§ EARL GREYpresented a petition from the Shipowners of South Shields, praying for the Removal of the Burdens on British Shipping. The petition commenced by drawing their Lordships' attention to the depressed state of the shipping interest, and to certain charges which had been imposed upon them. With regard to the first part of the petition he did not understand the petitioners to call upon their Lordships to revert to the policy which prevailed before the repeal of the Navigation Laws in 1849. Such a petition he could not have supported, for he believed that in the ten years since the change was accomplished the shipping interest had made more progress than in any twenty years preceding it. The great object of the petitioners was to obtain a reciprocity from other countries. He trusted, however, the petitioners did not intend for this purpose to require that the clause of the Act of 1849 giving the Crown the power of imposing restrictions on foreign shipping should be enforced. He had always regarded that clause as a necessary, but unfortunate, concession to the prevailing prejudices of the day—a concession necessary to the passing of the Bill. He was reconciled to it mainly by the conviction that it would prove, as it had proved, a dead letter; and he hoped it would so continue. The best policy was to abstain from making any appli- 904 cations to foreign Powers on this subject; those countries were greater sufferers themselves from their system of restriction than England. Any application to them to relax it only encouraged a belief that England had some interested motive for doing so. As to the special charges complained of, if they could be proved he should wish to see them lightened; but he could not concur in the policy of throwing on the general revenue of the country charges incurred for the benefit of the shipowners.
§ Petition ordered to lie on the table,