Mr. Clay.
Mr. Clay, the extreme Liberal member for Hull, who would perhaps have lost his seat had he voted for repeal, made a Free-trade speech, but ended by voting against the Government measure. The position he took was that as long as the burdens of the shipowner remained, protection must be conceded to him. Mr. Hornby, who represented another of the outports, recommended that concessions should only be made pari passu, and that we ought not to give up the all-important maritime advantages we possess.
Mr. T. A. Mitchell.
Mr. T. A. Mitchell reproached Free-traders like Mr. Hornby for voting against repeal, and especially animadverted on Mr. Gladstone’s procedure, whose speech in its general effect was surprising, as coming from an advocate of Free-trade. A more effectual mode, in his judgment, could not have been taken to damage the whole scheme. Mr. Mitchell ardently supported repeal, not believing the average rate of freights would decline in consequence; moreover, the repeal, he thought, would enable us to escape the inordinately high freights which, in times of sudden emergency we were now called upon to pay.
Mr. Hildyard.
Mr. Hildyard urged very strongly the importance of the coasting trade of the United States, and the necessity of securing it. He admitted that the coast of England was a difficult and dangerous one, and that there was not much chance of America competing with us in that trade. On the other hand, the coasting trade of America was of great importance. An United States committee on harbours and rivers, during the preceding year, had shown that no fewer than eight States were mainly dependent upon seven great lakes for their commercial intercourse; and that the line of coast of these eight States was not less than 3000 miles; while, on the Mississippi and its tributaries, fourteen States in 1846, with a population of 6,500,000, relied for their easiest means of intercommunication. The sea-board of Maine was more valuable still; so that it was of very great importance, if concessions were to be made, that we should participate in the coasting trade of America.
Mr. Ricardo.
Mr. Ricardo, while supporting the propriety of freeing the shipowners from many of the burdens imposed on them, argued that the retaliatory clause could not possibly be maintained, and that the proposed reciprocity system was equally untenable.
Mr. H. Drummond.
Mr. H. Drummond, in one of his witty, splenetic speeches, opposed the Bill. The object, he said, of every statesman in past times had been to prevent capital from going out of the country, on the ground that, if capital went out of the country, the labour of the country would not be employed. Now every successive minister had to get up, and, on every question brought forward, to go against every principle he had previously defended, and so to take the opposite side of every view he had before maintained. There were Fates presiding from which no minister could liberate himself; while, as for the House itself, there would appear to be a spell over them, rendering them passive and helpless; while every successive Chancellor of the Exchequer picked away at their livers ad libitum. The most celebrated statesman of antiquity said: “There is in maritime States a corruption and instability of morals, for they import not only merchandise but morals, so that nothing can remain entire in the institutions of their country.” The only quarrel, Mr. Drummond added, he had with the Free-traders was with respect to Adam Smith, that they never would read beyond one page of him. And yet, it was by men actuated by similarly interested motives, that the House was now guided. The manufacturer sent out to Africa for cotton; he employed African labourers in its cultivation; he brought it home in an American ship; he spun it into yarn by his machinery, and then sent it in a French vessel to be exchanged for French cloth or silks, or other articles of French manufacture. So that the whole process might be perfected without the employment of a single English labourer. The poet exclaimed:—