obtained of them.
They insist upon an exchange of interests. We, as the richer and the more
powerful, are called on to make the first advances. We must relinquish our
navigation laws in favor of their staple manufacture, shipping, if we
would induce them to admit, on favourable terms, our staple article,
cotton goods." These were Mr Huskisson's principles; and it may be
admitted that, in the abstract, they were well-founded, for all commercial
intercourse, to be beneficial and lasting, must be founded on a mutual
exchange of advantages. But, in carrying into execution this principle,
he committed a fatal mistake, which has already endangered, without the
slightest advantage, and, if persevered in, may ultimately destroy the
commercial superiority of Great Britain. He virtually repealed, by the 4
Geo. IV. c. 77 and the 5 Geo. IV. c. 1, the navigation laws, by
authorizing the King, by an order in council, to permit the exportation
and importation of goods in foreign vessels, on payment of the same duties
as where chargeable on British vessels, in favour of those countries which
did not levy discriminating duties on British vessels bringing goods into
their harbours, and to levy on the vessels of such countries the same
tonnage duties as they charged on British vessels. This was, in effect,
to say--We will admit your vessels on the same terms on which you admit
ours; and nothing, at first sight, could seem more equitable.

But, nevertheless, this system involved a fatal mistake, the pernicious
effects of which have now been amply demonstrated by experience, and which
lies at the bottom of the whole modern doctrines of free trade. _It
stipulates for no advantages corresponding to the concession made_, and
thus the reciprocity was on one side only. Mr Huskisson repealed, in
favour of the Baltic powers, the British navigation laws; that is, he
threw open to Baltic competition, without any protection, the British
shipping interest: but _he forgot to exact from them any corresponding
favour for British iron or cotton goods in the Baltic harbours_. He
said--"We will admit your shipping on the same terms on which you admit
ours." What he should have said is--"We will admit your shipping into our
harbors on the same term you admit _our cotton goods_ into your harbours."
This would have been real reciprocity, because each side would have given
free ingress to that staple commodity in which its neighbor had the
advantage; and thus th