, and your Committee are ready to do it ample justice, they feel that they are insufficient to redeem this defect, or to warrant them in recommending a continuance of an unnecessary compulsion upon one branch of the commerce of the country, which might involve in it a similar compulsion upon others, and ultimately lead to a general system of restriction and monopoly.

Your Committee do not feel it necessary to enter into any detail upon the various subordinate points that have been introduced, connected with the question of comparative dispatch and accommodation, and the particular utility of the provisions made at one or other of the docks; these will be found described in the evidence. All these provisions, independently of those which are applicable only to a dock confined to a limited description of merchandise, are capable of being extended, if thought expedient, to any other establishment.

There are two things, however, on which much stress has been laid on the part of the Dock Company, and to which your Committee, therefore, deem it right to advert. One, the clas