Mr. Alderman Waithmansaid, that there was already before the House a petition from gentlemen connected with the Shipping Interests of the city of London. He held in his hand a petition of a similar nature, from a body of ship-owners in London, of equal respectability. The two bodies to whom he alluded were associated, and had appointed a committee; and although the petition he was about to present was not united with the preceding, it was of a precisely similar nature. The present petition was signed by more than two hundred and fifty persons. They represented the hardship of their case arising out of the laws recently passed by the House, and by which the House had removed certain restrictions upon foreign shipping which had proved an essential security to the British shipping interest. The petitioners stated, that it was now impossible for them to enter into competition with foreigners, 1313 as they had to bear the disadvantage of from thirty to forty per cent in the prices of implements, wages, and almost all materials. The petitioners also state, that every other class of the community that had been willing to try the experiment of free trade upon the petitioners, had equally shrunk from allowing that experiment to be tried upon themselves. He did not pledge himself as to what he should do when the subject came before the House; but all the petitioners wished was, that their case should undergo an inquiry. For his part, he felt it impossible to put the petitioners upon a fair and proper footing, under the existing law, unless, by a reduction of taxes, and especially of those which operated to raise the price of provisions, they were placed in parallel circumstances with foreign competitors, and with other branches of English industry.
§ Ordered to lie on the table.