Viscount Strangfordwished to ask the noble Earl opposite, whether the negotiations that had been entered into between this country and France, respecting commercial matters, were likely speedily to be concluded, and whether it was probable that they would be successful? He asked this question chiefly in consequence of two remarkable passages in his Majesty's Speech, coupled with the interpretation he felt obliged to put on obvious facts. In the first place, it was said in his Majesty's Speech that there was a good understanding between this country 205 and France, an announcement which he was happy to hear. He could not sup pose that this announcement was lightly made, and he could not believe that his Majesty would have made that statement, unless France had shown some disposition to relinquish the attitude of hostility—for such he must call it—which she assumed with regard to the manufactures, commerce, and navigation of this country. In another passage of the Speech it was said, that the commerce and manufactures of this country afforded the most encouraging prospect of progressive improvement. He should not trouble their Lordships with his doubts as to the general accuracy of this statement, indeed it would not become him so to do, but he must say that he disbelieved that this state of prosperity could be progressive, if the Powers of the Continent, both great and small, should continue to combine together to act in direct opposition to us, and made a mockery of our boasted reciprocity system; and especially if France should still exhibit, as she had hitherto done, a determined system of repulsion on all matters connected with the commercial interests of this country.
§ Earl Greywould confine himself to merely answering the noble Viscount's question, which was whether the negotiations, as the noble Viscount was pleased to term them, between this country and France, respecting commercial matters, were likely to be speedily and satisfactorily brought to a conclusion. He was not aware that what was going on deserved the name of negotiations. There had been Commissioners appointed on both sides to examine the laws relative to the customs in both countries, with respect to such commercial arrangements to be made by each country as each might think most proper. A voluminous Report had been presented to his Majesty's Government, and there had been laid on the Table of the French Chambers, the project of a law for the new regulations of their tariff. What that law was he did not know, and he had not at that moment authority to say what would be the effect of the regulations intended to be proposed; but he might state that the Commissioners recommended a revision of the laws which would be advantageous to both countries. He should wish to observe that the noble Viscount was wrong, if he concluded from the Speech from the Throne that the expression "good understanding" must 206 relate not only to a political but to what he might deem to be a commercial good understanding. There might be many difficulties with respect to commercial arrangements, depending as they did on many and such varied interests, without in the slightest degree impugning the general good understanding between two Powers. If what the noble Lord called the repulsion system was continued in France, it might be matter for consideration what steps we should take with respect to our commercial relations with that country. The noble Lord ought to know that the most perfectly good understanding might exist between two governments, that they might be on the most friendly footing with each other, and yet that neither of them might have the power to remove certain commercial restrictions to which the other might object. He must, therefore, disclaim the idea that the passage had any other than a political reference. As to the statement relating to the progressive prosperity of the country, he believed that the Returns on the Table would show that what had been said in the Speech on that subject was perfectly true, and notwithstanding what had been stated with regard to combinations to exclude British manufactures from the continent, he entertained the most sanguine hopes that their use would be considerably extended. He would only add, that the Commissioners on both sides had devoted the most laborious attention to the subject, and had produced most voluminous reports. He could not say directly what would be the result; but he hoped that gradually a better understanding on these subjects would prevail, and that other nations would, like ourselves, perceive that their true interests were not promoted in repelling in any degree a free commercial intercourse with their neighbours.
§ The conversation was dropped.