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NAVIGATION LAWS
65

of national defence appear to favour a proposal which will, by crippling the German mercantile marine, deal a damaging blow to her sea-power. A Navigation Act, therefore, takes a prominent place in the New Protectionism.

In considering the value of a navigation boycott in its bearing upon British commerce and British defence, we are fortunate in having a clearer testimony from the pages of history than is usually attainable. For early in the rise of British sea-power and foreign commerce we conducted a noteworthy experiment along these very lines. The rise of British colonial power in the seventeenth century induced our Government to lend assistance to our trading and shipping businesses in their efforts to break the pre-eminence, in some quarters the monopoly, of the carrying trade enjoyed by the Dutch. An Order in Council of 1640-47 prohibited the "plantations" from shipping any of their produce except in English bottoms. This was followed by the

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