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 "for the last rag of Protection," would, in its results, roll back the tide on their opponents, thus leading to the universal application of the principles of just and moderate protection to domestic interests, and superseding for ever the rash and delusive theories which, in recent legislation, had successively involved every interest of the State in difficulty, distress, and ruin.

The agitation thus invoked by the central body of shipowners in London was responded to by their fellow-shipowners throughout the country. Meetings were held at Belfast, Bristol, Dartmouth, Devonport, Dunfermline, Dundee, Exeter, Exmouth, Fleetwood, Glasgow, Gateshead, Hull, Hartlepool, London, Liverpool, Leith, Lynn, Montrose, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Portsmouth, Penzance, Perth, Sunderland, Shields, St. Andrews, Swansea, Saltash, Tynemouth, Weymouth, and Yarmouth. The petition from London was signed by 27,000 persons of the most respectable classes; while that from Liverpool comprised 24,700 names, not shipowners exclusively. This petition, eloquently drawn up, expressed alarm at the progress of a measure which proposed to take away from this country advantages it had so long and so successfully enjoyed, and to invite, unwisely, foreign nations to share those advantages with us; nations, too, utterly unable, even if willing, to confer on us any adequate equivalent in return. It pointed at the evident result of the substitution, to a great extent, of foreign for British and colonial shipping, the employment of foreign labour and capital in lieu of our own, and the creation of new relations between foreign nations and our own colonies;