Committee, and since also carried into effect;-that of establishing a general system of Warehousing, so as to make this country a place of entrepôt for all foreign commodities. It was obviously impossible to give full scope to this system, unless we were prepared to allow greater latitude to the admission of foreign goods. The superior capital and credit of this country afford inducements to send those goods here, and their being deposited in British warehouses gives a facility to the British Merchant and Ship-owner to supply the demand for them in other parts of the world, through the medium of British adventure and British shipping, instead of their being sent directly to those parts in foreign shipping, from the countries of Europe in which such goods are produced.

It was desirable, therefore, for the interest of our Foreign trade, that we should no longer rigidly adhere to that part of the Navigation Act which prohibited the importation of the "enumerated articles," if brought from countries other than those of which they were the produce. Such a restraint, it is hardly necessary to say, could not fail frequently to prevent speculations of trade, in which the spirit of British enterprize would have otherwise engaged, or to throw those speculations into other channels. It interfered, likewise, to prevent the advantageous assortment of cargoes, and other commercial arrangements, as well in foreign ports as in the ports of this country; and, in this and many other ways, contributed, directly and indirectly, to diminish the employment for British shipping.

Another alteration in our Navigation System has since been adopted, which certainly ought not to have been so long delayed. This alteration consists in putting the trade between Great Britain and Ireland upon the footing of a Coasting trade. Every gentleman must, I think, see that, from the time at least of the union of the two coun

tries, it was desirable that their interests and commercial system should be identified as much as possible. From that period it was absurd to consider the commercial intercourse with Ireland as a part of our foreign trade, and to subject the shipping employed in it to the restrictive regulations and higher charges of that trade.

But these were not the only deviations from the ancient rules of our Navigation System. The revolutions which have occurred in the political state of the world, in our time, rendered other changes indispensable. There has grown up over the whole continent of America, a situation of affairs similar to that which the United States presented, after their separation from the mother country. This change, from a colonial to an independent existence, necessarily draws after it, in each particular case, the application of the new rule, which, as I have already stated, unavoidably grew out of the independence of the United States.

The first application of that rule occurred in respect to Brazil. From the moment when, in 1808, the house of Braganza transferred the seat of empire to Brazil, that country virtually ceased to be a colony. Great Britain had no choice but to apply the European principles to the commerce and navigation of Brazil, though out of Europe, and to admit Portuguese shipping,-and, since the separation of Portugal and Brazil, Brazilian shipping,coming from that country into our ports, upon the same footing as the ships of any other independent nation.

This principle has been extended, from time to time, as new States have risen up in America. When I heard the honourable member for Grampound complain that, in our Treaty of Commerce and Navigation with Columbia, and in that with Buenos Ayres, we had consented to place their navigation upon an equality with our own, I certainly listened to this charge with no small degree of

surprise, being satisfied that what the honourable gentleman censured so severely, was the very wisest principle that this country could adopt. Those states were anxious to encourage their commercial marine, by granting exclusive advantages to their own shipping, and imposing certain restrictions upon that of this country. This disposition was frequently manifested by the Ministers of those States in the course of our discussions with them; and certainly there are not wanting some who are constantly endeavouring to excite in these new countries a jealousy of the Naval Power of Great Britain; instigating them to adopt a separate and novel code of maritime law for the New World, and to frame their Navigation System upon principles of giving a preference to their own shipping, and to that of America generally, over the shipping of this country, and of Europe.

Have we acquiesced in these views? Have we compromised any of the acknowledged principles of Maritime Law? No, Sir-Whilst we have explicitly refused to listen to any such compromise, we have disarmed all suspicion as to our commercial pretensions, by frankly declaring, that we sought no exclusive advantages for British ships or British trade, and that the principle of our intercourse with the New States, as with the Old States, of the World, would be that of a fair and equal reciprocity.

This brings me to the gravamen of the charge made against his Majesty's Government; namely, the step taken by them, in furtherance of this principle, by the introduction of a law, enabling the Crown, with the advice of the Privy Council, to remit all discriminating duties on the goods and shipping of such countries, as may agree to impose no higher charges or duties upon British ships, and the goods imported therein, than upon their own ships, and the like goods imported in such ships.

If the system of discriminating Duties for the encouragement of Shipping, were a secret known to this country alone; if a similar system were not, or could not be, put in force in every other country, I should not be standing here to vindicate the measure to which I have just referred, and the present policy of his Majesty's Government. So long as, in fact, no independent trading community existed out of Europe, and so long as the old Governments of Europe looked upon these matters,-if they looked to them at all,-as little deserving their attention, and were content, either from ignorance or indifference, not to thwart our System, it would have been wrong to disturb any part of it. But is this the present state of the world? Did not the United States of America, in the first instance, for the purpose of raising to themselves a great commercial Marine, and of counteracting our Navigation Laws, adopt, in their utmost rigour, the rules of those laws, and carry, even further than we had ever done, in respect to foreign Ships, this principle of discriminating duties against our Shipping? Can we shut our eyes to the fact that other nations have followed, or are following, their example? Do we not see them, one after the other, taking a leaf out of our own book? Is not every Government in Europe, if possessed of sea-ports, now using its utmost endeavours to force a trade, and to raise up for itself a commercial Marine? Have we not boasted of our Navigation Laws, till we have taught other nations to believe (however erroneous that belief), that they are almost the only requisite, or, at least, the sine quâ non, of commercial wealth and of maritime power? Did these vauntings excite no envy, no spirit of rivalry, no countervailing opposition in other countries? Did the success of the United States of America create no desire in those countries to follow her example?

It would be worse than idle, it would be dangerous, to dissemble to ourselves the great changes which have been wrought, since the establishment of American independence, in the views and sentiments of Europe, upon all matters connected with commerce and navigation. They now occupy a leading share in the attention of almost every Government. They are everywhere a subject of general inquiry and interest. Even in countries, of which the institutions are least favourable to the discussion of political topics, these questions are freely discussed, and, by discussion, the influence of public opinion is made to bear upon the measures and policy of their Governments.

In this altered state of the world, it became our duty seriously to inquire, whether a system of commercial hostility, of which the ultimate tendency is mutual prohibition, -whether a system of high discriminating duties upon foreign ships, with the moral certainty of seeing those duties fully retaliated upon our own Shipping, in the ports of foreign countries, was a contest in which England was likely to gain, and out of which, if persevered in, she was likely to come with dignity or advantage? I will lay aside, for the moment, every consideration of a higher nature, moral or political, which would naturally lead us to look with some repugnance to the engaging in such a contest. I will equally lay aside all consideration for the interest of our manufacturers, and for the general well-being of our population, who, as consumers, would obviously have to pay for this system of Custom-house warfare, and reciprocal restriction; and I will view the question solely in reference to the shipping interest. In this comparatively narrow, but, I admit, not unimportant, view of the question, I have no difficulty in stating my conviction,-a conviction at which I have arrived after much anxious consideration,that, in the long-run, this war of Discriminating Duties, if