each country as our interests might dictate as expedient. The principles of Free-trade ought to be applied to each measure under discussion, according as our particular interests were affected thereby. Sir James Graham had put the question as one decisive between retreat and progress. Reaction was as much to be feared as a rash progress, for reaction might be fraught with suffering to the people, as dangerous to the interests of the country as the proposed change was ominous of evil.
Lord J. Russell. Lord John Russell as Chief Minister of the Crown wound up the debate on his side. He was aware that the law had been almost worshipped as the charta maritima of this country, and that, much of our prosperity and commerce having been attributed to this law, it had been thought profanation to alter it. He thought this was an opinion founded in error, and that, at no time, had this law been essentially advantageous to this country. He then went over the history of the Navigation Laws, quoting authors of various times who wrote of the fluctuations in trade and public policy, and having reviewed the several points of the question, came to the conclusion that with respect to the greater part of the nations of Europe and of the world, we would obtain fair and equal terms of navigation, provided we were ready to give the same terms to them. He went farther; he boldly said that nobody could doubt that in the case of the United States of America, or in those of Prussia, Russia, or Austria, the fullest reciprocity would be conceded. The nations which would not give equal terms were, at the most, only
