Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 3).djvu/233

 was most difficult to determine whether the concessions any given country is willing to make, or has the power to make, are equivalent to those made by some other, the commercial demands and commercial produce of which may be of a totally different nature. Again, with regard to reciprocity treaties, great difficulty he thought might ensue in the event of war; and the power Government proposed to retain of re-imposing restrictive duties would be found very difficult to exercise. It would in his judgment invert the relations between the Crown and the Parliament. The House of Commons would be favourable, and relax, the Crown would restrain. The House of Commons would give universal privileges, and in the course of four or five years the invidious duty would be thrown upon the Crown of withdrawing privileges the House of Commons had granted. Sir Robert, to avoid this ungracious duty, threw out the hint that the Act should be made limited in duration, so as to come again before Parliament. Suppose, he suggested, the trade were to be opened for five years; at the end of that period the privileges given would necessarily expire, and every country would have notice that they had the means of averting the re-establishment of restrictions by entering into some further arrangement with this country. He preferred to see the object effected in that way rather than by new reciprocity treaties; in short, that America, as well as other nations, should do what she had proposed by legislation rather than by treaty.

There was some renewal of hostile interruption at the conclusion of Sir Robert's speech; but it seemed