per ton; now the price for a ship of that character, is from £8, 10s. to £9 per ton. The most respectable shipbuilders of this port freely declare that their trade appears fast hastening to the destructive state of agriculture; and that, if the present line of policy is pursued, all who are engaged in their trade must be great sufferers.” Letters to the same effect are given by the editor of _The Shipping Gazette_, from correspondents at Aldborough, Bude, Dundalk, Kinsale, Maldon, Padstow, Pwllheli, Strangford, Torquay, Westport, and Woodbridge; so that from the ports all round the British Islands, the cry of distress, caused by the crushing effect of free trade upon the body of British industry, is arising. And this is what our Whig rulers call unexampled prosperity! From the leading Plymouth journal of 31st Jan. we extract the following letter, which we would venture to recommend to the earnest attention of Mr Labouchere. It contains some statements of a very different complexion from those which appear to have passed through the hands of the officials of the Board of Trade. “_To the Editor of the West of England Conservative._ “SIR,—My attention having been called to a paragraph in your journal, which states that the shipwrights in one of the principal firms in Plymouth had struck for wages, I have to inform you that the firm is mine. For several years past I have paid my men 18s. per week on new work, and 21s. per week on old work; and they never lost any time, but by their own fault. For some time past I have had complaints from many shipowners, that, as their returns were greatly reduced by freights constantly lowering, we, the shipbuilders, must reduce our charges, or they would be compelled to take their ships to other ports. Added to this, a friend of mine, Captain Shapcott, for whom I built a ship two years since, and with which he was so much pleased that he wished me to give him a price for another, of about 230 tons burthen. I accordingly did so; she was to be a first-class vessel, and entitled to class A 1 twelve years, at Lloyd’s. My proposals were sent to a merchant in London, whom Captain Shapcott wished should be the principal owner. This gentleman (Mr Brooking) replied, that as everything was coming down, wages, and materials for shipbuilding, must come down also; and that, unless I would engage to build for £10 per ton, and find a very large number of articles more than I had for the former vessel, he would not contract at all. He also said, that he had been in treaty for a ship to be built for him in Prussia, which he found he could do for £3 per ton cheaper than he could have one in England. I was obliged to decline engaging to build on such terms, as would have occasioned me a loss of some hundreds of pounds.