Speech of the Marquess of Lansdowne.
- ing in a long and elaborate speech. He contended
that the origin of the Navigation Laws during the Protectorate of Cromwell did not arise so much from a commercial or political want as from a desire to punish the Dutch for their loyal support to Charles I.[1] He admitted, however, that there were then good grounds for trying the experiment how far the national arm could be strengthened by restriction, and how far the naval force of the country could be thus increased. The noble Marquess next traced at length the changes contemplated by Mr. Pitt, and the incidents of the war with Napoleon, contending that the law, by successive changes, had ceased to be a suit of impenetrable armour, and was now only an imperfect garment of shreds and patches, manufactured out of parchments from statute books. He, further, showed the increase of our shipping since the relaxation of the shipping laws, maintaining that the dread of foreign competition was altogether irrational, and demonstrating, by statistics, the large share of the American direct and carrying trade we had already secured in open competition with American ships hence, and with foreign ships from their own ports to American shores; while we were, at the same time, able to bear off the chief share of the Russian trade from the Baltic ships even within the heart of their own country. He briefly referred to the colonial bearing of the question, and said that the West Indies were subject to great troubles, and
- ↑ A much more likely reason has been already assigned for English hostility to the Dutch in and about 1652; and that is, their perceiving that the Dutch were gradually engrossing all the foreign trade, especially that on the other side the line.
