Viscount Strangfordtook that opportunity of adverting to a matter of considerable importance to the commerce, and more especially to the navigation, of this country. He wished to do so without delay, because it was connected with a bill which would shortly be sent up to their Lordships from the other House, and it would be too late for him, when that Bill should be actually before them, to make the suggestion which he was desirous of submitting to the noble Earl opposite. He alluded to the proposed alteration in the Wine-duties. It did seem to him, that there was a singular infelicity of choice as to the moment which had been selected for granting a great boon to France, at the expense of more ancient, and hitherto more profitable commercial connexions. It was scarcely three weeks since one of his Majesty's Ministers had declared, in another place, that the whole conduct of France towards us, in the execution of one of those treaties, which, by the boldest of all possible misnomers, were termed treaties of reciprocity, had been conceived in a spirit any thing but analogous to that which had been manifested by us; that, in point of fact, she had, up to this hour, evaded or infringed the strict impartial stipulations of the treaty, and that negotiations were now going on to induce her to interpret them according to their true intent and mean- 1371 ing. He alluded to the stipulations regarding our navigation—no great object, he could readily believe, of French sympathy or affection, but one which had always been thought worthy of the special protection of British statesmen, and which he was therefore glad to find, from what had passed elsewhere, had been taken under that of his Majesty's present Ministers. The noble Earl opposite must be aware, that a British vessel paid, in the ports of France, ten times as much in tonnage duties, harbour dues, quarantine fees, and other similar charges, as were paid by a French vessel in the ports of this empire. The noble Earl must also know, that a French vessel, on returning home, was exempt from all tonnage duties, except in the case (he believed only in the case) of her coming from a British port. He, therefore, thought, that when France thus misinterpreted, or thus evaded her treaty with us, and that negotiations on the subject were actually going on, it was a most extraordinary thing that we should step out of our way for the purpose of magnanimously loading her with new favours and new benefits, unless it was intended, that they were to be offered to her as the price of her doing us that justice which she was already bound by treaty to do, without any such superfluous liberality on our part. He, therefore, suggested to the noble Earl the expediency of taking no further steps in the alteration of the wine duties, until the result of the negotiation should be known; and that no additional commercial favour should be granted to France, until it was ascertained whether she would fulfil her treaty with us or not. He thought, that France should be taught to be just before we began to be generous. No man living was more persuaded than he was of the value and importance of a most intimate and liberal commercial connection with France; but really, looking at the whole of her conduct on that subject, at all periods of her history, and whatever the form of her government, he did not know where to build a reasonable hope of such a connection being ever founded on the broad principle of equal and mutual advantage. Of one thing he was sure, that it was not to be obtained by a system of gratuitous concession and condescension. He had little hope of his suggestion being attended to, though it was offered in no unkind spirit; but he thought it his duty to make it, and to 1372 make it on this occasion, because, if he were to wait till the wine-duties actually came before their Lordships, and were he to make it then, he might perhaps be accused of a factious design to stop the supplies, and be thus the unconscious cause of some great and unexpected political calamity.