Both parties in truth exaggerated the difficulties of their opponent’s scheme, being attached to their own. The real question at issue was, which country should take the initiative in a Free-trade policy. Mr. Wilson, as an extreme Free-trader, insisted that the law of America sanctioned reciprocity on their part, without having recourse to Congress, which the members of the Shipowners’ Society controverted. There can be no doubt that the American Law of 1828 did so authorize the President to reciprocate any relaxation of the Navigation Laws we might on our part resolve on. But when Mr. Buchanan had so recently reserved the American coasting trade, repudiating the unauthorized pledge previously given by the American envoy, and had further frankly stated to Mr. Crampton,[115] that “it was probable some difference of opinion would manifest itself in Congress upon this question, from the unwillingness felt in some quarters to throw open the ship-building business in the United States to the competition of British shipbuilders, and more particularly to that of the shipbuilders of the British North American colonies;” we might have been quite sure that Congress would, if necessary, interfere, and, by some special law, annul the liberal principle of the American Law of 1828. Mr. Wilson and the Free-traders, affecting to be better informed on the state of American law than the Shipowners, went into the opposite extreme, and expressed their entire confidence in the complete reciprocity of the Americans; asserting further, that without going to Congress, the Executive could extend to every country similar concessions as were extended to them. Such was the impression on both the contending parties. As to Mr. Bouverie’s amendment, though it, in some degree, resembled Mr. Gladstone’s views, that gentleman complained “that his scheme had been withered by an unkind shadow cast over it by the member for Kilmarnock,” at the same time, refusing to discuss a plan not dissimilar to his own, and adhering to his opinion, that, as foreign countries were in the habit of adopting measures to meet their own wants, England ought to be allowed to do the same, but only on the principle of reciprocity. [Sidenote: Mr. Bouverie’s plan rejected.] It is unnecessary to pursue this point any further. A long debate ensued on it, in which Mr. Milner Gibson and Mr. Bright delivered, with their usual force, their extreme, but then unpalatable, Free-trade opinions, while Mr. Roundell Palmer opposed any change hostile to the principles of the Navigation Laws. It appeared from the general feeling of the committee, that Mr. Bouverie’s amendment had not the slightest chance of being adopted, and he was desirous of withdrawing it. Mr. Wawn, however, insisted upon a division; and when a division was taken, only fifteen members voted in favour of Mr. Bouverie’s scheme of conditional legislation, while 132 voted against it. [Sidenote: Mr. Disraeli’s speech.]