ABSTRACT
During the recess the opponents of repeal did their best to whip up support in the colonies. A majority of the Quebec Board of Trade declared against'repeal. It would severely injure the shipping interests of the Mother Country and endanger the timber preference still remaining. Only by the restoration of protection could Canada's distress be remedied; for the St. Lawrence with its intricate navigation, its winter closing, its distance from the markets, could never compete with the ports on the Atlantic.2 In New Brunswick, the most important shipbuilding colony, a public meeting was against repeal unless accompanied by the opening of new export markets and the removal of all restrictions on the use, the sale, the registry, the manning, of the ships.3 Sir Edmund Head, however, discounted this protest; and in Canada the weight of opinion was still in favour of repeal. The Montreal Board of Trade differed among themselves as to whether repeal by itself would be enough; but they one and
all desired it. The Legislative Council and Assembly, moreover, united in an address for repeal; and an amendment in favour of the restoration of protection was lost by 49 to 14. With regard to the West Indies, as the session of 1848 had developed, it had certainly become doubtful whether the opinion of the majority of the planters was in favour of repeal: those who gave evidence before the Lords Committee on the Navigation Laws and the Commons Committee on Sugar Planting for the most part did not want it. The memorial of the Jamaica Assembly was explained away. Yet this state of affairs is easily accounted for. The West Indians in 1848 were engaged in a great protection campaign, and were unlikely either to accept a palliative or to run the risk of antagonizing other protected interests.
