When these Acts were passed, and for some years afterwards, they created quite as much excitement and discussion as their repeal has caused in our own time. Even Sir Josiah Child,[190] who took the lead among the few merchants of the period who questioned their policy, appears to have had strong protectionist views, one of which may be noticed, as it throws some light upon the cost of shipbuilding at that period. He proposes to impose a customs duty of no less than fifty per cent. on all Eastland commodities, timber, boards, pipe-staves, and salt imported into England and Ireland in any other than English-built ships, or at least in such as were not sailed by English masters and a crew whereof three-fourths were English. His reasons for this highly protectionist proceeding are that “the Danes, Swedes, and Easterlings will certainly, in a few years, carry off the whole trade, by reason of the difference of the cost of building the requisite ships, there and in this country.” Similar statements, we may remark, were the protectionist arguments used in our own day against the repeal of these same laws. “The cost,” he goes on to state, “of building a fly-boat of three hundred tons in those countries would be 1300_l._ or 1400_l._, whereas in England she could not be constructed for less than from 2200_l._ to 2400_l._, which is so vast a disproportion,” he adds, “that it is impossible for an Englishman to cope with a Dane in that navigation under such discouragement.” The stranger’s duty of five or six pounds per ship each voyage was the only set-off against this alleged disadvantage, and in his opinion the prizes taken in the Dutch war alone enabled us to withstand that competition, Sir Josiah averring that “during the seventeen years the Act of Navigation had been in force, not one single English ship had been built for this, which we may call the Lower Baltic trade.” Sir Josiah, it will be seen, estimates the cost of constructing an English ship at that time at somewhat under eight pounds per ton, while a vessel could be built by the Danes and Swedes at very little more than one half that price. We must, however, remember that in stating these prices he was arguing in favour of a certain line of policy, and, in doing so, may have made the cost of construction in the Northern ports of Europe considerably less than it actually was. Besides, so much depends upon quality and outfit that a price per ton, unless all the particulars are stated, gives only a vague idea of the actual value.