"[274] And, at last, the prevalence of this feeling Lord John
Russell could not conceal even from himself, but confessed to Lord
Palmerston, then Prime-minister, who had always silently discouraged the
movement, that "the apathy of the country was undeniable; nor was it a
transient humor. It seemed rather a confirmed habit of mind. Four Reform
Bills had been introduced of late years by four different governments,
and for not one of them had there been the least enthusiasm. The
conclusion to which he had come was, that the advisers of the crown of
all parties having offered to the country various measures of reform,
and the country having shown itself indifferent to them all, the best
course which could now be taken was to wait till the country should show
a manifest desire for an amendment of the representation."[275]
There was, however, in these years one subject in which the country did
take a real interest; that was the development and extension of the
principles of free-trade. On that the national view had become so
decided that in 1848 the Parliament even abolished the navigation laws,
which had subsisted so long, the first act on the subject dating from
the reign of Richard II., that the adherence to the principle contained
in them of confining both the export and the import trade of the
kingdom, with but few exceptions, to British shipping, seemed almost an
essential article of the constitution.
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