and convert it into a palsied limb, with which the meanest of our rivals might successfully grapple.
Mr. Labouchere's reply. Mr. Labouchere followed in an elaborate speech, in general support of the Ministerial measure, but at the same time admitting that the real point for the decision of the House was fairly raised by Mr. Herries' resolution. "Would they, however," he asked, "be content with patchwork legislation? Was it in fact right to maintain the principle of the Navigation Laws? or were they prepared to consider the propriety of departing from those principles, so as to conciliate the wants of commerce and the exigencies of the case before them, with a view of adapting them to the spirit of the times, and of meeting the just demands of other countries, the wishes of our own colonies, and the interests of our expanding trade?" Of course, if Mr. Herries carried his resolution, it would be fatal to the measure of the Government.
Alderman Thompson. Alderman Thompson, an opulent merchant extensively engaged in the iron trade, supported the Protectionist view of the question. He ridiculed the plan submitted by Sir James Stirling for manning the navy as "Utopian," proposing as this plan did to train up a race of seamen exclusively for the navy, and, therefore irrespectively of the commercial marine. "Would Mr. Hume," he asked, directing his remarks towards that gentleman, "sanction a vote for 120,000 men during peace?" He warned the House against the effect on our colonial shipping trade should it be thus thrown open to the Americans, whose ships, he said, already supplied our West Indian settlements with the whole of the lumber required by them,
