fed under 1s. per day, to feed them as their climate and
constitutions require--hence their extraordinary energies. Yet, with
these great disadvantages, in ships, wages, and provisions, it is
determined to risk three-fourths of the commercial marine of Britain in
a contest with foreigners that must be overwhelming. But Mr. Labouchere
feels no difficulties, has no political qualms of conscience, in thus
offering up a sacrifice three-fourths of the commercial marine of Great
Britain. He says, 'Look at the results of the same system tried so far
back as the beginning of the seventeenth century in Holland--the Dutch
by free trade became the most prosperous nation in Europe. Look at her
great commercial marine. Under it the carriers of the world--her ships
were on every sea.' It is very surprising that this gentleman did not
continue to follow history in that country and at home since that period
downwards. The iron-headed Cromwell, great by his acts, had the sagacity
to perceive that the commercial marine was the soul of the navy, and
that as long as the Dutch had the carrying trade, Britain and other
colonies were in danger. So he strengthened the old restrictive laws of
Richard II., Henry VII., and Elizabeth, and passed the navigation laws,
under which the British commercial marine has been protected to the
present time, with the exception of the tampering they have met with
lately. And what has been the result? The Dutch, with her free-trade
system, has sunk her commercial marine to the lowest condition, while
Britain, with her protective system, has grown a commercial marine,
the greatest the world ever saw--her ships in every sea, her flag
overshadowing the world. How does it happen--and let Mr. Labouchere
and the whig government answer--how does it happen that the Dutch
commercial marine has been ruined by the free-trade system, and that we
have grown great, _pari passu_, by a restrictive system? But figures
are appealed to by the present government to show that since the
introduction of the reciprocity treaties, or free trade in a limited
extent, our commercial marine has greatly increased.

"These figures Mr. Labouchere adduces as a strong argument in favour of
Mr. Huskisson's relaxations, commencing at the former period. Observe
these figures more closely, and you will find that the tonnage of the
United Kingdom, to which the reciprocity treaties apply, have increased
considerably under one-half, while the trade to