The Sun.
London, England, 1849-02-14 00:00:00

THE NAVIGATION-LAWS.

On the motion of Mr. LABOUCHERE that the
House go into Committee on this Bill,
Sir T. ACLAND presented a petition against the re-
peal of the navigation-laws.
Lord J. RUSSELL presented a petition in favour of
their repeal from Montreal, signed by the Mayor, the
President of the Board of. Trade, and a number of
merchants.
Mr. WAINN and Mr. HamEs presented petitions to the
same effect.
Mr. GLADSTONE wished, before the Speaker left

the chair, to offer a few observations upon a matter of
much public interest. Were it not a matter of this
nature, he assured the House he should not have re-
ferred to it at that period of their proceedings.
The SPEAKER inquired if it had reference to the
navigation laws ?
Mr. GLADSTONE said it had. It arose out of a
speech recently delivered by the Hon. and Learned
Member for Hull (Mr. Baines) to his constituents. The
speech was a very manly and straightforward one, but
being made by a Minister of the Crown he considered
that he would be excused if he asked a question
with respect to it.—(Hear, hear.) The accuracy of the
speech he had not the means of judging.—[Mr. Baines
intimated that it was correct.] The speech being re-
ported in the Morning Post of the 9th of February, con-
tained the following passage:—" Then there is the
subject of the navigation-laws. It is perfectly
well known that the Ministers introduced
a measure with respect to those laws, against which I
voted. I divided against the Ministers at every stage of
the Bill. I felt it to be my duty to do so. And though
I differ with many of my constituents—gentlemen
of great intelligence who still think that they
ought to be repealed, yet I am not of that
opinion—on the contrary, I think that the
principle of the navigation-laws. ought to be retained."
And on reference to the division lists he found that the
Hon. and Learned Member had in the last session voted
against the Government on the question.—(Hear,
hear.) The question he bad risen to ask was,
whether the measure recommended from the Throne
by her Majesty, and to day to be introduced by the
lion. Member (Mr. Labouchere), would have the support
of the Hon. and Learned Member?
Lord J. RUSSELL would answer the question of
the Right Hon. Gentleman by a statement of the facts
as they had occurred. The lion. and Learned Gentle-
man, now the President of the Poor-law Commission,
was offered by him, in the name of her Majesty, the
office he now held. He replied that he had no objec-
tion to accept the office, hut that he
feared his opposition to the Government with re
spect to the navigation-laws would present an
insuperable objection, since he had voted against the
Ministers.—(Hear, hear.) He (Lord J. Russell) re-
plied that he considered the department so important,
and the services which he believed him capable
of rendering equally so, that he intimated
to him that he should not in any way
interfere with his opinion- on the navigation-laws.—
(Hear, hear) Understanding from him that upon every
other subject he agreed with the views of her Majesty's
Government, he considered him in every way qua-
lified to become one of the Ministers.—(Hear, hear.)
Many precedents were on record of different Govern-
ments having adopted a simiEr course with respect to
some of their members. For instance, there was the
Hon. Member for Montgomeryshire, who, though a
member of the Government, voted against the Alien
Bill, and who, in addition, spoke against the policy which
guided the Ministers in introducing thatßill. Again,the pre-
sent Lord Lonsdale voted against the Catholic Disabi•
lities Bill, yet the Duke of Wellington, then at
the head of the Administration, allowed him
to continue a member of the Cabinet. With
the exception of the Honourable and Learned Member,
the other members of the Government concurred in the
Bill tor the repeal of the navigation- laws.—(Hear.)
The SPEAKER having left the chair, and it having
been taken by Mr. BERNAL,
Mr. LABOUCHERE proceeded to say that
the duty had again devolved upon him of
calling the attention of the House to the
laws which regulated the navigation of this
country, and he rejoiced that he was enabled to do so at
so early a period of the session, when the House
would have an ample opportunity of discussing
those important questions, which discussion, he
trusted, would lead to the solution of subjects
which, he was sure, could not be delayed without the
most injurious consequences to the mercantile and
commercial interests of the British empire. They
had last session long discussions upon this subject, and
though they did not lead to any practical conclusion,
yet he trusted that the time which was then devoted to
the question was not altogether thrown away or lost.
Ile trusted they should be enabled to approach the sub-
ject in the present session, having cleared away many of
the preliminary difficulties which had been encountered
upon the thresh Old of this question, without
passing over the ground they had traversed,
and that they should be prepared, without protracted
preliminary discussion, to advance at onto to consider
the measure which the Government had felt it its duty
to submit to that House. He was glad that this
country and the colonies had bad, during the interval
that had elapsed since the last session, an opportunity of
considering the whole question, the magnitude of which
he was not disposed to underate. It would indeed be
most satisfactory to discuss and decide upon the
expressingp
artsof
the
eeir o
question after the inhabitants of the most distant
emppiinreionheand had
fhoramdinag a jnoupdpgormteunntityupoonf
it. Under these circumstances, he
what he had to say into the briefest li •
mits compatible
with the vast importance of the subject. The •
main provi-
sions of the measure of last session were these :—With re •
gard to one great branch of the navigation-laws, that part
which regulated the coasting trade and fisheries of the
the country, he did not, in the measure of last
year propose any alteration, with the exception of a
modification in the regulation relating to fisheries, and
with respect to this portion he did not propose
to make any alteration, but in the proper part of his
address he should more particularly allude to this.
Last year he stated that the necessity of the naviga-
tion-laws was contended for for many things—in the
words of the Hon. Member for Stamford (Mr. Herries),
three fundamental principles: the first was that portion
the object of which was to secure to this country the
I trade • next to secure to this
monopoly of our colonial
_e
" and the third was
d
country the " long voyage trade;" and
that principle which endeavoured 0 secure to this
country the possession of that indirect European
_ ,
he might
trade. With respect to the colonial,
not inappropriately repeat now what he stated
that
last year, that it did appear to him h
that policy which the House had adopted with
r, to depriving the colonies of protection—(Hear,
heer)—of protection in the markets of this country—be
that policy wright or wrong, it was not then necessary
for him to discuss; but, believing that a great
portion of the House were not prepared
to retrace the step which it had taken (Hear,
hear) considering, that the protection enjoyed by
the colonies in the markets of the mother country,
and that the time was not far distant when protee-
tion would be withdrawn from them altogether,
it appeared to him the height of injustice to refuse the
colonies the abolition of those restrictions upon naviga-
tion of which, in all-periods of colonial history, they had
so mu eh reason to complain ; but at the present time it
would. be an intolerable injustice to maintain these
reztretigns upon thOir c9lonial trucle—rectrietione which