Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/119

 years, the reductions in the tariff since 1842, together with the demand for shipping to bring supplies of food for the starving populace of Ireland, had greatly increased their actual business and their future prospects. Nor were other causes wanting to enhance and to ensure this prosperity. A new trade had been developed by the discovery of vast deposits of guano in the islands of the Pacific (of far greater importance than those on the coasts of Africa), and this alone required a large amount of tonnage; while the rapidly increasing consumption of sea-borne coals secured for them another source of remunerative employment. In spite of these obvious advantages, shipowners, however, expressed no feelings of satisfaction, though these new channels of trade afforded them a profitable employment for their vessels: they probably feared that by so doing the Free-traders would at once introduce a measure for the repeal of the Navigation Laws. Nor were their fears groundless. Parliament having thrown out the idea that protection as a principle could not be maintained, the shipowner had to show that his case, as the advocate of maritime commerce generally, was an exception to this rule.

The Shipowners' Society of London alleged, with no mean tact and ability, that their members, as a section of the community, advanced no claim to special privileges, and demanded no exemption on abstract grounds, from any burdens to which other interests were subjected. But they argued that, if for objects of supposed national benefit wherein they had no special advantage, the State imposed on them burdens and restrictions, common justice prescribed