than that great interest known by the denomination of the "warehousing system," which had been the growth of comparatively recent years and was the offspring of a judicious relaxation in the Navigation Laws: this system he held had made this country the entrepôt between regions furnishing tropical produce and the great consuming countries of Europe. Mr. Cardwell then urged the importance of the Canadian claims, and described the keen competition going on between Canada and the United States.
Mr. Henley Mr. Henley went into a long argument against the Bill, especially animadverting upon Mr. Wilson's having derided reciprocity, while nevertheless the Bill legislated for it, and Government had been in correspondence with foreign Governments for the purpose of securing it. "What did the Government intend to do," he asked, "on the subject of impressment? If the masters were to be taken from a superior class, were they still liable to be impressed?"[1] The experiment of Free-trade had not in Mr. Henley's opinion been sufficiently tried to justify the application of that principle to another great interest. If the country were polled, every man, he was sure, would cheerfully pay the hardly-appreciable advance in prices, rather than run the risk of a failure in an experiment so dangerous. No one had attempted to deny that obstruction was here, and inconvenience there; but when you came to balance the possible risk with the possible gain, no one would be disposed
- ↑ This may appear unintelligible: while actually masters they could not, it is true, be taken; but Mr. Henley said they might be, while changing from one ship to another, and that he knew of instances in which mates had been impressed, placed on board a man-of-war, and kept there for seven years.
