Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/166

 strong and valid reasons for his bold opinions. Their repeal, he showed, would tend, materially, to develop and increase the warehousing system of Great Britain, making it, in fact, a vast depôt for supplying the wants of the people of all nations. Not that the existing laws presented any impediment to warehousing goods, but that facilities would be afforded for making advances on foreign produce by the removal of restrictions. In answer to numerous and varied questions from those members of the Committee who were opposed to his views, he gave a clear and decided opinion that the trade of England had not been benefited in any one of its branches, shipowning included, by the Navigation Laws: and he could not for a moment admit that these laws had operated beneficially even for the "encouragement of a commercial marine." He rested his arguments on the economical principle that the shipping trade of this country, as a trade, could be conducted on no other principles than those whereby trade, generally, was carried on; he contended that no more ships would be built than it was expected would be required, so as to yield a profit to the persons who built them; that, in the long run, there could be no larger amount of profit derived from shipowning than from any other trade, as other persons would, of course, come in to share the profit with the existing shipowners; and that, unless shipping yielded the ordinary rate of profit to be derived from the commerce of the country, deficiencies in shipping from losses would not be, from time to time, supplied. It was well known, he remarked, that the trade of the country had gone on in