ABSTRACT
In carrying out the enclosed resolution, passed at a public meeting in Coventry, Nathaniel Poole was particularly directed to ask Mr. Bright if there was any hope of the artisans of Coventry obtaining fair play in the fierce race of competition between France and England. If there were no Treaty, the French Government would not reduce their import duties, some of them they would probably raise, and the English Government would not impose new or higher duties on importations from France. The Government would have been delighted to have signed a Treaty under which the French tariff would have been as liberal and as sensible as own, but it can only act for England, and not for France. But Lord Granville is not the minister for Coventry only, but for the United Kingdom, and he and his colleagues must act for the general good, and not for any special interest or trade which clamours for protection at his hands.
