The General Shipowners’ Society[31] attributed this prosperity to the guano trade, which had recently arisen on the coast of Africa; but other and _far_ more influential causes had been at work. The treaties of reciprocity had, with all their imperfections, no doubt, tended materially to increase our intercourse with foreign nations, while the admission of their ships to our own ports, strange as it may appear, had greatly increased the employment for our own. Though our shipowners resolutely denied that these measures had anything whatever to do with the increased prosperity, more enlightened men had arrived at entirely different conclusions, and were convinced that the policy of reciprocity, however unsatisfactory in many respects, was not merely a step in the right direction, but was the best, and perhaps then the only, mode of breaking down, bit by bit, the huge fabric of protection, the growth of more than two centuries: indeed, it was clear that the “Great Maritime Charter of England,” as the Act of Cromwell had been somewhat ostentatiously denominated, could only be destroyed by degrees. This vast tree, if it may be so described, had taken too deep root in the soil of England to be overthrown at one blow; and the Reciprocity Treaties undoubtedly served as wedges for its destruction. In the meantime, Sir Robert Peel had made great changes in the Tariff. Commencing with the coarser sorts of manufactures, he had relinquished all duties on the importation of wool, linen, and cotton, and had reduced the duties on the finer qualities of the same goods from twenty to ten per cent., and on manufactured silks from thirty to fifteen per cent., making equally important reductions in the duties imposed on various other articles. [Sidenote: New Class of Statesmen, well supported by the People outside.] But a new class of men had now arisen to extend the principles of Free-trade, and to force home the wedges of unfettered commerce with heavier blows than Canning, Huskisson, or even Peel, had ever done. The people, led in this instance by men from among themselves, of the industrial classes; and, guided by the voice of Wisdom, were now trumpet-tongued proclaiming their rights and demanding justice, on conditions which, however large, were yet so unanswerable, that, before long, the proudest of our aristocracy and the most exalted of our statesmen paid their homage to the “unadorned eloquence” resounding throughout the land. [Sidenote: Exertions of Lord John Russell,]