NAVIES OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 389, 16 July 1861, Page 4

NAVIES OF ENGLAND AND FRANCE.

Baxter, M.P. for Montrose, has published the Slowing revised account of his speech on the Navies of France and England.]

On the Ist July, 1860, the total number of men and boys registered according to the French maratimo inscription was 156,384, classified as follows ;—

1. Officers, marinens, et matelots, 85,539.

% Novices et moussess, 42,883. 3. Ouvriera, &c, 19,159.

4, MScaniciens, &c, 1702. Under the first head are ranked all sea-going anen of all ages, including not only those employed in tho foreign and coaßtiDg trade, but fishermen and also the sailors in the imperial n»vy, with the exception of that portion of them about one-third (or 10,000), which are landsmen taken from the military conscription. Under No. 2 are enumerated the boys and the landsmen omitted from No. 1. No. 3 includes ship carpenters, sailmakers, and all sorts of laborers, whether employed in national dookyards, or at private establishments, likewise boatmen who descend rivers so far as the tide water.

No. 419 for meobanics and firemen. If we deduct from the gross number of 150,000,30,000 employed in the imperial navy, the same number of fishermen, 19,0001 workmen, and 2000 meoh&nicß, there remains 75,0U0 actual sailors.

Ge we may adopt another plan. In 1859, the French had 14,708 sailing vessels, with a tonnage of 960,936, and 324 steamers with a tonnage of 56,000—in round numbers a million tons of mercantile shipping, They reckon 8 men and boys to every 100 tons, although in Great Britain the proportion la very much less. The difference may he to some extent ■accounted for by their having very largo vessels, and by the fact that small ships have in proportion more hands; but I suspect those French writers -who calculate upon a man or ]boy to every 12 tons take into account the fisherman on the Newfoundland coast. Bufc even granting that they do not, and giving the alarmists the full beneat of the doubt, 8 per cent, on a tonnage of a million only gives ##,000 persons or deducting boys, about the same iramher of able bodied men as M. de Mondy calculates upon (between 55,000 and Well, then we have this year 84,000 persons, or 77,000 men and 7000 boys in our ships of war a greater number than that in the entire mercantile service of France, computed according •to any of the above methods. Nor must we forget that we have a reaerve of 20,000 or perhaps more, in onr coastguard service and our volunteer naval reserve, and that the merohant shipping of France is steadily decreasing. It had in 1859, 42,000 tons leas than it had in 1857 ; and, without a flourishing mercantile marine, there never can be a powerful naval reserve, or even a reliable navy. The state of the case then is simply this.

We have 77,000 able bodied men m our joyal navy, and 7000 boys—B4,ooo in all; the French, have 30,000.

They have 60,000 able-bodied men, or 80,000 hands in all, in their mercantile marine; V?q have £40,000, or thereabouts. Our sailors are increasing every day, theirs are on the decline. So it is to be hoped we may still sleep soundly aa far as the dread of tns naval resources of France is concerned. The most extraordinary mistatements are afloat, too, with regard to the number of vessels in the French imperial navy. By the lists corrected up to April 1859, (aDd every one knows that we, since, then, haye made much greater progress than our neighbors), the French had 180 sailing vessels, with 2920 guns ; the British U& 221 sailing vessels, with 8275 guns—the difference in Iho proportion between the ships and guns being accounted for by the fact that the French hate only four sailing three-deckers and ten two-deckers left, whilst we have 43 sailing lino-of-battle ships still in the service.

At the same period the French had 265 steam vessel* of war, with 5500 guns; the British had 530 Bte»m yeftsels of war (including 161 guuboats), with 8607 guns."