§ MR. HOWARD VINCENTI beg to ask the Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if the attention of the Prime Minister has been directed to the fact that the House of Representatives of the United States has passed, practically without amendment, the proposals for the imposition of enhanced and prohibitory duties upon the importation of cutlery, tin plates, iron hoops, linen goods, and other articles of British export; and if, having regard to the disastrous effect the approval of the Bill 'by the Senate must have upon the trades of Sheffield, the Midland Counties, South Wales, and Belfast, Her Majesty's Government will adhere to the view expressed on the 6th ultimo, that the free import system in the United Kingdom precludes the instruction of Her Majesty's Minister at Washington to represent to the American Government the injury the proposed legislation is calculated to do to the industry of a friendly Power, which gave last year a free market to £95,000,000 worth of competing American goods?
§ SIR J. FERGUSSONWe have not yet received a copy of the Tariff Bill as it passed the House of Representatives but we have heard by telegraph that it underwent no important alterations. In reply to the second question of my hon. and gallant Friend, I can only say, as I have done before, that it would be impossible to object to such legislation because it is founded on a protective policy. Our free admission of foreign manufactures generally rest on the adoption of a contrary system.