ABSTRACT
Yet Peel was certainly not a rabid opponent of free trade: indeed, in the ,course of the sugar duty debates he had expressly declared his belief in the principles of Huskisson, in 'the progressive and well-considered relaxation of restrictions upon commerce'. I In his first Budget he put this declaration of principle into practice. Among other things he, like Baring, proposed to deal with the timber duties; but whereas Baring's plan had been to raise the colonial duty, Peel proposed to lower the foreign duty. Petitions against Baring's proposal had arrived from Canada, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, though in Canada, according to Sydenham, the subject really excited little interest outside the port of Quebec and the lumbering districts round the Ottawa.z Peel had, however, some reason to hope that his proposal would be somewhat more acceptable. Estimating the average rate of duty on all kinds of timber at about 41S. a load on the foreign, 8s. or 9s. on the colonial article, he proposed after 5 April 1843 to reduce the duty on ordinary foreign timber to 25s., on deals and sawn timber to 30s., and the duty on the colonial product to IS. and 2S. respectively.3 He justified this change in words which were often quoted:
Greville tells us that there was much criticism of the sacrifice Peel had made for colollial timber, but Roebuck's motion for the abolition of the preference was lost by 243 to 16. The New Brunswickers again expressed alarm at the diminution of the preference: it would 'have a strong tendency to shake that loyal affection, which they have hitherto cherished with such honest zeal towards the parent state': 2 but Stanley told the colonists that they were not entitled to argue from the low prices then ruling, and that the timber trade would doubtless benefit when the general lowering of duties produced its effect.3 In an outspoken private letter soon afterwards Peel declared that the reduction of the duty on timber was the best thing the Ministry had done.
