The Marquis of Granby also alluded to the imperative necessity of manning the fleet. Mr. Labouchere had said he had kept the coasting trade intact as a reserve for seamen for the royal navy; but was there no chance of that trade failing? Was he certain that in a few years hence that trade could be relied upon as a reserve for supplying the navy with seamen? There was evidence on record which went to show that the railways might, in a few years, destroy the coasting trade of the country.

Mr. Mitchell controverted Mr. Robinson's assertions insisting that English shipmasters were peculiarly chargeable with drunken habits; and that shippers preferred foreign vessels to English, the cargoes being in greater safety. He showed that in respect of outfit English ships are as cheap as any; and he partly imputed the superior character of the masters and crews in the ships of the Americans to higher salaries and wages: the masters were better paid than our own, except in the India or long voyage trade; and while the lowest wages in American ships were 31. a month, in our ships they

were 45s.

Mr. Gibson showed the confused and conflicting effects of the prohibitory parts of the law. People may export in any ships they think proper, but they must only import in ships of the country or their own. A merchant may even im port foreign provisions, if they are not to be consumed by the people of England; if his goods are to be bonded, then they are untouched by the Navigation Laws; yet, last year, when there was a pressure from the want of food, the very opponents of the present measure

clamoured for suspension of the Navigation Laws. What can that law be good for which must be suspended on the first pressure? Foreign countries may carry for themselves, but not for each other; so that in fact the Navigation. Law protects each foreign country against all the rest; and the corresponding Navigation Law-of the United States, for instance-ex cludes the ships of this country from more than half the import trade of the Union.

Mr. Gibson believed that Sir James Stirling's proposition was not so very unreasonable as some represented, and that there might be a reconstitution of the navy so as to make it quite independent of the merchant service for a supply of men. It might be done by diminishing the expenses of the navy. For instance, might there not be fewer officers? Honourable Gentlemen opposite said that the mercantile marine was necessary for the support of our naval power, and yet they said they most strongly objected to impressment; but no one pointed out how the transfer of men from the merchant service to the navy was to be effected. That was a point that perplexed him much. He believed we had no mode of getting these men except making them come against their will. At this moment they did not volunteer very freely; and he was quite sure they would not in case we wanted their services for warfare. But the effect of our attempting to impress them would be to inake them fly to America; and the mercantile marine and the naval power would both lose their services.

A further adjournment took place, and numerous speeches were delivered on either side. The Re

solution of Mr. Herries was supported by Mr. Hudson, Captain Harris, Sir Alexander Hood, Mr. Newdegate, Mr. Wawn, Lord Ingestrie, and Mr. R. Hildyard.

The repeal of the Navigation Laws was advocated by Captain Berkeley and Lord John Hay. Mr. Clay could not support the measure of Government without auxiliary measures, to create a nursery for our seamen, and to relieve our mercantile navy from restrictions and burdensome duties, such as marine insurance duties, foreign brokerage, church-money at Cronstadt, &c.

Mr. Gladstone made an able and comprehensive speech on the whole subject, taking a view not exactly in accordance with the sentiments of either party in the debate. The broad question of repeal, as a matter of expediency and seasonableness, he decided in the affirmative; but on the specific Government scheme he expressed a qualified opinion. He should have preferred a more gradual measure. He wished that the Government had adhered to the uniform course of precedents, and made large concessions conditional upon reciprocal concessions by

other

Powers. He objected to the discretionary power proposed to be lodged in the Queen in Council, with a view of extorting reciprocity, which was a discretion too large and too delicate; and he thought the Government would have acted more safely and wisely by undoing piecemeal, rather than by introducing a measure of so sweeping a character. He censured the policy of excluding the coasting trade from this measure we should have offered to admit the Americans to our coasting trade if they would admit us to theirs.

An attempt was now made to bring the lengthened discussion to a close; but Sir John Walsh succeeded, after a division on the point, in a motion for resuming it on the 5th of June. The most prominent speeches on that night were those of Mr. Cardwell, Sir George Clerk, and Sir Charles Wood.

Mr. Cardwell objected to the measure for not relaxing the law in favour of reciprocity treaties, rather than abrogating those treaties; and he noticed some particular imperfections. Restrictions. manning of ships were to be retained against the English shipowner, although those with whom he would have to compete were exempt. The British shipowner would be free to purchase ships where he could obtain the cheapest; and yet the duty was retained on the timber used by the British shipbuilder, the only instance in the tariff of a duty on raw material. Mr. Labouchere had hoped to avoid creating alarm by exempting the coasting trade from the operation of the measure; but he had not avoided alarm; and he might have used relaxations in that law to obtain reciprocal relaxations from the United States. On the whole, however, Mr. Cardwell thought that the time was come for a judicious relaxation of the Navigation Laws; and he regarded it as a libel on the British name to say that we were not qualified to compete with every nation in the world.

Sir Charles Wood noticed the all but universal concurrence in favour of some change in the Navigation Laws: every speaker but two had admitted the necessity. Sir Charles showed the difficulty of proceeding by the exceptional mode of reciprocity treaties. By

general measures our Colonies would benefit. Sir Robert Peel's experience of relaxing the Sugar Duties to particular countries was instructive: it failed because we were hampered and bound by trea ties with other Powers, especially under the "most-favoured nation' clause; so that it was difficult to carry out views with respect to any single country. Sir Charles stated several instances of similar anomalies, one of which had been got over by declaring a port in Turkey to be a port in Austria.

Sir John Walsh, Mr. Miles, and Sir Charles Burrell, addressed the House on the other side; but the subject was now becoming too much exhausted to admit of novelty. The debate was again adjourned for the fourth time, and the last night called forth some of the most powerful speeches that had been delivered on the question.

Lord George Bentinck enforced his arguments by a copious display of statistics, for the purpose of showing, first, that Mr. James Wilson had been guilty in his speech of serious errors; and, next, that British merchants and seamen, however energetic and enterprising, would not be able to cope with the rivalry of the United States and other foreign countries, if the latter were admitted to a participation of the carrying trade. For example, Lord George read a letter addressed to a broker in the City, in which it was stated that there were American vessels in the river with 16,927 boxes of Cuba sugar, and that it was 2s. per hundredweight cheaper in consequence of being brought in foreign vessels; but in consequence of the Navigation Laws it was not admissible into this country. Let those colonists who were foolish

enough to petition for the repeal of the Navigation Laws be aware, then, that they would have 16,900 more boxes of Cuba sugar in the market, and 2s. lower in price than they could afford to sell it at. Lord George attacked the Free Trade of 1846, for producing the dire consequences which we had since felt, in a ruined trade and starving people; and he warned Ministers against a further attempt to lay the iron hand of competition on our shipping.

Mr. Cobden endeavoured to place the main arguments on which the advocates of relaxation rely in a close and succinct form. He showed by an appeal to the published evidence, that we can build ships better than foreign countries, and at as cheap a rate; sail them as well; take greater care of the cargoes, and secure greater punctuality and despatch-our sailors having the greatest natural aptitude for the sea of any in the world. The only drawbacks were of a moral kind-insubordination and drunkenness; but they would yield to better culture. Alluding to one part of Mr. Gladstone's speech, Mr. Cobden reminded him that reciprocity had already been promised on the part of America and Prussia.

Mr. Cobden repudiated the boastful language which he so often heard with regret respecting England's naval supremacy. He must say that those boasts were generally uttered after dinner, and therefore they might be the result of a little extra excitement. The abolition of the Navigation Laws would not affect the naval condition of Great Britain. But was this a time to be always singing "Rule Britannia"? ("Hear, hear!" and laughter.) If honourable Members opposite had served with him upon the Committee on

the Army, Navy, and Ordnance Estimates, they would have a just sense of the cost of that song. The constant assertion of maritime supremacy was calculated to provoke kindred passions in other nations; whereas, if Great Britain enunciated the doctrines of peace, she would invoke similar sentiments from the rest of the world. Freedom of trade and intercourse blended the interests of nations together, and placed one of the most potential obstacles in the way of

war.

Mr. Disraeli delivered a speech replete with statistical details, but illustrated with his usual brilliancy of rhetoric and sarcastic humour. He had described the Manchester Free-Trade school as arguing in a vicious circle, to make out their promise of perpetual advantages: that promise had been disproved by the events; and Mr. Cobden now became the advocate of a new vicious circle, endeavouring to prove that this country ought to take its share in universal disaster. Mr. Disraeli avowed that he was there to advocate the present system, which had worked with great advantage to the State; and he undertook to show that the arguments against it were unsubstantial and fallacious. For instance, it was said that the country successfully competed with the foreigner in the export trade: he denied it. Every one knew that if a large order was given from America for iron, they made it a condition that it should be exported in American ships. Within a day or two, a large order had been given from the French Government for coal; and it was a condition of the contract that it should be exported in French ships. Mr. Disraeli adduced a mass of statistics to establish this position,

and to show that Mr. James Wilson had been deceived in his conclusions. He insisted that the Colonies could not be proved to have suffered from the Navigation Laws; he read evidence given before the Lords' Committee, to show that Prussia could not retaliate, and the United States could not reciprocate; and he advised the Ministers, whose Vice-President of the Board of Trade stood amazed between the bland smiles of Mr. Bancroft and the bowl and dagger of the Chevalier Bunsen, to make themselves better acquainted with the facts, and to mature their position a little more, as there was nothing more fatal to national interests than the recklessness of ignorance. He would not sing "Rule Britannia," for fear of distressing Mr. Cobden; but he did not think that the House would encore "Yankee Doodle." Mr. Labouchere had described this as "the age of commerce, peace, and internal improvement:" on the contrary, it was the age of no trade, of intended war, and of Communist bands tearing up railways. Looking at the state of the Continent, Mr. Cobden probably was not now so devoted a believer in the quies gentium sine armis. Mr. Disraeli, at all events, could not “share the responsibility of endangering that empire which extended beyond the Americas and the farthest Ind,' which was foreshadowed by the genius of a Blake, and consecrated by the blood of a Nelson-the empire of the seas." (Cheers.)

Sir Robert Peel, who was at first encountered with an unusual demonstration of hostility from the Protectionist benches, which, however, was composed into silence by the reflection he drew from it upon the want of confidence which it implied in their own arguments, then

addressed the House in one of his most impressive and closely-argued speeches. Reverting to the great question of commercial policy, which had been re-opened by the present debate, he addressed himself to prove that, in spite of casual disaster, the advantages of Free Trade were manifest in the extension of our commerce. It was not, of course, intended on the other side to say that the admission of raw material under the tariffs of 1842 and 1846 had injuriously affected the trade of the country. The ground of objection must be, that it was wrong to admit foreign manufactures in competition with our own. (Cheers from the Protectionists.) Every article of foreign manufacture, it was said, threw out of employment thousands of native workmen. ("Hear, hear!") But what a doctrine was that for a great manufacturing nation, which exported 58,000,000l. in declared value of its own manufactures! Admit that doctrine, and foreign countries must regard us not as the benefactors, but as the enemies of human happiness. Look at the progressive increase of exports under Free Trade-from 37,000,000l. a year, in the five years ending with 1832, to 55,000,000l. in the last five years, and 58,971,000l. in the last year, 1847, a year of severe depression. Yet it was said that Free Trade has failed did nothing but import, and that we purchased our imports with gold!

that we

The period had now arrived when it was desirable to revise the Navigation Laws." If I look," said Sir R. Peel, "to the position of our Colonies, after the application of the principles of Free Trade to many articles of their produce-if I look to the fact of many European

countries having found out that they have a fair claim to insist on those privileges in navigation which you insist on for yourselves-if I look to our reciprocity treaties, and to the various complicated claims arising under them-if I look to the mutilated and shattered state of the Navigation Laws, as they now exist-I find a number of concurrent reasons for deliberately thinking that we should consider whether those laws should stand

on

their present foundation, or whether we should consider them with a view to extensive change.' The speech of Mr. Disraeli had in truth scarcely touched the question. If he could have shown that the relaxation of the Navigation Laws would diminish our means of national defence, and endanger the national security, Sir Robert Peel, differing in this respect from Mr. Cobden's views, thought that a powerful, perhaps a fatal objection, might be urged against sacrificing the national security to any interest. But did the Navigation Laws conduce to that end? The amendment called upon them to maintain the "fundamental principles "of the Navigation Laws: now what were those principles? The Navigation Laws were established to destroy the maritime power of the Dutch; but what was their effect?-To give the Dutch a direct advantage over us in the intercourse with the United States. As laid down by Adam Smith, the principles of the Navigation Laws applied to the coasting trade, the carrying trade, the fisheries, and the colonial intercourse. The fisheries and coasting trade were to be preserved by the Government measure. In the other respects the Navigation Laws had been completely mutilated by the reciprocity treaties.