en it was thought desirable to repress, by protective
legislation, the energy of such experienced seamen and pushing traders.
The navigation law was modified by Mr. Huskisson in 1823, but only so
far as to establish that which we now know so well as the principle of
reciprocity. Any nation which removed restrictions from British merchant
marine was favored with a similar concession. The idea also was that
these navigation laws, keeping foreigners out of England's carrying
trade, enabled her to maintain always a supply of sailors who could at
any time be transferred from the merchant marine to the royal navy, and
thus be made to assist in the defence of the country.

Of course, the ship-owners themselves upheld the navigation laws, on the
plea that, if the trade were thrown open by the withdrawal of
protection, their chances would be gone; that they could not contend
against the foreigners upon equal terms; that their interests must
suffer, and that Great Britain would in the end be a still severer
sufferer, because, from the lack of encouragement given to the native
traders and the sailors, England would one day or another be left at the
mercy of some strong power which, with wiser regulations, would keep up
her protective system and with it her naval strength.

Nevertheless, the ship-owners and the Protectionists and those who
raised the alarm-cry about England's naval defences were unable to
maintain their sophisms in the face of growing education and of the
impulse given by the adoption of free trade. In 1849 the navigation laws
were abolished. We believe there are very few ship-owners who will not
now admit that the prosperity of their trade has grown immensely, in
place of suffering, from the introduction of the free-trade principle in
navigation as well as in com and sugar.

(1846) THE DISCOVERY OF NEPTUNE, Sir Oliver Lodge

Among modern astronomical discoveries none has been regarded as more
important than that of Neptune, the outermost known planet of the solar
system. It was a rich reward to the watchers of the sky when this new
planet swam into their ken. This discovery was hailed by astronomers as
"the most conspicuous triumph of the theory of gravitation." Long after
Copernicus even, the genius of philosophers was slow to grasp the full
conception of a spherical earth and its relations with the heavenly
bodies as presented by him. So it was also with the final acceptance of
Newton's demonstration