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THE POLITICAL WRITINGS

OF

RICHARD COBDEN

VOL. I

FREE TRADE LITERATURE.

The Life of Richard Cobden. By the Right Hon. John

Morley, M.A. (Oxford), Hon. LL.D. With Photogravure Portrait from the Original Drawing by Lowes Dickinson. Jubilee Edition. Two Vols., decorated covers, 7s. the set. A New and Popular One Volume Edition, cloth, 2s. 6d. net.

The Political Writings of Richard Cobden. New Edition.

With Preface by Lord Wklby and Introductions by Sir Loiis Mallet and William CULLEN Bryant, and a Bibliography. With Frontispieces, 2 vols., large crown 8vo, cloth. Uniform with the Jubilee Edition of Morley's " Life of Cobden." 7s. the set.

Richard Cobden and the Jubilee of Free Trade. By

Various Writers. With Introduction by Richard Gowikg, Crown 8vo, cloth, 3s. 6d.

TWO VOLUMES OF ESSAY8.

Large Crown 8vo, cloth, 6s. each.

(Uniform with " The Heart of the Empire. ")

British Industries under Free Trade. Essays by Members

of leading English Firms. Edited by Harold COX, Secretary of the Cobden Club. Linen, by Sir R. Lloyd Patterson ; WOOL, by Sir Swire Smith ; Cotton, by Elijah Helm; GROCERY, by J. Innes Rogers ; ALKALI, by Alfred Mond ; Coal, by D. A. Thomas, M.P. j Tramp Shipping, by Walter Runciman, M.P. ; SHIPPING Liners, by M. LI. Davies (of Messrs. Holt, of Liverpool) ; CUTLERY, by F. Callis ; SOAP, by A. H. Scott ; Silk, by Matthew Blair ; Iron and Steel, by Hugh Bell ; Tin Plate, by Llewellyn Williams ; Paper, by Albert Spicer ; and other Essays.

Labour and Protection. Essays. Edited by H. W. Massingham.

The Operation ok Trusts, by John Burns, M.P. ; The Condition of the English Worker under Protection, by G. J. Holyoake ; Protection in Agriculture, by Prince Kropotkin ; Sugar, by Thomas Lough, M.P. ; The Submerged and Protection, by Seebohm Rowntree ; General Economics, by J. A. Hobson ; Protection and Wages, by J. A. Hobson; Cooperation (1) by Mrs. Vaughan Nash; Co-operation (2) (Personal Experiences), by Co-operative Women Workers ; The German Worker under Protection, by w. Harbutt Dawson ; Protection and the Staple English Trades, by Geo. N. Barnes, Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Engineers.

Mr. Balfour's Pamphlet— A Reply. By Harold Cox, Secre- tary of the Cobden Club. Papers covers, is. net.

The Fiscal Problem. By James McClelland. Crown 8vo,

paper covers, is. ; cloth, 2s.

The Policy of Free Imports. A Paper read at Liverpool on 16th February, 1903, to the New Century Society. By Harold Cox. Paper covers, 6d. net and id.

T. FISHER UNWIN, 11, Paternoster Buildings, London, E.C.

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THE POLITICAL WRITINGS

OF

Richard Cobden

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WITH A PREFACE BY LORD WELBY INTRODUCTIONS BY SIR LOUIS MALLET, C.B., 'AND WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT + + +

NOTES BY F. W. CHESSON AND A BIBLIOGRAPHY +

IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. I

LONDON

T. FISHER UNWIN

PATERNOSTER SQUARE

1903

{AU rights rtstrvcd)

FIRST EDITION. 2 vols., demy 8vo. London : William Ridgway, 1867.

New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1867. Second Edition, i vol., crown 8vo. London : William Ridgway, 1878. Third Edition, i vol., crown 8vo. London : Cassell & Co., Ltd., 1886. Fourth Edition. 2 vols., crown 8vo. London : T. Fisher Unwin, 1903.

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CONTENTS OF VOL. I

PAGE

Preface by Lord Welby .... viii Introduction by Sir Louis Mallet. . . xix

Introduction by William Cullen Bryant. . lix

ENGLAND, IRELAND, AND AMERICA.

PART I. — England : — The Balance of Power — Russia now, instead of France, the Object of British Apprehension — Notice of Mr. Urquhart's Pamphlet " England, France, Russia, and Turkey " — Absurdity of all Apprehensions for our*Trade — Our Trade with Russia and Turkey Contrasted — Miserable State of the Turkish Population — What Turkey might Become with a Different People — Our Colonial Policy ; Canada, the West Indies, and the East Indies — Odessa — "The Trifling Succour" asked for Turkey — The Non- intervention Principle ...... 5

PART II. — Ireland: — British Ignorance respecting Ireland — England the Cause of Irish Barbarism — Political Tendency of Romanism — English Persecution — The English Church in Ireland — Miserable State of the Irish People — A Poor Law for Ireland — Emigration — Projected Communication between New York and London in Twelve Days, by Way of Ireland — Evils of a Dominant Church . . . . .38

vi Contexts.

ENGLAND, IRELAND, AND AMERICA— {continued).

PACK

PART III — America :— British Inattention to the Progress of American Greatness — Danger to British Commerce and Manufactures from American Competition — Comparison between Britain and America — Necessity for our Present Armaments — Will the Americans continue to Manufacture ? — Advantages possessed by the Americans — Their Railroads — Obstacles to Railroads in Britain — American Encouragement of Education — Importance of a Free Press — The Ancient and Modern London Trader — The English an Aristocratic People — Public Economy and Non-intervention — Great Armaments unnecessary — Effect of the Corn Laws . . 76

RUSSIA, 1836. Advertisement ...... 122

CHAPTER I.— Russia, Turkey, and England :— Popular Panics — Turkey and the Turks — Character of the Turkish Government — Description of Russia — Russia and Constanti- nople— Apprehensions for our Trade — True Sources of National Greatness — The Manufacturing Districts — Russian and British Aggression — State of the Russian Provinces — The Caucasian Tribes — Wallachia and Moldavia — Russia's Persian Conquests ...... 124

CHAPTER II.— Poland, Russia, and England :— The Polish Nobles and People — Former Condition of Poland — Poland since the Partition — The Polish Revolt in 1830 — Incitement to War with Russia — Lord Dudley Stuart — Absurd Ideas of Russian Power — Obstacles to Russia's Domination — No Pretence for War with Russia . • . 165

CHAPTER III.— The Balance of Power . . .194

CHAPTER IV.— Protection of Commerce :— Value to England of her Manufactures — The Armed Protection of Commerce — Mutual Dependence of England and America— True Interests

Contents. vii

RUSSIA, 1836— {continued),

PAGE

of the Nation — Effects of the Great War — Protection in France — American Manufacturing Competition — Effects of Armaments on Commerce — Cost of the Armed Protection of Commerce — Consequences of War — Probable Result of another War — Non-intervention in Foreign Wars — The Author's Parting Word . . . . . .217

APPENDIX— Extracts from Various Writers, illustrative

of the Condition of Turkey ..... 260

1793 and 1853, in Three Letters.

Preface ........ 275

LETTER I.— Belief concerning the Last War — Expulsion of the French Ambassador — Merits of the Last French War — The Duke's Theory of Military Duty .... 276

LETTER II.— Antecedent State of Opinion— The Constituent Assembly— Alarm of the European Sovereigns — The Grounds of Foreign Interference — France not Responsible for the War — Austrian and Prussian Manifesto — The Two Parties in England — The Duke of Brunswick's Manifesto — True Object of the War — Action of the French Minister — Re- monstrances of the French Minister — The English and French Letters Compared — The Free Navigation of the Scheldt — England Popular in France — The Real Causes of the War — Charles James Fox — Edmund Burke's Monomania — Mr. Windham and Mr. Wilberforce — Earl Fitzwilliam's Admissions — Alison on the Origin of the War — Warlike Preparations in England ..... 285

Frontispiece : Portrait of Richard Cobden {From a favourite f holograph by Adolphe Beau).

PREFACE

The State is a severe mother. She demands from her noblest sons their intellects, their energies, and, if need be, their lives ; but she is not ungrateful. The men who have guided her destinies live in grateful memory and in memory the more honoured, if to great service and lofty aims they have added disregard of self, directness of purpose, and sim- plicity of character. Such men become household words of the nation. They create the standard by which the nation measures itself, and by which it is measured. They strike the keynote of national character. Such a man was Richard Cobden, a type of a great Englishman to Englishmen of all times, a type in his truthfulness, in his simplicity, and in his devotion to the welfare of his countrymen.

It is nearly forty years since he passed away, and in the interval much has happened. During his youth and the prime of his manhood the people were suffering under the results of the Great War. Exces- sive taxation weighed upon all classes, but more especially upon the wage-earning and poorer classes. The progress of the nation was hampered by bad laws and unwise restrictions. The condition of the poor was miserable, for employment was scarce, wages were low, and food was dear. Education was neglected, and little had been done to make the mass of the people fit for the citizenship of a great and, free country. This was the condition of the nation as Cobden knew it. He saw that improvement was impossible as long as the labouring classes were ill-fed and often unemployed, and he threw him- self with all his soul into the fight for free trade and cheap food. The tale of the fight is admirably told in Morley's life of him. As one reads it, one is struck by the tact, the resource, the vigour and statesman- ship of the man. Protection ruled in trade and agriculture, and the protected interests were to a man against him. But his chief foe was

viii

Preface ix

the agricultural interest. The great landowners were arrayed against him. The fight was long and severe, but Free Trade triumphed in the end and Cobden was the leader of the victorious party. There is no passage in the records of Parliamentary debate more striking than the oft-quoted tribute which in the hour of his triumph Sir Robert Peel paid to him.

" The name which ought to be associated with the success of our measures of commercial policy is not the name of the noble lord the organ of the party of which he is the leader, nor is it mine. The name which ought to be, and will be, associated with the success of those measures is the name of one who, acting, I believe, from pure and disinterested motives, has, with untiring energy, made appeals to our reason, and has enforced those appeals with an eloquence the more to be admired because it was unaffected and unadorned : the name which ought to be chiefly associated with the success of those measures is the name of Richard Cobden."

The verdict of posterity has confirmed the judgment of Sir Robert Peel. It has associated inseparably and for ever the name of Cobden with the great Act of 1846. Many men and many interests then con- tested and now contest th« policy of that Act, but generous opponents have never questioned the power, the energy, and the singlemindedness with which he fought the fight. Six years after the repeal of the Corn Laws an event took place which fittingly crowned his labours. In December, 1852, the Tory party, after depriving Peel of office, after opposing for six long years his policy as ruinous to the nation, and after appealing to the country to reverse that policy, hauled down their colours, and the Tory Ministers of the Crown, and the bulk of their party followed the Liberals into the lobby in order to affirm a resolution that the policy of Cobden, which they had condemned, was sound and successful, and ought to be maintained. On that occasion a follower of Peel, pointing to the Treasury Bench, exclaimed, " If you want humiliation, look there." Cobden cared little for the humiliation. It was enough for him that, an insignificant minority of some fifty ex- cepted, both parties in the House of Commons combined to affirm the great principle of which he was the champion.

It has been said that Cobden and Bright were demagogues. They were certainly leaders of the people ; but a demagogue is generally supposed to secure and maintain his power with the people by flatter- ing and cajoling them. A simple test will show whether Cobden and Bright were demagogues in this sense. In 1854 the Russian war broke out. The nation has always a warlike tendency, and when its leaders tell it fhat war is necessary, it accepts their judgment but too readily,

x Preface.

throwing itself into the struggle with vigorous and earnest resolution. In that mood neither the upper classes nor the working classes are tolerant of opposition, and statesmen, however honest and capable, if they question the passion of the hour, are heard with impatience, their warnings and remonstrances are brushed aside, and, when opportunities offer, the constituencies are not slow to punish them ; for the masses are unable to appreciate motives which appear to them unpatriotic. The result is intelligible, though not always credit- able to the common sense of the nation. No demagogue, anxious to secure popularity and power, would oppose in such circumstances the dominant mood. Cobden and Bright thought that the Government and the people were in error, and that the war was unnecessary. Careless of popularity when conscience was concerned, they boldly expressed their views in and out of Parliament, and as a consequence they lost their popularity, and when, a year or two later, they denounced the war with China arising out of the miserable affair of the lorcha Arrow, they lost their seats. Who will say now that it was not good for the nation that the warning voice should have been raised, and that honour is not due to the men who dared to raise it ? Who will say in the light of experience that they were wrong in either case ? There are few of us who lived in those days, and shared the prevailing opinion, but have more than a doubt whether in the Crimean war our money was not wasted, and, what is worse, gallant lives lost in a bad cause. We know at least that one great Tory leader, lately, alas ! taken from us, held that we put our money on the wrong horse. But be that as it may, happy is the country which has such demagogues as Cobden and Bright. Demagogues in the ordinary sense they were not. The title would fit better those who in war time use their passing popularity to inflame the national passion, and to crush opponents who do not share their views.

The cloud of distress which so long hung over the nation had begun to lift some years before Cobden died. He lived indeed to see the com- mencement of that national prosperity which marked the last third of the nineteenth century. When he commenced his campaign against Protection the value of British produce exported was rather more than £50,000,000. In 1864 it had risen to £160,000,000. In the year 1902 it had risen to £283,000,000. In 1841 one in every eleven persons of the population was in receipt of poor relief ; in 1864 one in twenty ; in 1902 only one in forty. In 1841 the deposits in Savings Banks were £24,500,000. In 1864 they had risen to £44,500,000 ; in 1900 to more than £207,000,000, besides £59,000,000 invested in Building and Provident Societies. In 1843 the total annual value of the property

Preface. xi

and profits assessed to income tax were, including an estimate for Ireland, £270,000,000. In 1864 it had risen to £370,000,000, and in 1900 to £758,000,000. Thus, in the quarter of a century from the formation of the Anti-Corn Law League, Cobden saw the result of that great movement in an increase of 200 per cent, in the export of our goods, in the diminution of pauperism by nearly a half, in the savings of the poor nearly doubled, and in the increase by 37 per cent, of the income of the well-to-do classes. Truly he might feel that, thanks in ' the main to the labours of himself and Bright, to the policy of which ' he had been the champion, the country had entered on a period of progress and prosperity. What would he have thought if his life could have been spared to the beginning of the twentieth century, and seen continued progress in our export trade, pauperism again decreased by a half, the savings of the poor increased by near 400 per cent., and the incomes of the well-to-do more than doubled ?

Two facts characterise the national mood in the latter part of the century which would have grieved Cobden to the heart — the growth of military and naval expenditure and the development of warlike spirit in the people. He thought in 1850 an expenditure on army and navy of £16,000,000 excessive, and in 1864 he thought an ex- penditure on those services of £26,000,000 still more excessive. On this point he and Bright were not singular. Many men not of the Manchester school shared their views, and in 1862 the Liberal party in Parliament insisted on reduction of expenditure, supporting Glad- stone in the Cabinet against Palmerston, and Palmerston had to yield. But if Cobden thought the expenditure of 1850 and 1864 excessive, what would he have thought of a military and naval expenditure of be- tween £70,000,000 and £80,000,000 in 1903 — a year of peace ? And how would it have added to his sorrow to learn that this enormous expen- diture is tolerated, one might say approved, by a democracy ! When Cobden died the country was ruled by the middle classes, the house-

• holder of £10 and upwards. He was earnestly in favour of a wide extension of the suffrage. Within a few years of his death house-

. hold suffrage was established, and the franchise was extended to the agricultural labourers. Thus a middle-class Government was con- verted into a democracy. The middle-class constituencies had been economical to a certain extent, though not nearly so economical as Cobden would have wished. The democracy has been, and is, lavishly extravagant. A great Tory statesman, deploring the increase of public expenditure, could only say plaintively, "Who are we that wc should stem the tide ? " — an expression of despair, perhaps, hardly worthy of the leader of a great party, but indicative of the reality, I

*" Preface.

might say the popularity, of the evil, and of the difficulty of coping with it Cobden acted consistently on principle, and we may rest assured that he would have granted the extension of the suffrage, even if he could have foreseen that the democracy would use it to their own disadvantage. He would have held that the people had a right to govern themselves, whether they used their power well or ill, but it would have sorely disappointed him to see the democracy, the working classes, whose true interest lies in public economy and low taxation, as eager as ever were the upper classes, and much more eager than the middle classes, for military glory, expansion of territory, and lavish expenditure.

The great work of Free Trade which Cobden accomplished is now wantonly assailed, and it is well that at the present crisis a new edition of his chief writings should be issued in order that men may read for themselves, and at first hand, the opinions which he held, and may learn from himself his conception of the true interests of the nation of which he was so eminently a type. " I would rather live in a country where the feeling in favour of individual liberty is jealously cherished, than be without it in the enjoyment of all the principles of the French constituted assembly." Thus spoke the true Englishman. His speeches and writings are ransacked to find pro- phecies and anticipations which have not been fulfilled, in the hope of shaking faith in the soundness of the practical policy which he did so much to establish. Let him speak for himself. I care not whether his generous belief in the virtue of mankind, in their capacity for learning the lesson of enlightened self-interest and national morality led him into hopes which have not been justified by facts. Have the pie- dictions of other great statesmen always been fulfilled ? Shortly before the Peace of Amiens, Pitt thought that he could find the means for another year of war, and that England would then be exhausted, yet England found the means for carrying on the war until 1815, though unhappily she suffered under this strain on her resources for many a long year. Was Canning correct in his bombastic prophecy that he had called into existence a new world to correct the balance of the old ? Has Palmerston's belief in the future of Turkey, which led him into the Crimean War, been justified ? Or, to take a more modern instance, what shall we say of the foresight of our modern statesmen, who shut their eyes to the warnings of their expert advisers, and went totally unpre- pared into a great war, confident that it would last a few months and cost £10,000,000 ? It lasted nearly three years and cost £250,000,000. These were grave miscalculations of the future. In three of them they were especially grave, because they concerned immediate policy, but

Preface. xiii

Cobden's hopes as to the spread of Free Trade in foreign countries, and the growth of desire for peace, did not affect his practical policy. He advocated Free Trade, as essential to the welfare and progress of the nation, irrespective of foreign tariffs or the warlike tendencies of nations. The higher foreigners built their tariff wall with a view to exclude our goods, the more resolute would he have been to demolish the wall, which a long period of Protectionist government had been erecting on this side the Channel. He wanted to give our working classes cheap food, and our manufacturers untaxed raw materials, and the incitement to skill and industry which competition affords, in order that we might continue to hold our pre-eminence in trade.

But the new Protectionists argue that circumstances have changed since 1846, and that the policy of 1846 is no longer suited to the needs of the nation. Mr. Balfour, in his recent manifesto, lays it down that we ought "to accept provisionally the view that the character of our fiscal policy should vary with varying circum- stances," and he proposes to give effect to his axiom by a total revolution in our fiscal policy, which certainly cannot be described as provisional. In face, however, of so radical a change, it is not sufficient to say merely that circumstances have changed. The burthen of proof lies with the Government. The Prime Minister must show by facts that circumstances have changed to the detriment of the nation and to an extent which justifies the revolution. Is the prosperity of the nation declining ? Let us take Mr. Balfour's evidence. "Judged by all available tests, both the total wealth and the diffused well-being of the country are greater than they ever have been. We are not only rich and prosperous in appearance, but also, I believe, in reality. I can find no evidence that we are living on our capital." So far, therefore, and on the evidence of the chief opponent of Free Trade, circumstances have not changed to the detriment of the nation. Under Free Trade the country, since 1846, has steadily advanced in prosperity. What, then, is the Prime Minister's reason for the revolution ? According to him a " close " examination of our export returns show signs of diminution, and he appends figures in support of his view, but his test is faulty. His argument applies to the volume of our exports, and his figures to their declared value. But the value is based on the prices of the years, which vary from year to year, and are therefore a faulty basis of comparison. Hence upon a superficial examination he formed a vague apprehension, and he offers this as a sufficient reason for a return to a system of retaliation so long tried, and so decidedly condemned by that most cautious and prudent of statesmen, Sir

xiv Preface.

Robert Peel. If Cobden's policy is brought to trial upon this indict- ment only, his followers need not fear the verdict.

But Cobden's forecasts were not confined to the spread of Free Trade, or the growth of desire for peace. Let us note in his writings how sound were his views, how just his prescience on most of the important questions of the day. In " England, Ireland, and America," published in 1835, and in " Russia," published in 1836, he pleaded for non-interven- tion, not only as in accordance with moral law, but as a policy essential to the true interests of this country. He saw that the great change which had been silently taking place in the development of manu- factures and in the growth of our town population made it neces- sary to review the principles of our domestic policy in order to adapt the Government to the changing condition of the people, and to alter " the maxim by which its foreign relations have in past times been regulated." He said that the policy of making food dear in order to protect the interest of one class of producers was not only unjust, but impossible. The larger part of the working classes, ill-fed and ill-paid, would not suffer for long their food to be made artificially dear by class legislation, that discontent and class war must be the result. He saw also — saw justly and saw first — " that it is from the silent and peaceful rivalry of American commerce, the growth of its manufactures, its rapid progress in internal improvement, the superior education of the people and their economical and pacific Government — that it is from these, and not from the barbarous or the im- poverishing armaments of Russia that the grandeur of our commercial and national prosperity is endangered." He added, indeed, that in less than twenty years this would be the sentiment of the people of England generally. His prophecy was somewhat too sanguine, but sixty years at all events have taught us the justice of his views as to the United States. He showed us also how to face our great antagonist, viz., by removing all obstacles to trade. The United States have a thriving and intelligent population of 80,000,000, nearly double that of the United Kingdom. They are lightly taxed, very little indebted, and incur insig- nificant charge for military and naval service. Yearly a large propor- tion of the people goes into the towns and engages in manufacturing industries, and it is at this moment, when their competition with us becomes daily more intense, that it is gravely proposed that we should fetter and impede our manufacturing and consuming powers by preferential and retaliatory duties, that we should tie up a man's leg in order to help him in running a race.

Take, again, Cobden's views as to Ireland. How, after a powerful picture of Ireland's condition, he traces the. evils which produced such

Preface. xv

results to the ignorance of England on Irish questions. How he con- demns the statesmen " who have averted their faces from this diseased member of the body politic." Listen to the following words written in 1851 : " Hitherto in Ireland the sole reliance has been on bayonets and patching. The feudal system presses upon that country in a way which, as a rule, only foreigners can understand, for we have an ingrained feudal spirit in our English character. I never spoke to a French or Italian economist who did not at once put his finger on the fact that great masses of landed property were held by the descen- dants of a conquering race, who were living abroad, and thus in a double manner perpetuating the remembrance of conquest and oppres- sion, while the natives were at the same time precluded from possessing themselves of landed property, and thus becoming interested in the peace of the country. . . . How are we to get out of this dilemma with the present House of Commons, and our representative system as it is, is the problem." The problem was not to be solved by that House of Commons or the limited representative system that then existed. The Home Rule Bill of Mr. Gladstone may be open to criticism, but im- partial history will recognise that he, with all the earnestness of his nature, forced the English nation much against its will to face the Irish questions — the question of the Irish Church, Irish self-government, and Irish land tenure. In this year of grace a Conservative Government is completing, with large aid from the British Exchequer, the revolution in the tenure of Irish land begun in 1881, and Mr. Wyndham's measure, which aims at ending this " feudal system " of land tenure, con- firms and justifies the foresight of Cobden and the policy of Glad- stone. " In Russia," published in 1836, and in " What Next and Next ?" published during the Crimean War, Cobden reproved the spirit of Russo-phobia then rampant, and rampant long afterwards ; but there are signs that thinking minds are beginning to share the views of Cobden on that the fear of Russia, which has so long haunted the nation, which plunged us into the Crimean War, the Afghanistan War, and which more recently led the Government to take a course in China which has not enhanced our reputation.

In his letter to Mr. Ashworth (April 10, 1862) Cobden urged that all private property should in time of war be exempt from capture at sea, that neutral ships ought to be exempt from search or visi- tation, and that the commercial ports of an enemy ought to be exempt from blockade. Cobden advocated these changes in international law, after his wont, because they would be of special advantage to this country. Many people are at present exercised as to the en- suring a supply of food for this country in time of war. They are

xvi Preface.

discussing clumsy and expensive remedies against this contingency. They would do well to consider Cobden's able argument in support of his proposal. This country could not under any circumstances provide {he food required for its immense population, and it must be dependent on foreign countries for the raw material of its manufactures. No country, therefore, is more interested in modifications of international law which would ensure the supply of these necessaries. It is possible that those modifications might not be respected by belligerent nations under the stress of war, but their acceptance by the Powers would impose an obligation on belligerents, which could not be repudiated without risk and without dishonour. The "Three Panics " is a power- fully-written pamphlet, both in style and matter. It is an excellent example of the manner in which Cobden seizes the weak points of a policy to which he is opposed, of the clearness and conciseness with which he exposes them, and of the skill and power with which he drives home his conclusions.

In these writings Cobden may have overrated anticipated advantages and underrated difficulties. He may have been too sanguine in some directions, he may have relied too much on the wisdom of this and other nations, and not have been sufficiently alive to the ambition of statesmen and to international jealousies ; but no fair person can fail to be struck by the general soundness of his argument, the morality of his statesmanship, and the correctness in the main of his foresight, as evidenced by the manner in which national opinion has veered in his direction. His opinion on national expenditure will be chiefly criticised. Probably he, like other persons, taught by the experience of the last forty years, would admit the necessity of a navy, sufficiently powerful according to our present knowledge, for our defence. It must indeed be remembered that he accepted the principle of that policy, though he did not accept even the standard of efficiency accepted by the statesmen of that day. On the whole, however, how just was his opinion of the national interest in public economy ! True Liberals, true Free Traders, must endorse his principles as strongly now as then, nay, more strongly, for the evil of extravagance becomes daily more evident. Conservatives, such as Lord Salisbury and Sir M. Hicks- Beach, deplore it, but have been powerless to check it. We have lost their services, and their places are occupied by the advocates of ex- travagance and Protection. Liberals know that if a nation is to be strong and contented the mass of the population must be sufficiently fed. The extravagance of peace expenditure in the last few years has necessitated a reversal of the wise policy which ruled from 1842 for forty years. The tea duty has been raised until it is nearly 100 per

Preface. xvii

cent, on the value of the article. A duty has been placed upon sugar equivalent to 50 per cent, upon its value, apart from our quixotic anxiety to lose a bounty worth to us probably another 50 per cent. The sup- posed necessity for lavish expenditure has made it necessary to seek new sources of revenue, and high financial authority has pleaded that the basis of taxation must be widened. That is to say, duties must be imposed on articles of consumption, and the poorest classes must be taxed in order to meet the ever-increasing demand for military expen- diture— a singular device for improving the physical strength and con- sequently the power of the nation. Mr. Chamberlain goes a step further, and would " widen the basis of taxation " in furtherance of a new line of policy. He wishes to tax the bread of the poor as a tribute to our prosperous fellow subjects in the self-governing Colonies, and in the hope that this contribution from the working classes at home may induce the Colonies to enter into closer confederation with us. Thus economy in public expenditure in which Cobden insisted with such earnestness is absolutely abandoned, and the Liberal learns the value of that article in his creed, when he sees the result. Military experts, policy-mongers, interested trades have only to ask in order to receive. The tub of the Danaids is a water-tight vessel compared with the exchequer. The burthen of this extravagance weighs upon all classes, but most upon the poor.

The Free Trader, on his side, sees that extravagance in public expenditure, by making new taxation necessary, has given the Pro- tectionists an opportunity of which they are not slow to avail them- selves, and it is only too likely that, if the nation does not speak out, Protection in aggravated form will be a plank in the Conservative platform. Thus the lesson which Cobden taught is brought home to Liberal and Free Trader alike, and the wisdom of his teaching is made only too clear.

Students of English may learn much from Cobden's writings. They are like his speech — clear, fearless, vigorous, but persuasive. The style was the man, the result of conviction based upon close observation and careful thought. The purity of his style is the more remarkable, since he had no advantage from education in the formation of it ; but his keen sense of beauty, his innate power of understanding excellence in art, bestowed upon him a power of appreciation such as men usually acquire by long study. How genuine, in his Italian diary, is his admiration of the great works of antiquity, and how well he expresses his admiration of them !

The two great twin brethren of Free Trade were singularly fitted for co-operation in the conduct of a crusade against vested interests

I*

xviil Preface.

and deep-rooted prejudices. Both were outspoken, both put clearly and pointedly their argument to the public, and neither of them was a respecter of persons. Bright, however, was bold and somewhat aggressive, while Cobden was bold and persuasive. Cobden, there- fore, aroused less personal antagonism ; but the English mind is conservative, and people in comfortable circumstances regard with distrust the man who attacks established interests and the existing order of things. Hence Cobden, though perhaps in a less degree than Bright, was for years misunderstood by the upper classes. A lady of Conservative principles, but generous sympathies, who is gifted with a power, rare in women, of appreciating a political opponent, was an intimate friend of Cobden. She knew the pleasure which works of art gave him, and she proposed that they should visit together a well- known collection. She asked her friend, the owner of the pictures, for permission. The lady replied that they might come and lunch, but that she herself could not meet Mr. Cobden. To thinking minds such prejudice is astonishing, but there is ittle doubt that had his life been spared he would have lived it down as Bright lived it down, and possibly more easily than Bright.

May a new edition of Cobden's writings in this hour of crisis for Free Trade find readers in every part of the kingdom. His pamphlets have lost nothing of their intrinsic value, though they were written seventy, fifty, forty years ago, and though the circumstances of the nation, and the temper of the nation, have changed greatly in the interval. The principles they inculcate, the lessons they teach, are as good and as sound now as they were then. Thoughtful readers will realise how Cobden's policy has removed causes of discontent, has promoted good understanding throughout the community, and tended to weld rich and poor into one nation. They will realise how just, and therefore how conservative, were his views, and how sound in the main was his judgment, even tried during half a century by the hard test of experience. We who are Free Traders have absolute confidence in our principle, and our belief in the great leader of the Free Trade movement is unabated.

INTRODUCTION TO THE SECOND EDITION By Sir Louis Mallet, C.B.

THE POLITICAL OPINIONS OF RICHARD COBDEN.

PREFACE.

The following paper was written for the North British Review in 1867, and has been reprinted, with a few alterations, by permission of the editor, at the request of the Committee of the Cobden Club.

I originally wrote it with reluctance, because I was conscious of my inability to do justice to its subject, but I thought that, as a contribution towards a better understanding of Cobden's political character, it might serve a useful purpose ; and in the same hope I have consented to reprint it now.

I have done so the more readily, because it is impossible not to feel that Cobden's principles are even now constantly misrepresented ; and are, in some directions, losing their hold on the public mind of England.

Is it in ignorance, or in irony, that the charge of aiming at nothing more than mere material prosperity is so often brought against the one statesman who vindicated with a peculiar wisdom the morality of Economic Science ; in other words, the veiled but eternal harmony between material progress and the highest civilisation of our race ?

Is it in deeper ignorance, or in more subtle irony, that one whose whole life was an unceasing protest against a narrow and selfish patriotism, and who will take his place in history as the " International Man," has been identified with the policy which, under the name of "non-intervention," confounds in a coarse and common condemnation, political meddling and international co-operation ?

I have said that Cobden's principles are in some directions losing their hold on the public mind. This is especially the case with respect to what we call " Free Trade ; " which, between its so-called friends and its enemies, is drifting more and more into irretrievable confusion as a principle of imperial policy.

xx The Political Opinions of Richard Cob den.

In its domestic aspect " Free Trade," or rather " Free Exchange," has been forgotten in the chorus of congratulation at the downfall of protection in its grossest form ; and in our Foreign policy, while discarding reciprocity of restrictions, we have failed to appreciate the importance of the reciprocity of freedom.

We have obtained enough Free Trade to enable our upper and middle classes to acquire more wealth than, with their present educa- tion, they can either employ wisely or spend innocently, and to stimulate unproductive consumption in vulgar luxury and wasteful charity ; but we have not obtained enough Free Trade to feed and clothe and house our people, or to inspire confidence in other countries, and to establish those international relations without which all hope of internal progress is a foolish and idle dream.

It is painful to perceive the inferiority of the political utterances of our day on social and economic questions, to those of the Anti-Corn- Law League, in grasp of principles, in command of facts, and, above all, in moral feeling.

The men who took part in the labours of the League dwell naturally more on that which they have done, than on that which we have to do ; and a generation has succeeded to a large share in our political life, which consults for the solution of our social problems far other oracles than those which inspired Cobden.

The sinister reaction set in motion by the Crimean War, fostered by the wars in China, and culminating in the Parliament of 1857, has gone far to neutralise the impulse given to our productive forces by the partial liberation of our trade, and left us with increased wealth indeed, but with a distribution of it more unequal and more unnatural than before, and with a large population, whose chronic wretchedness and degradation is a standing reproach to our civilisation, and a sullen protest against our laws. And while the cry of suffering multitudes is the morning and the evening sacrifice of our proudest cities, our Government and our people alike are calling on each other helplessly in turn for a policy of deliverance.

Can we wonder, then, that those who have been taught to believe that they are living under a Free Trade dispensation, and who have never taken the pains to compare the doctrines of its apostles with the practice of our lawgivers, should accuse it of disastrous failure ; and that while on one hand we are advised to desist from further action till, by the free play of consciousness, we have discovered an lntelligfole law of things ; on the other, we are urged to tamper with the laws, and assail the rights of labour and of property, and to revive discarded systems which are only innocent so long as they are impossible ?

The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden. xxi

But before accusing Economic Science and Free Exchange, I would ask whether, with our present laws as they affect our land, our currency, our fiscal and colonial systems, our foreign relations, and our military and naval administration, we may not rather trace our failure in civilisation to a systematic and deliberate violation of their most imperious precepts ? whether the success of what is called practical statesmanship is such as to justify its cynical contempt of principles ? and whether it is wise to condemn and discredit as ineffectual a policy which has never yet been tried ?

It is because I believe that the work of Governments lies in providing for the full and undisturbed action of the forces of freedom, instead of interfering themselves with their operation ; and that our social disorders can only be remedied by pressing along the lines of progress, laid for us by Cobden and the League ; that I view with pain and fear the morbid craving of our time after other agencies, in most of which may be detected, disguise it as we may, the germ of Communism, a fatal poison, tainting at their common source two of the most sacred springs of social life, personal liberty and personal responsibility.

June, 1869. L. M.

THE POLITICAL OPINIONS OF RICHARD COBDEN.

The time has not yet arrived for wining Cobden's life.

The great political struggles in which he engaged are still too fresh in the memory of the present generation, to admit of a faithful record of his political career, without including much which affects too closely the characters of public men still on the scene, or but recently removed from it ; and of the last great achievement of his life, and his solitary official act, the Commercial Treaty with France, it is impossible yet to speak freely.

But it is on this account only the more important — and especially at a time when upon the conduct and intelligence of the Liberal party in this country it depends, whether the years before us are to bring with them a repetition of the inconsistencies and hesitations which have too often deformed and paralysed our recent course, or are to be a fruitful and brilliant period of rational and consistent progress — that the policy of which Cobden was the foremost representative, should at least be thoroughly understood and widely known.

xxii The Political Opinions of Richard Cob den.

It is therefore with a peculiar satisfaction that we hail the work before us, and we trust it may be shortly followed by a republication of his principal speeches, both in and out of Parliament, so far as these can be collected, and if possible by a selection of his letters, on the great practical questions of the day.

In bringing together, in a connected form, these political essays, written on various subjects, on different occasions, and at wide intervals of time, but unsurpassed in cogency of reasoning, and in their truthful and temperate spirit, Mrs. Cobden has rendered a great service both to her husband's memory and to the rising generation of Englishmen.

Presented originally to the public in the ephemeral form of pamphlets, thrown out in sharp opposition to the prevailing passions and prejudices of the hour, and systematically depreciated as they were by the organs of public opinion which guide the majority of our upper classes, we suspect that they are well-nigh forgotten by the elder, and little known to the younger men among us. Yet do these scattered records of Mr. Cobden's thoughts contain a body of political doctrine more original, more profound, and more consistent, than is to be found in the spoken or written utterances of any other English statesman of our time, and we commend them to the earnest study and consideration of all who aspire to exert an influence on the future government of our country.

Whatever may be thought of his political character, it will be admitted that no man has made a deeper impression on the policy of this country during the last thirty years than Richard Cobden.

This will, we believe, be acknowledged by many of his countrymen, who would be slow to allow that the impression thus made had been for good, and who still regard him with open aversion or concealed suspicion, as one of the foremost and most powerful advocates of changes in our system of government, designed, as they believe and fear, to affect the security of vested interests, which they have been in the habit of identifying with the greatness and welfare of the State. But it cannot, we think, be denied even now that, in spite of the resistance of class interests, and of the avowed or tacit opposition of the great political parties, our national policy has been gravitating more and more in the direction of his views, and that, so far at least, whatever progress has been made in the national prosperity has been principally due to the steps which have been taken in fulfilment of his principles.

The false judgment so commonly passed upon this statesman is to be traced, we believe, in a great measure to that which constitutes his

The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden. xxiii

great and his distinguished merit, viz., his steady adherence to general principles, and his consequent freedom from class and party views, and his indifference to the popular clamour of the hour, which in turn brought him into collision with all classes and with all parties, and, on some memorable occasions, with the body of the people themselves.

It is thus that he has been constantly charged with narrowness, and with hostility to the institutions of his country, too often confounded with its conservative forces, and cherished as such by many who are entitled to our respect, as well as by the ignorant and selfish ; but it will be found that the charge is usually brought on the part of some class whose special interests he denounced or thwarted, or on the part of the nation at large, when the assumed national interest has been opposed to the larger interest of humanity. He has been accused of want of patriotism and indifference to the national honour and great- ness, when, on the contrary, a deeper examination of his views will show, we think, that he was one of the few leading statesmen of our time who have exhibited a real practical faith in the future of England.

The public estimate, however, of this political leader has undergone, and is undergoing, a very remarkable change ; and it is in the hope of aiding in a better understanding of principles which, from their soundness and close logical coherence, appear to us to afford the only consistent and intelligible ground for the policy of the Liberal party, that the following pages are written.

Mr. Cobden's political character was the result of a rare and fortu- nate combination of personal qualities and of external circumstances.

Sprung from the agricultural class, and bred up (to use his own expression) "amidst the pastoral charms of Southern England," imbued with so strong an attachment to the pursuits of his forefathers, that, as he says himself, in the volumes before us, " had we the casting of the role of all the actors on this world's stage, we do not think that we should suffer a cotton-mill or manufactory to have a place in it ; " trained in a large commercial house in London, and subsequently con- ducting on his own account a print manufactory in Lancashire, Mr. Cobden possessed the peculiar advantage of a thorough acquaintance and sympathy with the three great forms of industrial life in England. Nor were the experiences of his public career less rich and varied than those of his private life.

The first great political question in which he bore a conspicuous part, the Anti-Corn-Law agitation, and his consequent connection with the powerful producing class, which, by the fortunate coincidence of interest with that of the people at large, originated and led this great and successful struggle, gave him a thorough insight into this impor-

xxiv The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden.

tant element of our body-politic, in all its strength and in all its weak- ness ; his knowledge of other countries — the result of keen personal observation, and much travel both in Europe and America, his intimate relations with some of their best and most enlightened men, as well as with their leading politicians, and the moderating and restraining influences of twenty years of Parliamentary life, during which he conciliated the respect and esteem even of his strongest opponents, combined with the entire absence in his case of all sectarian influences and prejudices — gave to his opinions a compre- hensive and catholic character, which is perhaps the rarest of all the attributes of English statesmanship.

Mr. Cobden entered Parliament, not, as is the fate of most of our public men, to support a party, to play for office, or to educate himself for professional statesmanship, still less to gratify personal vanity or to acquire social importance, but as the representative of distinct principles, and of a great cause.

Mr. Cobden belonged to the school of political thinkers who believe in the perfect harmony of moral and economical laws, and that in proportion as these are recognised, understood, and obeyed by nations, will be their advance in all that constitutes civilisation.

He believed that the interests of the individual, the interests of the nation, and the interests of all nations are identical ; and that these several interests are all in entire and necessary concordance with the highest interests of morality. With this belief, an economic truth acquired with him the dignity and vitality of a moral law, and, instead of remaining a barren doctrine of the intellect, became a living force, to move the hearts and consciences of men. It is to a want of a clear conception of this great harmony between the moral and economic law, or to a disbelief in its existence, that are to be traced some of the most pernicious errors of modern times, and the lamentable condition of Europe at the present moment.

We believe that the main cause of the hopeless failure of the great French Revolution, in the creation and consolidation of free institutions in Europe, was the absence, on the part of its leading spirits, of all sound knowledge of the order of facts upon which economic science rests, and the prevalence of false ideas of govern- ment, derived from classical antiquity.

Rousseau, who exercised a greater influence in bringing about the Revolution than any other man, and after him Mirabeau and Robes- pierre, the two great figures which represent and personify that mighty upheaval of society, were all fundamentally wrong in their conception of the right of property. This, instead of regarding as a right pre-

The Political Opinions of Richard Cobdex. xxv

ceding all law, and lying at the root of all social existence, they considered simply as a creation of the law, which itself again derived its rights from a social compact, opposed in many respects to the natural rights of man. Society was thus made to rest upon the quick- sand of human invention, instead of being fixed on the rock of God's providence ; and law was made the source, instead of the guardian, of personal liberty and of private property.

Hence the disastrous shipwreck of a great cause, the follies and the crimes, the wild theories, the barren experiments, and the inevitable reaction. The principle invoked, the State, was stronger than those who appealed to it, and swallowed them up in a military despotism.

This false direction of ideas survived the Restoration, and when, after 1830, the intellect of France again addressed itself to social ques- tions, it was with the same result. Saint Simon, Fourrier, Louis Blanc, and Proudhon are there to attest the deep-rooted perversion of thought which has hitherto made all free government impossible in France, and brought upon her again, for the second time, the stern hand of a military ruler, who, wiser than his uncle, while setting aside for a time other forms of liberty in France, has had the sagacity to perceive that, by entering upon even a partial and tentative course of material reform, he could evoke forces which have hitherto been strong enough to maintain him on his vantage-ground, against all the political parties opposed to him, dynastic and socialist, whose common hatred to him has been rendered impotent by the only other common bond between them, viz., their still deeper hatred of some of the most sacred rights of the human race — the rights of labour and of property. And even to this day what do we see ? In spite of the terrible experience of nearly a hundred years of failure, French so-called Liberal leaders still ranged on the side of industrial monopoly and commercial privilege, and while clamouring for constitutional freedom, proving in the same breath their incapacity for using it, by denouncing that in which, at all events, the Emperor is entitled to the sympathy of the friends of progress — his commercial policy. Until the bourgeois class in Europe has learnt that no country can be free until the rights of its people are secured by free exchange, they will have to choose between the rival alterna- tions of autocratic and socialistic misrule.

The great founder of the English school of political economy, who had witnessed himself in France the disorders which preceded the Revolution, and speculated on their causes, viewed them from another side. He instinctively perceived that, as all human society must rest upon a material foundation, it was to the laws of material progress that inquiry must be first directed, and that, before and beneath all systems

xxvi The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden.

of government and all schemes of public morality, there must lie the science of the " wealth of nations." To the investigation of this science Adam Smith devoted those years of patient and conscientious thought, to which we owe the treatise which has made his name immortal, and which, in spite of much that has been added and much that has been taken from it since, remains as a great storehouse of knowledge to the students of economic laws.

It is easy, however, to trace the habitual connection in the mind of Smith, between the dry facts of science and the great social laws which alone give them life and meaning, and a belief in the steady natural gravitation of all the interests of our race towards order and moral progress.

The school of English economists who succeeded him appear to us to have too much lost sight of this necessary connection, and to have dwelt too exclusively on the phenomena of economic facts, as distinct and separate from their correlative moral consequences. To this cause, as well as to their partial and often inaccurate observation of those phenomena, we attribute the absence of adequate political results which has attended their teaching, the repugnance which their doctrines have too often excited in generous and ardent natures, and the consequent discredit of a science indispensable to the progress and prosperity of nations, and destined, perhaps more than any other branch of human knowledge, to reconcile the ways of God to man.

The mission of man in this world is to possess the earth and subdue it, and for this purpose to summon to his aid, and bring under his control, the external forces of nature. This task, hard and ungrateful at first, becomes lighter as it proceeds. Every natural force suc- cessively subdued to man's uses adds to the stock of gratuitous services which are the common possession of the race, and when the rights of property and labour are thoroughly established by universal freedom, and the services of man have thus secured their just remuneration, the inequalities which prevail in the conditions of human life, so far as they are the result of artificial, and not of natural, causes, will diminish and disappear more and more, till even the lowest classes in the social scale will be raised to a level of well-being hitherto unknown and unimagined.

The first great law of humanity is labour. " By the sweat of thy brow shalt thou eat thy bread." From this there is no escape. The burden will be lightened, and reduced to a minimum, inconceivable to us at present, as the forces of nature are brought by science and industry more under the control of man ; and it may be shifted, as it is, from the whole to a part of society, but the law remains.

The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden. xxvii

It is this law, then, the law of labour, which lies at the root of all human life. Upon this foundation rests the whole fabric of society, religion, morals, science, art, literature — all that adorns or exalts existence. But if the law of labour is thus paramount and sovereign, it follows that its rights are sacred, and that there can be no permanent security for any society in which these are not protected. The rights of labour involve and comprehend the right of personal liberty, and the right of property. The first implies the free use of each man's powers and faculties ; the second, an inalienable title to the products of his labour, in use or in exchange.

It is to the violation of the rights of labour and of property, thus identified, in all the various forms of human oppression and injustice, by force or by fraud, in defiance of law or in the name of law, that is to be traced the greatest part of the disorders and sufferings which have desolated humanity, and the unnecessary and unnatural inequali- ties in the condition of men.

It is to the assertion of these rights, and to the gradual ascendency of the opposing and equalising principles of justice and freedom, that the coming generations alone can look for a future which shall be better than the past.

" II n'y a que deux moyens," says Bastiat, " de se procurer les choses necessaires a l'embellissement, et au perfectionnement de la vie — la production et la spoliation." And again, " Propriete et spoliation, sceurs nees du meme pere, Genie du Bien, et Genie du Mai, Salut et Fleau de la Societe, Puissances qui se1 disputent depuis le commence- ment, l'empire et les destinees du monde."

These truths are of comparatively recent acceptance even in theory among us, and in practice still are far indeed from being applied. Such, moreover, is the confusion of thought, engendered by historical association, political prejudice, and class interest, that many of the forms of spoliation are hardly recognised when disguised in the garb of a British institution, a party principle, or a vested right ; in which artificial costume they still impose on the credulity of many of our countrymen.

It is true that war is generally admitted to be an evil, and slavery to be a wrong ; that the Reformation has dealt a heavy blow at theocracy, and Free Trade at monopoly.

But the spirit of war is still fostered and stimulated, by false ideas of national honour, patriotism, and policy, and to the art of war we still devote our mightest efforts, and consecrate our costliest sacrifices. The grosser forms of slavery have indeed disappeared, but its taint is still to be traced in some of our institutions, and in our feeling towards

xxviii The Political Opinions of Richard Cob den.

subject races ; while our Reformed Church, with its temporalities, and its exclusive pretensions and privileges, is still too often the enemy of the foundation of all freedom, liberty of thought.

The last, and perhaps the most insidious, of the leading forms of " spoliation," commercial monopoly, though driven from its strong- holds, and expelled from our national creed, is still regarded by many among us with secret favour, and by most of us rather as a political error than as a moral wrong.

It was to a struggle with this last great evil that Cobden devoted his life, and it is with the most decisive victory ever achieved in this field of conflict that his name and fame will be always identified ; but it is significant and interesting to know that, in selecting his work in life, it was to " Education," and not to " Free Trade," that his thoughts were first directed.

Two reasons decided him to prefer the latter as the object of his efforts : — Firstly, his conviction (referred to above) that the material prosperity of nations is the only foundation of all progress, and that if this were once secured the rest would follow. Secondly, his conscious- ness that no direct attempt to obtain a system of national education which deserved the name, could lead to any clear result in the life of his own generation, and that, measured with those at his command, imposing as were the forces of resistance arrayed against him on the question of Free Trade, they were less formidable than those which would be brought to bear against a measure which united in a common hostility the Established and the Dissenting Churches.

It was Cobden's fate or fortune to find himself, in taking up the cause of Free Trade, in the presence of one of the worst laws which the selfishness or folly of Governments have ever imposed on the weakness or ignorance of a people.

When the soil of a country is appropriated, the only means whereby an increasing population can limit the encroachments of the proprie- tors, is by working for foreign markets. Such a population has only its labour to give in exchange for its requirements, and, if this labour is constantly increasing, while the produce of the soil is stationary, more of the first will steadily and progressively be demanded, for less of the last.

This will be manifested by a fall of wages, which is, as has been well observed, the greatest of misfortunes when it is due to natural causes — the greatest of crimes when it is caused by the law.

The Corn Law was the fitting sequel to the French war. The ruling classes in England had seized on the reaction of feeling created by the excesses of the French Revolution, to conceal the meaning of that

The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden. xxix

event, and to discredit the principles of popular sovereignty which it asserted. They had before them a people impoverished and degraded by the waste of blood and treasure in which years of war had involved their country ; and seeing the prospect before them, which the peace had opened, of a fall in the prices of agricultural produce, under the beneficent operation of the great laws of exchange, they resorted to the device of prolonging by Act of Parliament the artificial scarcity created by the war, and of thus preserving to the landed interest the profits which had been gained at the expense of the nation.

It is thus that, as the forces of progress are invariably found to act and react on each other, the forces of resistance and of evil will ever be side by side, and that as protection, which means the isolation of nations, tends both by its direct and indirect effects to war, so war again engenders and perpetuates the spirit of protection. Free Trade, or as Cobden called it, the International Law of the Almighty, which means the interdependence of nations, must bring with it the surest guarantee of peace, and peace inevitably leads to freer and freer commercial intercourse ; and therefore, while there is no sadder page in the modern history of England than that which records the adoption of this law by the British Parliament, there is, to our minds, none more bright with the promise of future good than that on which was written, after thirty years of unjust and unnecessary suffering, its unconditional repeal.

But as the intellect and conscience of the country had failed so long to recognise the widespread evils of this pernicious law, and the fatal principles which lay at its roots, so did they now most dimly and imperfectly apprehend the scope and consequences of its abolition.

It was called the repeal of a law ; admitted to be the removal of an intolerable wrong ; but we doubt whether in this country, except by a few gifted and far-seeing leaders of this great campaign, it was fore- seen that it was an act which involved, in its certain results, a reversal of the whole policy of England.

This was, however, clear enough to enlightened observers in other countries. By one of those rare coincidents which sometimes exercise so powerful an influence on human affairs, it happened, that while Cobden in England was bringing to bear on the great practical questions of his time and country the principles of high morality and sound economy which had been hitherto too little considered in con- nection with each other, Frederic Bastiat was conceiving and maturing in France the system of political philosophy which has since been given to the world, and which still remains the best and most complete exposition of the views of which Cobden was the great representative

xxx The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden.

It appears to us that these two men were necessary to each other. Without Cobden, Bastiat would have lost the powerful stimulant of practical example, and the wide range of facts which the movement in England supplied, and from which he drew much of his inspiration. Without Bastiat, Cobden's policy would not have been elaborated into a system, and, beyond his own immediate coadjutors and disciples, would probably have been most imperfectly understood on the Continent of Europe.

More than this, who can say what may not have been the effect on the minds of both these men, of the interchange of thoughts and opinions which freely passed between them ?

In his brilliant history of the Anti-Corn-Law League, " Cobden et la Ligue," Bastiat thus describes the movement of which England was the theatre during that memorable struggle : —

" I have endeavoured to state with all exactness the question which is being agitated in England. I have described the field of battle, the greatness of the interests which are there being discussed, the oppos- ing forces, and the consequences of victory. I have shown, I believe, that though the heat of contest may seem to be concentrated on ques- tions of taxation, of custom-houses, of cereals, of sugar, it is, in point of fact, a question between monopoly and liberty, aristocracy and democracy — a question of equality or inequality in the distribution of the general well-being. The question at issue is to know whether legislative power and political influence shall remain in the hands of the men of rapine, or in those of the men of toil ; that is, whether they shall continue to embroil the world in troubles and deeds of violence, or sow the seeds of concord, of union, of justice, and of peace.

" What would be the thought of the historian who could believe that armed Europe, at the beginning of this century, performed, under the leadership of the most able generals, so many feats of strategy for the sole purpose of determining who should possess the narrow fields that were the scenes of the battles of Austerlitz or of Wagram ? The fate of dynasties and empires depended on those struggles. But the triumphs of force may be ephemeral ; it is not so with the triumphs of opinion. And when we see the whole of a great people, whose influence on the world is undoubted, impregnate itself with the doctrines of justice and truth ; when we see it repel the false ideas of supremacy which have so long rendered it dangerous to nations ; when we see it ready to seize the political ascendant from the hands of a greedy and turbulent oligarchy — let us beware of believing, even when its first efforts seem to bear upon economic questions, that

The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden. xxxi

greater and nobler interests are not engaged in the struggle. For if, in the midst of many lessons of iniquity, many instances of national perversity, England, this imperceptible point of our globe, has seen so many great and useful ideas take root upon her soil — if she was the cradle of the press, of trial by jury, of a representative system, of the abolition of slavery, in spite of the opposition of a powerful and pitiless oligarchy — what may not the world expect from this same England when all her moral, social, and political power shall have passed, by a slow and difficult revolution, into the hands of democracy— a revolu- tion peacefully accomplished in the minds of men under the leadership of an association which embraces in its bosom so many men whose high intellectual power and unblemished character shed so much glory on their country, and on the century in which they live ? Such a revolu- tion is no simple event, no accident, no catastrophe due to an irresistible but evanescent enthusiasm. It is, if I may use the expression, a slow social cataclysm, changing all the conditions of life and of society, the sphere in which it lives and breathes. It is justice possessing herself of power ; good sense of authority. It is the general weal, the weal of the people, of the masses, of the small and of the great, of the strong and of the weak, becoming the law of political action. It is the disappearance behind the scene of privilege, abuse, and caste-feeling, not by a palace-revolution or a street-rising, but by the progressive and general appreciation of the rights and duties of man. In a word, it is the triumph of human liberty ; it is the death of monopoly, that Proteus of a thousand forms, now conqueror, now slave-owner ; at one time lover of theocracy and feudalism, at another time assuming an industrial , a commercial, a financial, and even a philanthropic shape. Whatever disguise it might borrow, it could no longer bear the eye of public opinion, which has learned to detect it under the scarlet uniform or under the black gown, under the planter's jacket and the noble peer's embroidered robe. Liberty for all ! for every man a just and natural remuneration for his labour ! for every man a just and natural avenue to equality in proportion to his energy, his intelligence, his prudence, and his morality ! Free Trade with all the world ! Peace with all the world ! No more subjugation of new colonies, no more army, no more navy, than is necessary for the maintenance of national independence ! A radical distinction between that which is and that which is not the mission of government and law ; political association reduced to guarantee each man his liberty and safety against all unjust aggressions, whether from without or from within ; equal taxation, for the purpose of properly paying the men charged with this mission, and not to serve as a mask under the name of outlets for

xxxii The Political Opinions of Richard Con den.

trade (debouches), for outward usurpation, and, under the name of protection, for the mutual robbery of classes. Such is the real issue in England, though the field of battle may be confined to a custom-house question. But this question involves slavery in its modern form ; for as Mr. Gibson, a member of the League, has said in Parliament, ' To get possession of men that we may make them work for our own profit, or to take possession of the fruits of their labour, is equally and always slavery ; there is no difference but in the degree.' "

This passage, all due allowance made for the tendency to brilliant generalisation which Bastiat shared with so many of his gifted countrymen, remains on the whole a most powerful, condensed, and accurate analysis of the great principles involved in the political conflict then passing in England, and is a testimony to the rare insight and sagacity of the writer. It also affords a striking illustration of the power which a clear and firm grasp of principles gives to the political student, in guiding his speculations on the most complicated problems which society presents.

The system of which the Corn Laws were the corner-stone, traced to its source, rested on the principle of spoliation, and on the founda- tion of force.

That which was inaugurated by the overthrow of that law, rested on the principle of freedom, and on the foundation of justice.

Monopoly of trade, involving, as it must, the violation of rights of property and of labour, both in the internal and external relations of a State, and implying, when carried to its logical consequences, national isolation, contains within itself the germs of inevitable stagnation and decay. To avoid these results, it is necessary that a Government which maintains it should resort to all the expedients of force and fraud — to conquest, colonial aggrandisement, maritime supremacy, foreign alliances, reciprocity treaties, and communism in the shape of poor-laws — and should perpetually appeal to the worst and most con- temptible passions of its people, its national pride, to false patriotism, to jealousy, to fear, and to selfishness, in order to keep alive its prestige and to conceal its rottenness.

We are far from imputing the marvellous skill which the ruling classes in England displayed in the use of these expedients to a conscious and deliberate policy. We know that good and able men, and an honest though misguided patriotism, have been too often the blind instruments of the retributive justice which always avenges the violation of moral principles ; but there was a point beyond which even these expedients would not suffice to arrest the national decay, and with a debt of £800,000,000, an impoverished starving people,

The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden. xxxiii

the universal distrust, and the avowed or concealed hostility of foreign nations, who had imitated our policy too closely, while growing communities of our own blood, with boundless material resources and free institutions, were outstripping us in the race of progress, and making the future competition of force impossible, a state of things had been engendered which called for prompt and vigorous remedy.

To Cobden, and his colleagues of the League, belongs the merit of having traced the disease to its source, of having stayed the progress of the poison which was slowly, but surely, undermining our national greatness, and of changing the current of English policy.

Mr. Bright has recently told us the occasion, and the manner, of Cobden's invitation to him to join him in this beneficent work.

At a moment of supreme domestic calamity, Cobden called on him and said, " Do not allow this grief, great as it is, to weigh you down too much. There are at this moment, in thousands of homes of this country, wives and children who are dying of hunger, of hunger made by the laws ; if you will come along with me, we will never rest until we have got rid of the Corn Laws." The appeal was not made in vain, and we know with what results.

But the repeal of the Corn Laws, the false idea, of isolated progress was for ever dispelled, our foreign trade became a condition of out existence, and the great law of international co-operation assumed its rightful place as the animating principle of our future course.

But though the edifice of protection was shaken at the base, and the fabric irrevocally doomed to destruction, the work was only begun : the ideas which the system had created had taken too deep root in the minds of the governing classes, and the forces of reaction were still too powerful to allow of speedy or logical progress.

The gradual breaking-up of the protective system after the repeal of the Corn Laws was a work which must in any case have proceeded, under the pressure of the irresistible force of circumstances ; but we think that justice has never been done to the Government of Lord John Russell, and his colleagues Lord Grey and Mr. Labouchere, in this respect.

The equalisation of the Sugar Duties, the repeal of the Navigation Laws, the reform of our " Colonial System," were all accomplished by this administration, and few indeed have been the Governments of England which can point to such substantial services as these in the cause of progress. This course of useful domestic reform was, however, rudely interrupted by one of those events which ought to teach us the hopelessness of all permanent progress by isolated action, and the absolute necessity of always considering our position as a member of the comity of nations. The Crimean War brought

xxxiv The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden.

once more into life and activity all the elements of the national character, the most opposed to the silent and beneficent forces of moral and material progress, fatally arrested the agencies of peace which the Anti-Corn-League had set in motion, and has gone far to deprive us of the fruits of the great reforms which those agencies had effected. In looking back, it is impossible not to feel how different might have been our recent history, but for the mysterious dispensation, under which one great Minister died too soon, while another ruled too long, and which removed from us, at a time when his influence was too much needed, the wise Prince who had, we believe, learned to value Cobden, as Cobden had learned, we know, to respect and appreciate him.

We all remember the long parliamentary duel between Peel and Cobden, by which the great struggle of the two contending principles of privilege and freedom was brought to a final issue ; the impressive advocacy and the imposing fallacies of the powerful Minister ; " the unadorned eloquence " and the pitiless logic of the tribune of the people ; and some of us remember how Cobden, as he watched night after night his great antagonist, writhing under his unanswerable arguments, saw by the workings of his face, long before his public avowal, that reason and conscience had done their work, and that the victory was won.

But there was a moment when, unnerved by Drummond's tragic death, and stung by the intention which he attributed to Cobden of wishing to fasten upon him individually the responsibility of further resistance, he referred to some expressions in speeches at conferences of the League in a way which made a deep impression at the time, and which Cobden could not easily forget. He lived, indeed, to make a full reparation, by the generous tribute which he paid to Cobden's services, in his memorable speech on quitting office for ever, in words which have often been repeated, and which it is well again to repeat —

" I said before, and I said truly, that, in proposing our measures of commercial policy, I had no wish to deprive others of the credit justly due to them. I must say with reference to honourable gentlemen opposite, as I say with reference to ourselves, that neither of us is the party which is justly entitled to the credit of them. There has been a combination of parties, generally opposed to each other, and that com- bination, and the influence of Government, have led to their ultimate success ; but the name which ought to be associated with the success of those measures is not the name of the noble lord, the organ of the party of which he is the leader, nor is it mine. The name which ought to be, and will be, associated with the success of those measures,

The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden. xxxv

is the name of one who, acting, I believe, from pure and disinterested motives, and with untiring energy, made appeals to our reason, and has enforced those appeals with an eloquence the more to be admired because it was unaffected and unadorned — the name which ought to be chiefly associated with the success of those measures is the name of Richard Cobden."

It was, however, we believe, the fact that, in spite of this public testimony, no private intercourse took place at that time between them, and that Peel retired from office, with the execration of his party, and the gratitude of his country, and Cobden entered on his international work, in mutual silence.

But later, when Cobden had returned to the House of Commons, and was standing one day behind the Speaker's chair, Peel rose from his seat, and came towards him, and said to him, holding out his hand, " Mr. Cobden, the time has come, I think, for you and me to be friends."

And still later, amidst the throng of anxious inquirers, who, in those long days of June, besieged Whitehall, and lingered round the doors of the dying statesman, there was no sincerer sorrower than the leader of the League.

The Royal Commission which, under Prince Albert's auspices, organised the first great Exhibition, had brought together at last, in a common and international work, the three men who seem to us to have been eminently designed to co-operate for the public good, and we cannot doubt that, if the lives of Prince and Minister had been spared a few years longer, and Peel had returned to office in 1852, he would have received the cordial support of Cobden, either in or out of office. But this was not to be ; and in 1846, on the occasion of the repeal, to make Cobden Minister would have been an act of political justice and wisdom for which the times were not ripe, while to accept the subordinate office which was offered him, from men who had so recently, and so reluctantly, espoused his views on Free Trade, and who so imperfectly apprehended or accepted its ulterior consequences, would have fatally compromised his future usefulness.

He knew that there were several necessary measures which the general intelligence of the Liberal party would immediately force upon the Parliament, and his work at this moment lay in another direction. He had been the chief instrument in giving the death-blow to a mighty monopoly, in redressing a grievous wrong, and in giving food to suffering millions at home. His services as an Englishman being thus far accomplished, he entered upon his mission as an "international man."

xxxvi The Political Opinions of Richard Codden.

He knew, and had measured accurately, the obstacles presented by the laws of other countries, often the too faithful reflection of our own, to the fulfilment of the grand aim of his life, the binding together of the nations of the earth by the material bonds which are the necessary and only preparation for their moral union. These laws had raised around us innumerable barriers to intercourse, and as many stumbling-blocks in the way of peace.

In a tour through Europe, which often resembled a triumphal progress, he was everywhere received with interest and attention ; but the sudden recantation of a policy, bound up with all the traditions of England, was open to too much suspicion to inspire confidence, and he was obliged to be content with sowing the seeds of much which has since borne fruit, and with inspiring new zeal and hope in the minds of the good and enlightened men who, in each centre which he visited, were labouring in the cause.

No stronger proof can be afforded of the fundamental misconception of Cobden's political character which had prevailed in England than the judgments and criticisms which it was the custom to pass upon him with reference to the class of questions to which he addressed him- self on his return to public life at home.

It seems to have been expected that he would have exclusively devoted himself to commercial questions, and when it was found that he proceeded to attack systematically our foreign policy, our system of government in India, our national expenditure, our military and naval administration, and our maritime laws, he was accused of going beyond his province, and discredited as an enthusiast incapable of dealing with the great mysteries of statecraft.

Those who used this language either knew too well, or not at all, that Cobden aimed at something very different and very much deeper than mere commercial reforms.

In each and all of these he took, as was natural, a sincere and consis- tent interest, but he knew, unless aided and consolidated by collateral measures, that incalculable as would be the results to the wealth and prosperity of the country, fhey would not suffice to raise the lower classes of this country from their condition of moral and material degradation, and thus to rescue England from the reproach of failure in the highest ends of civilisation, and to assure for her a permanent place in the front rank of nations.

It was, therefore, that, instead of entangling himself in the snares of office, and devoting his time to the details of practical legislation, he undertook the harder and more ungrateful, but far nobler office, of endeavouring to open the eyes of his countrymen to the necessity

The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden. xxxvii

under which they lay of preparing for fundamental changes in many of the essential principles upon which our national policy had previously been conducted, in its three great divisions— Foreign, Colonial, and Domestic.

Cobden saw clearly that, unless our system of government, in all its branches, were adapted to the altered conditions of our national existence, not only would our commercial reforms be shorn of their most valuable and complete results in the elevation of the masses of the people, but that we should also incur the risk of very serious dangers. Nothing is so fatal to success in the life of individuals or of nations as a confusion of principles in action.

Under the system of monopoly, it was logical enough to keep alive the chimaera of the balance of power, to seek, in foreign alliances and artificial combinations of force, the security which we could not hope to derive from legitimate and natural causes. In the government of our foreign possessions, it was logical to annex provinces and extend our empire, and by the display of force and the arts of diplomacy to coerce and despoil ; and for both these purposes, it was necessary to maintain costly and imposing forces by sea and land, and to cast on the people the burden of a proportionate taxation.

By means such as these we might have prolonged, for two or three generations, a false and hollow supremacy, and warded off for a while the inevitable doom which awaits all false principles.

But with a policy of free exchange, these things are not only incon- sistent, they are dangerous.

They are inconsistent, because a policy of Free Trade rests on the principle that the interests of all nations lie in union and not in opposition ; that co-operation and not competition, international inter- dependence and not national independence, are the highest end and object of civilisation, and that, therefore, peace, and not war, is the natural and normal condition of civilised communities in their relation to each other.

They are dangerous, because a country which is unable to feed its own population without its foreign trade, and of whose prosperity, and even existence, peace is thus a necessary condition, cannot afford, without tremendous risks, to encounter the hazards of war with powerful enemies. If such a country trusts to the law of force, by that law will it be judged, and the result must be crushing failure, disaster, and ultimate defeat. There were those who clearly foresaw and apprehended this, and deprecated the repeal of the Corn Law accord- ingly, but who did not perceive that the alternative was an inadequate supply of food for a third of our population.

xxxviii The Political Opinions of Richard Codden.

From this point of view, the "balance of power" can only be sought in the free development of the natural forces, whether of morality, intelligence, or material wealth, residing in the different countries of the earth, and the balance will always be held (to use the expression of William III., in his address to Parliament, quoted by Mr. Cobden in his paper on *' Russia "), so far as any one State can pretend to do so, by the country which, in proportion to its powers, has economised its material resources to the highest point, and acquired the highest degree of moral ascendency by an honest and consistent allegiance to the laws of morality in its domestic policy and in its foreign relations.

The acquisition of colonies and territories, formerly required to afford new fields for monopoly, and defended on the plea that outlets were necessary for our trade, while our ports were closed to our nearest and richest neighbours, appeared in its true light as a waste of national influence, and a costly and useless perversion of national wealth, when all the countries of the earth became our customers, and England the metropolitan entrepot of the world.

Large standing armies and navies, with their necessary accompani- ment of heavy, and because heavy, unequal, and indirect taxation, are only rational in countries which are constantly liable to war, and cannot therefore be equally required under a system which relies on moral influence and on international justice, as under one which depends on force and monopoly.

To summon into existence a principle, which in all human relations shall assert the right of property, in mind and in matter, in thought and in labour, and to secure this right on its only true foundation — the universal rule of justice and freedom — is to evoke a force which is destined to root up and destroy the seeds of discord and division among men ; to bind up the nations of the earth in a vast federation of interests ; and to bring the disorders and conflicting passions of society under the domain of law.

To promote all the agencies through which this force can act, and to repress all those which oppose its progress and neutralise its opera- tion, and for this purpose to analyse and expose to view these several agencies, both in their causes and in their effects, eternally acting and reacting on each other, was the task which Cobden set himself to accomplish.

It was inevitable, with these objects in view, that Cobden was often obliged to raise discussion upon questions which, to ordinary minds, appeared somewhat chimerical and to propose measures which were in the nature of things premature ; that he should give to many the

The Political Opinions of Richard Codden. xxxix

impression of wasting his strength on matters which could not be brought to an immediate practical issue, and in the agitation of which he could not hope for direct success.

It will be found, however, that although there often existed no possibility of realising or applying his projects at the time of their enunciation, these were always themselves of an essentially practical character, and inseparably connected with each other ; and that, although presented as occasion served, from time to time, and as the nature of his mission required, in a fragmentary and separate form , they each and all formed the component parts of a policy coherent and complete, and destined, we trust, to a gradual but ultimate fulfilment.

In characterising this policy as complete, one exception must be made.

There was one branch of the national economy on which Cobden's views were not, at least, in his earlier years, in accordance with what appears to us sound scientific doctrine. We refer to the laws for the regulation of a paper currency.

In his evidence before the Committee of the House of Commons on Banks of Issue, 1840, he virtually adheres to the main principle of the Bank Act of 1844, and advocates the limitation of all paper issues unrepresented by a corresponding amount of gold to a fixed amount issuable on securities. This view arises, we think, from our imperfect apprehension of the nature and functions of credit, and of the law of value. We cannot but think, therefore, that if Cobden retained it in his later years it must be attributed to the absorbing character of his practical labours, which precluded the possibility of a deeper and more scientific investigation of a subject confessedly among the most complex problems in the range of economic speculation.

The programme which Cobden appears to have set before him in the construction of a policy embraced the following objects : —

1. Complete freedom of trade throughout the British Empire with all the world, exclusive for the present (as a practical necessity) of restrictions indispensably requisite for fiscal purposes.

2. The final and unqualified abandonment of a policy of conquest and territorial aggrandisement in every quarter of the world.

3. The adoption of the general principles of non-intcrvenlion and arbitration in our foreign policy, publicity in all the transactions of diplomacy, and the renunciation of all ideas of national preponderance and supremacy.

4. The reduction of military and naval forces by international co- operation.

5. A large reduction of taxation.

6. A reform in the laws affecting land.

xl The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden.

7. Freedom of the press from all taxes, happily stigmatised by Mr Milner Gibson as taxes on knowledge.

8. A reform of maritime law.

We do not include in this programme the two great measures of National Education and Parliamentary Reform because, although essential to the progress and security of government, and as such of course enlisting Cobden's sympathy, they are, after all, the means and not the end of good government ; and we are disposed to think that he felt that his peculiar powers could be more usefully devoted to the assertion of the principles on which governments should be conducted than to the construction of the machinery out of which they should be elaborated. We will endeavour to give briefly an outline of what appear to have been Cobden's views on the leading divisions of national policy which the foregoing programme was designed to affect. We have said that the central idea of the national policy represented by Cobden was " Free Exchange " in the most compre- hensive meaning of that term as the necessary complement of personal freedom, and the full assertion of the rights of property and labour. The realisation of this idea logically involves all the consequences which Cobden aimed at promoting by direct or indirect efforts.

Foreign Policy. — In the field of foreign policy these consequences were immediate and obvious. The principle of foreign policy under a system of monopoly is national independence — in other words, " isolation ; " under that of free exchange it is international inter- dependence. We have already observed upon the bearing of this latter principle on the doctrine of the balance of power, and pointed out the fundamental difference between a policy which proceeds on principles of international morality, and appeals to the common interests of all nations of the earth, and one which rests on ideas of national supremacy and rivalry. But in the practical application of the Free Trade foreign policy, there has been so much misunderstanding of Cobden's views, and, as we think, so much confusion of thought even among advanced Liberals that a few further remarks may be useful. This policy is ordinarily characterised by the name of non- intervention. In some respects this designation has been an un- fortunate one. It has given colour to the idea that what was desired was a blind and selfish indifference to the affairs of other countries, and a sort of moral isolation, as foreign to the principle of inter- national interdependence as It is impossible in connection with increased material intercourse.

Cobden never, so far as we are aware, advanced or held the opinion that wars other than those undertaken for self-defence were in all cases wrong or inexpedient.

The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden. xli

The question, as we apprehend it, was with him one of relative duties. It is clear that the duty and wisdom of entering upon a war, even in defence of the most righteous cause, must be measured by our know- ledge and by our power ; but, even where our knowledge is complete and our power sufficient, it is necessary that, in undertaking such a war, we should be satisfied that, in doing so, we are not neglecting and putting it out of our reach, to fulfil more sacred and more impera- tive duties.

The cases are rare in the quarrels of other nations, still rarer in their internal dissensions, in which our knowledge of their causes and con- ditions, and our power of enforcing the right, and assuring its success, in any degree justifies us in armed interference — the last resort in the failure of human justice.

But even if these difficult conditions of our justification in such a war were satisfied, the cases must be rare indeed in which, with a population of which so large a part is barely receiving the means of decent existence, and another part is supported by public charity at the expense of the rest, and at a charge of nearly ^10,000,000 per annum, this country would be justified in imposing on our labouring classes (on whom, be it remembered, the burden must chiefly fall) the cost of obtaining for another people a degree of freedom or a measure of justice which they have so imperfectly secured for themselves.

Such a course is certainly not defensible unless the people have a far larger share in the government of their country than they possessed during Cobden's life in England.

When we add to these considerations the singular inaptitude of the governing classes of this country to comprehend foreign affairs, the extraordinary errors which are usually to be observed in their judg- ments and opinions on foreign questions, and the dangerous liability to abuse in the hands of any government, of the doctrine of " Blood and Iron," even if it be sometimes invoked in a just cause, we shall, we think (without asserting that it must be inflexibly enforced), acknow- ledge the sober wisdom of Cobden's opinion, that, for all practical purposes, at least for this generation, the principle of non-intervention should be made, as far as general principles can be applied to such questions, the rule of our foreign policy.

Let those who sneer at what they consider a sordid and ungenerous view, reflect on the history of the past, and ask themselves what is to be the hope of humanity if the motives which have hitherto regulated the policy of our country are in future to determine the intercourse of nations.

Let them look back upon the great French war, not as it is interpreted

xlii The Political Opinions of Richard Codden.

by Cobden in his most instructive paper in the work before us, but read by the light of those teachers of history who see in it a proud record of England's glory and power in vindicating the liberties of mankind, and satisfy their conscience, if they can, of the righteousness of a cause which required the aid of Holy Alliances, the legions of despots, and a campaign which terminated in the Congress of Vienna, and which ended in the suffocation of popular rights for half a century, the enactment of the English Corn Law and all that it represents, and a condition of Europe which even now almost precludes the hope of real civilisation.

Colonial Policy. — There is no branch of the national economy in which the neglect of Cobden's principles has led to more glaring and lamentable results than in that between the mother country and what are called its " foreign possessions." The inability even of the Government which was borne to power on the shoulders of the Anti- Corn-Law League to apprehend the scope and importance of Free Trade is in no direction more strikingly manifested than in the colonial policy.

Would it not have been possible, when the right of self-government was conferred upon our colonial possessions, to have stipulated, as a necessary condition, and as a great and fundamental rule of imperial policy, the complete absence of protection throughout the dominions of the Crown ?

Instead of this, the most confused idea prevailed, and still prevails, as to the limits of colonial self-government in adopting a commercial policy, opposed to the principles and interests of the mother country.

The colonies have been allowed to impose protective duties on British manufactures, and of those of foreign countries ; but they are not allowed to discriminate between the two. They are allowed to protect : would they be allowed to prohibit ? for it must be remem- bered that protection, so far as it restricts a trade, is nothing more nor less than prohibition to that extent ; and if not to prohibit, where is the line to be drawn, at duties of 20, or 30, or 50, or 100 per cent. ?

Again, the colonies are allowed to tax and restrict our trade, but are compelled to give perfect freedom to our ships, both in their foreign and coasting trades, and then, as if to destroy and efface all trace and remnant of principle in our policy, they are compelled to admit foreign ships in their foreign trade, but allowed to exclude them from their coasting trade (thus violating the rule of equality between British and foreign trade laid down with respect to goods), but are not allowed to admit them to that trade on less favourable terms than British ships : in other words, they are allowed to inflict the greater, but not the less, injustice !

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Can any conceivable confusion be more hopelessly confounded ?

Does self-government apply to trade and not to shipping ? Does it apply to a coast trade and not to a foreign trade ? And is it not out of place to talk of self-government at all, as a principle, when every Colonial Act must be sanctioned by the Crown before it becomes law ?

The truth is that we have here another instance of the evil effects of a displacement or dislocation of responsibility. ,

It is clear that the right of absolute self-government involves the corresponding duty of self-support and self-defence ; and as the colonies are far from having undertaken the latter, it is surely not too much to call them to admit such a degree of interference with their self-government as imperial interests require.

It is estimated that the military and naval expenses borne for the colonies by the mother country amount to £6,000,000 a year — more than the revenue derived from our sugar duties ! If such sacrifices as these are imposed on the British taxpayer, has he not a right to be allowed to trade on equal terms with his colonial fellow-subjects ? Cobden never lost an opportunity of protesting against this last misap- propriation of the money of the old country, and of exposing the secret connection of this feature in our policy, with the perpetuation of pretexts for increased armaments.

But to return to our commercial policy. Has a colonial Minister ever asked himself what is the difference between entering into a com- pact with a foreign Government for the regulation of international trade, and entering into a similar compact with a colonial government ? Does the fact that the first would probably be recorded in a treaty and the second in an Act of Parliament affect the essence of the agreement, and render the one a legitimate and the other an illegiti- mate form of international action ? If so, it would be better that our colonies should become in reality, as well as in name, "foreign pos- sessions," so that we might than be allowed to treat with them.

It is painful to think of the contrast between our present position and prospects as a nation, and that which it might have presented, had the foundations of our colonial empire been laid broad and deep in commercial freedom. Is it yet too late ? Is no effort yet possible towards such a consummation ?

Eastern Policy. — The British rule in India was to Cobden a subject of the deepest anxiety and apprehension. His paper in the present volumes entitled, "How Wars are got up in India," is an honest and indignant criticism upon an episode in our Indian history which has only too many parallels, and gives expression to one of his strongest convictions, viz., the retribution which one day awaits the lust of power

xliv The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden.

and of territorial aggrandizement, and the utter disregard of morality so often exhibited in our dealings with the races of this great dependency. But in our Eastern policy much progress has been made since Cobden's time, and we have seen, we trust, the dawn of a better day in the administration of Lord Lawrence in India, and in the policy of Sir F. Bruce at Pekin.

Reduction of Military and Naval Expenditure. — The changes advo- cated by Cobden in our foreign and colonial policy necessarily involved a large reduction in our military and naval establishments, and to this object his most strenuous efforts were constantly directed; but here the difficulties which he had to encounter were enormous, and the Crimean War and its results throughout Europe have rendered all attempts at reform in this branch of our national economy hitherto unavailing.

In attacking our "Services" he not only had to contend against powerful interests connected with almost all the families of the upper and middle classes of the country, but also against many honest, though mistaken, opinions, as to the causes of national greatness and the sources of our power. It was the widespread prevalence of such opinions, combined with the selfish influence of the worst element in British commerce, which led, on the occasion of the Chinese War in 1857, to the rejection of Cobden by the West Riding, and of Bright and Gibson by Manchester. The class of ideas symbolised by the " British Lion," the " Sceptre of Britannia," and the " Civis Romanus," irrational and vulgar as they are, have nevertheless a side which is not altogether ignoble, and are of a nature which it requires more than one generation to eradicate.

Cobden approached this question of reduction by two different roads. He endeavoured to bring to bear upon it international action, by ar- rangements for a general limitation of armaments, in which, as regards France, there appeared more than once some possibility of success, and in which he was cordially supported by Bastiat in the years suc- ceeding the repeal of the Corn Laws ; he also sought, by every means in his power, to urge it on his countrymen, by appeals to their good sense and self-respect. He exposed, firstly, our policy ; and secondly, our administration ; and showed, with irresistible arguments, that, while the one was unsound, the other was extravagant; and that thus the British people were condemned, not only to provide for what was use- less and even dangerous, but at the same time to pay an excessive price for it.

He tells us in his article on Russia, vol. i. p. 309 —

" If that which constitutes cowardice in individuals, viz., the taking excessive precautions against danger, merits the same designation

The Political Opinions of Richard Cob den. xlv

When practised by communities, then England certainly must rank as the greatest poltroon among nations."

It is incontestable that the extent of our precautions against danger should be proportioned to the degree of that danger, and it cannot, we think, be denied, even by those who are the most disposed to connect the greatness and security of England with the constant display of physical force, that as our liability to war has diminished, our preparations for it should also diminish ; and that it is as irrational to devote to our " Services " in a period of " Free Trade," colonial self-government, and non-intervention, the sums which were wrung from our industry in an epoch of monopoly, of colonial servitude, and of a " spirited foreign policy," as it would be to pay the same insurance on a healthy as on a diseased life.

For what are the causes (under her own control) which render a country liable to war ?

They may, for present purposes, be classed under the following heads : —

1. The disposition to engage in wars of conquest or aggression.

2. The necessity of maintaining, for the purpose of repressing liberty at home, large standing armies, which a Government may be com- pelled to employ in foreign wars, either to gratify the military spirit engendered by the existence of a powerful service, or to divert public attention from domestic reforms.

3. The habitual violation of the rights of labour and property in international relations, by prohibitive and protective laws of trade.

4. The policy of providing outlets for trade, and of introducing what are called the agencies of civilisation, by means of consuls and missionaries, supported by gunboats and breech-loaders.

5. The pretension of holding the balance of power, and of inter- fering, with this object, in the affairs of other nations, with its result, the theory of armed diplomacy, which aims, by a display of force, at securing for a country what is assumed to be its due influence in foreign affairs.

All these motives would be absolutely removed under a system of government such as that which Cobden advocated, and even now, they are, we believe, very generally discredited, with the exception, perhaps, of the last, which must, however, be so cut down and modified in order to be a pretext for military armaments, as to lose its general character, and to require re-statement. The doctrine of the " balance of power " is, we hope, consigned to the limbo of exploded fallacies, with the " balance of trade," and we refer any remaining believers in the balancing system to the history and analysis of this phenomenon, in the

xlvi The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden.

essay on Russia in the work before us, as we think it cannot fail to dispel any lingering faith in this delusion.

With the rejection of the doctrines of the " balance of power," a fruitful source of dangerous meddling in the affairs of foreign countries has been cut away. There only remains, therefore, the limited form of armed interference in foreign affairs to which we have already adverted, and which it is still thought by many among us, and even by a large section of the Liberal party we should be prepared to exert in certain events, and for which, if the principle be admitted, some allowance must be made in estimating the extent of our military and naval requirements.

We refer to the supposed duty of England to resort to war in possible cases for the purpose of defending the principles of free government or international law, or of protecting a foreign country from wanton or unjust aggression. On this subject we have already stated what we believe to have been Cobden's view ; but, whatever margin may be left for this consideration, it must be admitted by candid reasoners, that the liability of the country to war under a policy such as that of which the general outlines have been traced, would be reduced within narrow proportions.

Cobden was often blamed for not devoting more time and labour to the task of minute resistance to the "Estimates" in the House of Commons. This was the result of his perfect conviction, after years of experience and observation, that such a course was absolutely useless, and that no private member, however able or courageous, could cope in detail with the resources at the disposal of Government in evading exposure and resisting reductions. He therefore always insisted that the only course was to strike at the root of the evil, by diminishing the revenue and the expenditure in the gross.

Taxation. — This brings us to our next topic, which is inextricably bound up with the last, viz., the reduction of the national expenditure, and the consequent diminution of taxation, objects the importance of which is becoming yearly more vital. Cobden knew that no material reform in our financial system could be effected (for all that has been hitherto done has been to shift the burden, and not to diminish it) until our external policy was changed, and hence his incessant efforts in this direction ; but he also knew that the surest method of accomplishing the latter object was to diminish the resources at the disposal of Government for military and naval purposes.

The first object in financial reform was, therefore, in Cobden's opinion, the gradual remission of indirect taxation.

In a letter to the "Liverpool Association" he made use of the

The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden. xlvii

remarkable expression that he considered them to be the only body of men in the country who appeared to have any faith in the future of humanity.

His objects were threefold, and they are to our mind conclusive : —

" i. The dangerous facilities which they afford for extravagant and excessive expenditure, by reason of their imperceptibility in collection, and of the consequent readiness of the people to submit to them, and also of the impossibility of insuring a close and honest adaptation of the revenue to the expenditure.

" 2. Their interference with the great law of free exchange, one of the rights of property, and (so far as customs duties are concerned) the violation of international equity which they involve ; for it is obvious that the conditions of international trade are essentially affected by taxes on imports and exports, and it is impossible to apportion them so as to insure that each country shall pay neither more nor less than its own due share.

"3. The enhancement of the cost of the taxed article to the con- sumer, over and above the amount of the tax."

The root of the evil may again be traced to the infringement in the case of indirect taxes, of the great law of " free exchange of services, freely debated." A tax is nothing more than a service contributed to the State by the people, in return for a corresponding service rendered to the people by the State. The great object, therefore, in imposing a tax should be to connect it as closely as possible with the service for which it is required, and to facilitate as far as possible a close compari- son between the two. The superiority of a direct tax, like the income- tax and the poor-rate, over taxes on consumption and on trade, from this point of view, is apparent ; but such is the distorted view of large classes in the country on this subject, that they consider what we have characterised as the great vice of indirect taxation, as its chief and distinguishing merit, and that the supreme art of government consists in extracting from the pockets of the people, by a sort of " hocus pocus," the largest possible amount of money without their knowing it.

Do those who with so much naivete repeat this argument whenever this question is discussed, ever reflect, that to drug the taxpayer before he pays his money will in no degree diminish the evil to a country, of excessive taxation, and that ignorance and irresponsibility are not the best securities for an efficient and conscientious administration of out- public affairs ?

If it be objected that indirect taxation is the only method by which the masses of the people can be made to contribute their share to the revenues of the State, we reply, that if the condition, of the masses

xlviii The Political Opinions of Richard Codden.

of the people in any country is such as to place them beyond the reach of direct taxation, it is the surest proof that the whole national economy is out of joint, and that, in some form or other, resort will be had to "communism." In England we have too clear and disastrous evidence of this in our Poor Law system, and in our reckless and prodigal alms- giving. In withholding from our children the bread of justice, we have given them the stone of enforced and sapless charity.

We hail, therefore, with pleasure the movement which is beginning in Germany and Belgium, in favour of a gradual abolition of all customs duties ; and are convinced that there is none, perhaps, among all the articles of the Liberal creed which, both in its direct and in- direct effects, contains the promise of so much future good.

The fulfilment of this policy should, we think, be rigorously exacted from every Liberal Government, till no tax of customs or excise remain upon the statute-book, save those on tobacco and spirits, which our heritage of debt has placed it beyond the pale of hope to remove by any scheme of practical and proximate reform.

Land. — Cobden held that the growing accumulation, in the hands of fewer and fewer proprietors, of the soil of the country, was a great political, social, and economical evil, and as this tendency is un- questionably stimulated by the system of our government, and some of our laws, which give it an artificial value, he foresaw that one of the principal tasks of the generation which succeeded him, must be to liberate the land from all the unnecessary obstacles which impede its acquisition and natural distribution, and to place it under the undisturbed control of the economic law.

We cannot here attempt to enter upon a due examination of the causes which in this country neutralise and subvert this law in the case of landed property, but the general principle involved may be very shortly suggested.

The more abundant the supply of land in a country, the cheaper, cceteris paribus, will it be, the larger will be the return to the capital and labour expended on it, and the greater the profits to be divided between them.

It is obvious that laws which keep land out of the market — laws of entail, laws of settlement, difficulties of transfer, as well as a system of government which gives to the possession of land an artificial value, for social or political purposes, over and above its natural commercial value — must have the inevitable effect of restricting the quantity, of enhancing the price, and of diminishing the product to be obtained. Land thus acquires a monopoly price, small capitals are deterred from this form of investment, competition is restricted, production is

The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden. xlix

diminished, and the condition of those who live by the land, as well as of those who exchange the produce of their labour for the produce of the land, is necessarily impaired.

To illustrate our meaning by an extreme case : let us suppose that the State were to connect with property in land the highest titles and privileges, on the condition that it was entirely diverted from all pro- ductive uses, and kept solely for purposes of ornament and sport, and that the honours and advantages so conferred were sufficiently tempt- ing to induce many persons to accept these conditions. It must follow that the stock of available land in such a country would be diminished to whatever extent it was so appropriated, and its material resources proportionately reduced.

In a less degree, who can deny that these causes are operating among us, and are a source of incalculable loss and waste of the national wealth ? The suggestion last year that our coal-beds would be exhausted in one hundred years, almost startled Parliament from its propriety. Yet we acquiesce year after year, without a murmur, in a curtailment of our supply of land, and those who warn us of our danger are denounced as the agents of revolution.

In his speech at Rochdale, in November, 1864, which was his last public utterance, Cobden especially left this task as a legacy to the younger men among us, and told them that they could do more for their country in liberating the land than had been achieved for it in the liberation of its trade.

Maritime Laws. — On the question of " Maritime law," it is well known that he advocated the largest extension of the rights of neutrals, and the greatest possible limitation of the rights of belligerents, as a necessary and logical accompaniment of a Free Trade policy.

His views on this subject will be seen from a letter addressed to Mr. H. Ashworth, in 1862, in which he recommends the following three reforms : —

1. Exemption of private property from capture at sea during war by armed vessels of every kind.

2. Blockades to be restricted to naval arsenals, and to towns besieged at the same time by land, except as regards contraband ot war.

3. The merchant ships of neutrals on the high seas to be inviolable to the visitation of alien Government vessels in time of war as in time of peace.

In this letter he observes —

" Free trade, in the widest definition of the term, means only the division of labour by which the productive powers of the whole earth

1 The Foliti:al Opinions of Richard Cobden.

are brought into mutual co-operation. If this scheme of universal independence is to be liable to sudden dislocation whenever two Governments choose to go to war, it converts a manufacturing industry such as ours into a lottery, in which the lives and fortunes of multitudes of men are at stake. I do not comprehend how any British statesman who consults the interests of his country and understands the revolution which Free Trade is effecting in the relations of the world, can advocate the maintenance of commercial blockades. If I shared their views I should shrink from promoting the indefinite growth of a population whose means of subsistence would be liable to be cut off at any moment by a belligerent power, against whom we should have no right of resistance, or even of complaint.

" It must be in mere irony that the advocates of such a policy as this ask — Of what use would our navy be in case of war if commercial blockades were abolished ? Surely, for a nation that has no access to the rest of the world but by sea, and a large part of whose population is dependent for food on foreign countries, the chief use of a navy should be to keep open its communications, not to close them ! ,

" I will only add that I regard these changes as the necessary corollary of the repeal of the Navigation Laws, the abolition of the Corn Laws, and the abandonment of our colonial monopoly. We have thrown away the sceptre of force, to confide in the principles of free- dom— uncovenanted, unconditional freedom. Under the new regime our national fortunes have prospered beyond all precedent. During the last fourteen years the increase in our commerce has exceeded its entire growth during the previous thousand years of reliance on force, cunning, and monopoly. This should encourage us to go forward in the full faith that every fresh impediment removed from the path of commerce, whether by sea or land, and whether in peace or war, will augment our prosperity, at the same time that it will promote the general interests of humanity."

In most of the foregoing questions, Cobden, as we have said, was contented to preach sound doctrine, and to prepare the way for the ultimate adoption of principles of policy and government, which in his time he could not hope to see prevail.

But he was destined, before the close of his career, once more to engage in a great practical work, and to identify his name with an accomplished success, scarcely inferior in its scope and results to the repeal of the English Corn Law.

This was the Commercial Treaty with France.

As the Corn Law was the great stronghold of monopoly in England, so was the prohibitive system in France the key-stone of protection in

The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden. li

Europe, and Ctobden selected these accordingly, with the unerring instinct of real statesmanship, as the first points for attack, and fastened upon them with a tenacity and resolution which insured success.

Fifteen years had elapsed since England had renounced, in principle at least, the false system of commercial monopoly, and, in Cobden's words quoted above, " throw away the sceptre of force, to confide in freedom."

She had trusted to the teaching of her example, and to the experience of her extraordinary success, in leading the countries of Europe to answer to her appeal for co-operation in liberating trade, and vindica- ting the rights of labour ; but she had met with slight response.

Our conversion was perhaps too recent, our course still too incon- sistent, and our motives too much open to suspicion, to make this sur- prising, and, so far as France was concerned, we had unfortunately contrived in all our reforms to retain in our tariff restrictions upon the staple articles of French production, wine and silk.

The time had come when, unless some new impulse could be given to international intercourse, the forces of reaction might have again acquired the ascendency, and European progress have been thrown back for years.

Our relations with France were those of chronic distrust and rivalry. The cry of Perfide Albion in France too often resounded in our ears ; and the bugbear of French invasion was successively invoked on this side of the Channel no less than three times in the period we are considering.

This was a state of things fraught with danger. Monopoly had borne as usual its deadly fruits, in alienating two great nations destined by nature for the closest relations of friendship and mutual depen- dence, and in fostering in both the spirit of war.

It was under circumstances such as these that Cobden set his hand to the great work of co-operation which led to the Commercial Treaty.

Bastiat, who would have hailed with delight this tardy reparation of the defects in our reformed commercial system which he always deplored, was no longer alive to aid the cause ; but to one of the most distinguished of modern French economists, Michel Chevalier, is due, in concert with Cobden, the merit of the scheme with the Governments of England and France were induced to adopt, which has opened to us the prospect of a new era of progress, in the gradual union of the nations of Europe in a great commercial confederation, and in laying the foundations of a civilisation, which may yet keep pace with that now dawning on our race in the Anglo-Saxon republics of the Western world.

Hi The Political Opinions of Richard Codden.

It was pleasant to see how his old friends rallied around him on this occasion, and how many, who had been often unable to comprehend or follow him in his political career, rejoiced to see him once again in the field, against his old enemy, Protection. But, on the other hand, he was assailed by an influential class among us with a bitter animosity, which all but made his task impossible, and which revealed too clearly the strength and vitality of the reactionary forces still at work in our midst.

As Cobden saw in his beneficent work the hope of a new era of peace, and of liberal progress in Europe, as its certain fruit, so did his opponents instinctively perceive that his success would carry with it the doom of the traditions of hatred and of fear, which the Govern- ments of Europe had too often successfully invoked, to plunge the people into wars of which they are the invariable victims, and to keep alive the rumours of war, which have deprived them of the solid fruits of peace.

So long as the political condition of Europe is such as to render necessary or possible the large armaments, which are a reproach to our age and boasted civilisation, while 4,000,000 men, in the flower of their age, are taken from productive industry, and supported by the labour of the rest of the population, no real and permanent progress can be made in the emancipation of the people, and in the establishment of free institutions.

At the time of which we are speaking, even still more than at present, all direct attempts to mitigate this monster evil appeared hope- less ; and although Cobden never ceased to urge, both in England and France, the wisdom of a mutual understanding, with a view to reduced armaments, he knew that the only certain and available method of undermining this fatal system, and preparing for its ultimate over- throw, was to assist in every way the counter-agencies of peace.

It was in the consciousness that by breaking down the barriers to commercial intercourse between England and France, a greater impulse would be given than by any other event to the forces of progress in Europe, that the men who in both countries undertook and completed this international work entered upon their task. We have said that the time has not arrived when it is possible to speak freely of this episode in Cobden's life, but it is necessary to vindicate his policy from charges, which, although forgotten and overwhelmed in its extraordinary success, were brought against it too commonly, and from quarters whence it ought least to have been expected, at the time.

In France he was reproached by many of his earlier friends, whose

The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden. liii

sympathies were bound up with the Orleanist or Republican regimes, and who viewed with a natural aversion the Second Empire, for con- tributing to a work which, if successful, might do more than anything else to consolidate the Imperial reign. He replied, that what the im- mediate effect might be he neither knew nor cared, but that all the forces of freedom were " solidaires," and that the ruler who gave " Free Trade " to the nation, whether King, President, or Emperor, was doing that which, more than anything else, would assure the future liberties of France.

The same causes operated in many quarters to make the Treaty un- popular in England ; but he was also assailed in a more insidious form. He was accused of having forgotten or forsaken the sound doctrines of political economy, of which he had in his earlier life been the uncompromising advocate, and of having revived the discarded policy of " reciprocity treaties."

It would perhaps be unnecessary to revert to this charge, were it not that a suspicion of unsoundness still lurks in many minds as to the principles of the French, and subsequent, Treaties of Commerce. It may be well, therefore, to say that, so far as this charge was honest, and something more than a convenient method of discrediting a measure which it was desired to obstruct, it proceeded on a very imperfect knowledge of the policy of the Treaty, and on an erroneous and confused idea of the principles of Free Trade itself.

The system of reciprocity treaties and tariff bargains was one of the natural but most pernicious developments of the doctrine of protec- tion. The most notorious of such treaties in our history is, perhaps, the famous Methuen Treaty, from the effects of which we are still suffering in England, in the shape of adulterated wine. These arrange- ments aimed at the extension of the limits of monopoly, by securing for our products protection in a foreign country, against the competition of all other countries, and always proceeded on the supposed interest of the producer, to the injury of the consumer. They were logical, when it was believed or professed that the reduction of a duty was a sacrifice on the part of the country making it to the country in whose favour it was made. From this point of view, it was natural, in making such reductions, to demand what were thought to be equivalent con- cessions from the country with which we were treating, and the supreme art of negotiating was held to consist in framing what had the appearance of a "nicely adjusted balance of equivalents," but in which each country secretly desired, and sought to obtain, the maxi- mum of reductions from the other, against the minimum of its own.

But from the Free Trade point of view, in which all reductions

liv The Political Opinions of Richard Cob den.

of duties, at least so far as productive duties are concerned, are an admitted and positive gain to the country making them, it becomes absurd and impossible to use them as the ground of a claim on a foreign country for compensating or equivalent remissions.

The French Treaty had no affinity, except in form, to treaties such as these.

Instead of a bargain in which each party sought to give as little and to get as much as possible, it was a great work of co-operation, in which the Governments of England and of France were resolved, on both sides, to remove, within the limits of their power, the artificial obstacles to their commercial intercourse presented by fiscal and pro- tective laws.

England had already spontaneously advanced much further than France in this direction, and hence alone, if for no other reason, all idea of " equivalent " concessions was out of the question. She contributed her share to the work, by sweeping from her tariff, with some trifling exceptions, all trace and remnant of protection, and by reducing her fiscal duties upon wine and brandy.

France, unable at one stroke to destroy the whole fabric of monopoly, nevertheless made a deadly breach in the edifice, by substituting moderate duties for prohibition, in the case of the chief British exports.

If these reforms had been made exclusively in each other's favour, they might have been justly open to the charge of unsoundness, but they were made equally for the commerce of all the world, on the side of England immediately, on the side of France prospectively, and thus, instead of reverting to a system of monopoly, the prohibitive and differential policy of France was annihilated, and the equal system of England maintained and consolidated.

There were, however, two objections made to the treaty of a more plausible kind, and which we will, therefore, briefly notice : —

First, that a work of this description need not assume the form of a treaty, which tends to disguise its real character, but should be left to the independent legislation of each country.

Secondly, that, although it might be well to abolish protective duties by this method, it was impolitic to fetter ourselves by treaty with respect to fiscal duties.

As regards the first objection, it is sufficient to reply, that at the time we are considering, for political reasons, a treaty was the only form in which such a measure could be carried in France ; but a more perma- nent justification is to be found in the fact that a treaty is nothing more than an international statute-law, and that, in a matter of international

The Political Opinions of JZiciiard Cobden. lv

concern, it is necessary that there should exist an international guarantee of permanence. Without such a security, what would be the condition of trade ?

The second objection is more subtle, but has no better foundation. A tax which, from whatever cause, dries up an important source of national wealth, and thus takes from the fund available for taxation more than the amount gained by the revenue, is a. bad tax, and ought never, if possible, to be imposed or maintained.

The tax on French wine and spirits had the effect of restricting most injuriously one of the most important branches of our foreign trade, and would, if maintained, have deprived us, by preventing the con- clusion of the Treaty, of an addition of at least ^20,000,000 sterling per annum, to the value of our general exchanges with France. No wise legislation could retain such a tax in the face of such con- sequences. There is probably no other form of tax to which it could not have been preferable to resort, rather than to maintain these obstacles to our trade with France.

Rut the consequences of the Treaty with France were not confined to that country and to England. It was an act which, both by its moral effect and its direct and necessary influence on the legislation of the other Continental countries, has set on foot a movement which grows from year to year, and will not cease till all protective duties have been erased from the commercial codes of Europe.

It was thus the rare privilege of the man who had been the foremost in giving the death-blow to monopoly in England, to be also among the first to storm the citadel of protection on the Continent, and to give to the work which he commenced at home, a decisive international impulse, destined to afford new securities for the most sacred of human rights — the right of labour, and to add " new realms to the empire of freedom."

Cobden had yet another success awaiting him, to our mind the most signal triumph of his life. He lived to see the great moral and economic laws, which he had enforced through years of opposition and obloquy, asserting their control over the forces of reaction, and moulding our foreign policy.

It must have been with a superb and heartfelt satisfaction that Cobden watched the conflict of public opinion at the time of the Danish War.

The diplomatic intervention of the Government had brought us to the verge of war, and made it more than usually difficult to retreat.

The old instincts of the ruling classes of the nation were thoroughly aroused, and, unless they had been neutralised and overpowered by

lvi The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden.

stronger and deeper forces, we should, under a fancied idea of chivalry and honour (if anything can deserve these names which is opposed to reason and duty), have squandered once more the hard-earned heritage of English labour, in a war of which the causes and the merits were for the most part unknown among us, and could never have been made intelligible to the nation, and in which our success, if possible, might have thrown back all liberal progress for years, both in England and on the Continent.

But it soon became manifest that a nobler and larger morality had been gaining ground in the heart of the nation, had at last found its expression in the Councils of the State, and had enforced its control over those who still believed that the mission of England is to hold by force the balance of power in Europe.

The memorable debate which decided the course of our policy in this critical moment decided far greater issues ; and the principle of " non-intervention," as it has been explained above, the only hope for the moral union of nations and the progress of freedom, became the predominating rule of our foreign policy, and, with different limita- tions and qualifications, a cardinal point in the Liberal creed.

We must here close a hasty and imperfect sketch of Cobden's political life and principles, in the hope that the outline which we have traced may be filled up by other hands. Our object will have been attained, if we have succeeded in leading some of our readers to suspect the erroneous and superficial nature of the prevalent opinion of Cobden, in the upper ranks of English society, and to believe that the verdict of history will rather confirm the judgment of his humbler countrymen, with whom his name has become a household word.

In reviewing the political programme given in the preceding pages, we shall see that while much has been done, far more remains to do ; and that, although there is great cause for hope, there is also much ground for fear.

Of all the dreams in which easy-going and half-hearted politicians indulge, the idlest appears to be that in which it is fondly imagined that the days of party strife are over, and that no questions lie before us, on which the majority of moderate and honest men are not agreed. It is useless to shut our eyes to the fact that, before the future greatness and prosperity of our country can be assured, great issues must be raised, and fierce political struggles traversed. We have a firm and confident belief that the forces on the side of progress are sufficient to achieve what is required for this consummation, by peaceful and con- stitutional reforms ; but the cause will not be won without stcnuous efforts.

The Political Opinions of Richard Cobden. lvii

It will not be won without the aid of men who, in the measure of their gifts, will bring to bear upon the task the qualities of which in Cobden's life we have such enduring proofs : pure morality, keen intelligence, perfect disinterestedness, undaunted courage, indomitable tenacity of purpose, high patriotism, and an immovable faith in the predestined triumph of good over evil.1

That the principles of public morality which Cobden devoted his life to enforce will ultimately prevail in the government of the world, we think that no one who believes in God or man can doubt. Whether it be in store for our country first to achieve by their adoption the last triumphs of civilisation, and to hold her place in the van of human progress, or whether to other races, and to other communities, will be confided this great mission, it is not for us to determine.

But those who trust that this may yet be England's destiny, who, in spite of much which they deplore, delight to look upon her past with pride, and her future with hope, will ever revere the memory of Cobden, as of one whose lifelong aim it was to lay the foundations of her empire in her moral greatness, in the supremacy of reason, and in the majesty of law — and will feel with us that the "international man " was also, and still more, an Englishman.

[Note— The late Sir Louis Mallet was Mr. Cobden's assistant in the negotiations of the Treaty of Commerce with France in i860, and was at the Board of Trade in succeeding years, charged with the negotia- tions of similar treaties with other European powers, which did so much for the extension of free trade ideas and effected a general reduction of tariffs which has not even yet lost its effect. He was brought much into contact with Mr. Cobden in official and private life, and in later years one of his friends wrote to him as follows : "You are not only a Cobdenite pur sang but unless I am much mistaken, you have realised more perfectly and completely than Cobden did himself, the higher and more ideal side of the Cobdenic creed." Sir Louis Mallet, in reply, denied that this was the case, saying that he " had done little more than put into a connected shape ideas which his friends had heard from him again and again."

No apology is therefore needed for the reprinting of the essay which forms the introduction to this volume, for until the publication of Cobden's Life by Mr. John Morley, who had the advantage of Sir L. Mallet's assistance and advice, it was the only authoritative com- ment upon the great free trade statesman's work.]

INTRODUCTION TO THE AMERICAN EDITION. By William Cullex Bkyant.

On the evening of the 18th of June, 1845, Covent Garden Theatre, in London, was crowded with men and women assembled at the call of the Anti-Corn-Law League. They had come together in order to hear addresses from some of the eminent leaders of that association. I was present, and had never seen a large assembly more respectable in appearance, or more attentive to every word that fell from the lips of the speakers — enthusiastic applause interrupting, from time to time, the profound silence, and again quickly hushed into breathless atten- tion. This vast audience was addressed by John Bright, Richard Cobden, and W. J. Fox. Bright had then begun to distinguish himself by that manly and massive eloquence which has since given him his fame. The oratory of Fox, who spoke last, was of a more florid cast, and enlivened with sallies of humour, by which the audience was greatly entertained. But most of all was I impressed by the speech of Mr. Cobden — by his direct dealing with the subject of discussion, the manifest sincerity of his convictions, his air of invincible determination, the perspicuity of his statements, his skill in arranging and presenting his topics, and the closeness of his logic. So persuasive was his address, that I saw at once why so high a place had been assigned him in the agitation for the repeal of the Corn Laws. Here was one" who knew how to appeal to the general mind of his countrymen, and having won their assent to the merits of a great public cause, was able to infuse into them his own resolute spirit in carrying forward that cause to its final triumph.

When I left the building I remember saying to a friend that I did not see how the Corn Laws could survive the attacks to which they were exposed, and that I perceived, or thought I perceived, in the meeting I had just attended, the proofs of a public opinion too powerful

lix

lx Introduction to the American Edition.

for the landowners much longer to resist. The hour of triumph for the League was, in fact, even nearer than I anticipated. In the next year's session of Parliament, the British Ministry, with Sir Robert Peel at its head, came forward with a Bill for removing the old restrictions on the trade in grain, and wresting from the landed proprietors the monopoly on which they had relied as one of the main sources of their prosperity. The Bill became a law ; the long and vehement struggle was closed by the defeat of the aristocracy ; Peel, now the object of their displeasure, though thanked by the nation, withdrew from the Ministry ; but he, like Mr. Cobden, found his reward in the appreciation of his countrymen.

More to be valued than mere success in procuring this change to be made by Parliament was the triumph of the principles on which the change was founded. Mr. Cobden and his associates in the agitation for free trade in corn had always insisted that the agriculture of the country would suffer no prejudice from the repeal of the Corn Laws, and the result showed the truth of this assertion. The people were sensibly relieved, and the landowners suffered no loss ; the manu- facturing population had cheap bread, and the agricultural population were not deprived of employment. The cultivator found himself obliged to resort to more skilful methods of tillage, and was rewarded with richer harvests. I believe I am not mistaken when I say that among the landowners of Great Britain there is now no fear or jealousy of foreign rivalry.

This success of an association organised under popular leaders against a powerful aristocracy has made Mr. Cobden's an historical name. In discussing the justice and expediency of what were called the Corn Laws of England, he was led to investigate the principles which all measures regulating the intercourse between one nation and another should recognise. All his writings refer to these principles, and have a value which lifts them out of the sphere of local and temporary interests, and which no lapse of years can impair. They are practical illustrations of the philosophy of commercial legislation : documents from which the history of the world's commerce is to be written. At present, while the policy of most governments in regard to their intercourse with each other is far from being fully and finally settled, they form a storehouse of arguments and illustrations in the controversies continually arising.

There are two classes of politicians — statesmen the world generally agrees in calling them, though that title, in its proper and nobler sense, belongs to but one of them. One class keeps studiously in sight the rules of justice and humanity, as the principles of legislation and

Introduction to the American Edition. lxi

government upon which it conscientiously supposes the welfare of the community to depend. The other class, which is found in all countries and in all political parties, aims at securing and promoting certain minor interests upon one specious pretext or another, which is taken up or laid aside as it may serve or fail to serve the occasion. I need not say that Mr. Cobden belonged to the former of these classes, and was a statesman in the highest sense of the term. In all the public measures which he discussed, he regarded mainly their consequences to the people at large, or, in other words, the good of the human race. In the most civilised part of the globe, he saw how often the subjects of the different governments were slaughtered and stripped of their substance to carry on wars in which they had no manner of interest, and the sole motive of which was the aggrandisement or caprice of those who ruled them. Moreover, to refer a dispute between nations to the arbitrament of war is in no way to obtain a just decision, and Mr. Cobden saw no reason why, for this brutal method, the custom of nations should not substitute that which, in every society, even of the loosest organisation, determines controversies between individuals, namely, the obvious expedient of referring them to third persons presumed to be impartial as between the disputants. He wrote, therefore, in favour of referring to arbitrators all differences between nations which could not be settled by negotiation. It is certain that this method is coming more and more into favour, as the intercourse between nations becomes more intimate, although various causes still prevent it from being generally adopted. At some time, when man- kind shall be more generally enlightened, and those who administer the governments of the world shall be forced to pay more regard to the interests of the people whose affairs they have in charge, the folly of going to war may be deemed as great as that of settling a question of law by a boxing match. The hope that the world may grow wiser, and therefore more peaceful, as it grows older, is not so absurd that it has not been cherished by the friends of the human race from an early period ; and whether it be a philanthropic dream, or, as I believe, the expectation of a wise foresight, it has in all ages inspired the prayers of good men, who look for the time when the sword shall be beaten into the pruning hook, and nations shall learn war no more.

Mr. Cobden never hesitated to raise his voice against any war undertaken by the British Government, for causes which, in his view, did not justify a resort to arms. In 1857, he led the majority which, in the House of Commons, censured Lord Palmerston for the war with China. It is most natural in a time of war for the large majority of every nation to take part with its own government, and to maintain

lxii Introduction to the American Edition.

the justice of its quarrel. It was a great triumph for the cause of impartial justice in Great Britain, when the popular branch of its legislature was persuaded so far to forego this natural prejudice as to declare that a war in which the British ministry had involved the nation was neither just nor necessary.

There could scarcely be a higher testimony to the statesmanship of Mr. Cobden, the justness and safety of his views of commercial ques- tions, and his capacity for fulfilling an important public trust, than was given by the British Government, when, a few years since, on his suggestion that an opportunity had presented itself for placing the trade between Great Britain and France on a better and more liberal footing, it entrusted him with full powers for that purpose. The expected arrangements were made through his agency ; a treaty was negotiated, and the result was an enormous increase in the trade of the two countries, and a corresponding development of friendly intercourse between the one people and the other.

In the later years of his life, Mr. Cobden took a deep interest in the controversy which the leading men of the Southern States of this Republic forced upon the people of the North, when, renouncing their allegiance to the Federal Government, and breaking away from the Union, they invited an appeal to the sword. He was convinced of the absolute necessity of the effort we were making to preserve the Union unimpaired, as indispensable to the future peace and prosperity of the country. He rejoiced with good men all over the world when our government repealed the law of bondage in the Rebel States. He was one of those enlightened Englishmen who zealously took our part against the governing class of their own country, maintained the justice of our cause, and predicted for it a certain and glorious triumph. He lived, if not to see his prediction fulfilled, yet to behold the sure signs of its near accomplishment.

I now leave the American reader to the perusal of the writings included in this collection. He will find in them the utterances of a true friend of the human race, whose sole aim was so to modify existing institutions, by proper and equitable methods, that all who live under the same government may be equal partakers in its benefits, and to bring all the blessings of life within the reach of the largest number. This great end he kept steadily in view, never intimidated from pursuing it by the danger of unpopularity, nor seduced to abandon it by the love of distinction and the praises of the great. His indignation at the oppression of the weak and helpless was never disguised, and his whole political life was made up of manly labours in the cause of justice. From the writings of this illustrious teacher the

Introduction to the American Edition. lxiii

wisest statesman may be instructed in the practical application of the maxims of a comprehensive, humane, and generous political philosophy.

New York, November, 1866.

*,* It has been thought that Mr. Bryant's Introduction would be as interesting to the English as to the American reader, and it is therefore added to the present edition.

THE

POLITICAL WRITINGS

OF

RICHARD COBDEN.

ENGLAND, IRELAND, AND AMERICA.

1835-

" The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible." — Washington^ fareucll address to the American

paople.

B 3

NOTE TO "ENGLAND, IRELAND, AND AMERICA."

As the first of Mr. Cobden's literary productions— written and published in the spring of 1835, when he was unknown to fame, and a simple " Man- chester Manufacturer " — the following pamphlet is invested with an interest peculiarly its own. Like the succeeding work on " Russia," it has for many years been out of print ; and although, during the intervening period, it has been constantly alluded to and frequently criticised, probably few of those who wrote and still fewer of those who read the strictures of the press upon it, had an opportunity of reading either of the editions which were published thirty years ago. It may be interesting to state that both pamphlets were in the first instance published by Mr. Ridgway, of Picca- dilly, and subsequently reproduced in a cheap form by the late Mr. William Tait, of Edinburgh, in whose hands "England, Ireland, and America" passed through, at least, six editions. It will be seen that at that early period Mr. Cobden foresaw the importance to Ireland of Trans-Atlantic steam-packet stations at suitable points on her coast, as well as of the more general cultivation of flax, the great staple of Irish manufactures, on soil suitable for the purpose. He dealt with the questions of the national debt and of the military and naval establishments of the United States as he then found them. No one could at that time foresee that the institution of negro slavery would entail upon the American nation so terrible a retri- bution as that with which they have since been visited, although Mr. Cobden was careful to point out that the existence of this "indelible stain upon their religion and government " would " serve to teach mankind that no deed of guilt or oppression can be perpetrated with impunity, even by the most powerful." This pamphlet also contains Mr. Cobden's earliest published contribution to the literature of free trade. It may further be remarked that almost immediately after he had seen these pages through the press, he paid his first visit to the United States. He landed in New York on Sunday, June 7th, 1835, and— reckoning the sea voyages — was absent exactly three months. The impressions which he had previously formed of the illimitable resources of the great Republic, of the ingenious and industrious character of the people, of the wide diffusion among them of the blessings of education, and of the boundless spirit of enterprise by which they were animated, were fully confirmed by what he saw with his own eyes : and on his return to England he found nothing in his pamphlet that required to be omitted or modified in the subsequent editions.

$ art I.

ENGLAND.

To maintain what is denominated the true balance of Euro- pean power has been the fruitful source of wars from the earliest time ; and it would be instructive, if the proposed limits of this work permitted it, to bring into review all the opposite struggles into which England has plunged for the purpose of adjusting, from time to time, according to the ever- varying theories of her rulers, this national equilibrium. Let it suffice to say, that history exhibits us, at different periods, in the act of casting our sword into the scale of every European State. In the meantime, events have proclaimed, but in vain, how futile must be our attempts to usurp the sceptre of the Fates. Empires have arisen unbidden by us; others have departed, despite our utmost efforts to preserve them. All have under- gone a change so complete that, were the writers who only a century ago lauded the then existing state of the balance of Europe to reappear, they would be startled to find, in the present relations of the Continent, no vestige of that perfect adjustment which had been purchased at the price of so much blood. And yet we have able writers and statesmen of the present day, who would advocate a war to prevent a derange- ment of what we now choose to pronounce the just equipoise of the power of Europe.

For a period of six hundred years, the French and English people had never ceased to regard each other as natural enemies. Scarcely a generation passed over its allotted section of this vast interval of time without sacrificing its victims to the spirit of national hate. It was reserved for our own day

6 Political Writings of Richard Cobden.

to witness the close of a feud, the bloodiest, the longest, and yet, in its consequences, the most nugatory of any that is to be found in the annals of the world. Scarcely had we time to indulge the first emotions of pity and amazement at the folly of past ages, when, as if to justify to the letter the sarcasm of Hume, when alluding to another subject,* we, the English people, are preparing, through the vehicles of opinion, the public press, to enter upon a hostile career with Russia.

Russia, and no longer France, is the chimera that now haunts us in our apprehension for the safety of Europe : whilst Turkey, for the first time, appears to claim our sympathy and protection against the encroachments of her neighbours ; and, strange as it may appear to the politicians of a future age, such is the prevailing sentiment of hostility towards the Russian govern- ment at this time in the public mind, that, with but few additional provocatives administered to it by a judicious minister through the public prints, a conflict with that Christian power, in defence of a Mahomedan people, more than a thousand miles distant from our shores, might be made palatable, nay, popular, with the British nation. It would not be difficult to find a cause for this antipathy : the impulse, as usual with large masses of human beings, is a generous one, and arises, in great part, from emotions of pity for the gallant Polish people, and of indigna- tion at the conduct of their oppressors — sentiments in which we cordially and zealously concur : and if it were the province of Great Britain to administer justice to all the people of the earth — in other words, if God had given us, as a nation, the authority and the power, together with the wisdom and the goodness, sufficient to qualify us to deal forth His vengeance — then should we be called upon in this case to rescue the weak from the hands of their spoilers. But do we possess these

* " Though in a future age it will probably become difficult to persuade some nations that any human two-legged creature could ever embrace such principles. And it is a thousand to one but those nations themselves shall have something fully as absurd in their own creed, to which they will give a most implicit consent."

England. 7

favoured endowments ? Are we armed with the powers of Om- nipotence : or, on the contrary, can we discover another people rising into strength with a rapidity that threatens inevitably to . overshadow us ? Again, do we find ourselves to possess the virtue and the wisdom essential to the possession of supreme power ; or, on the other hand, have we not at our side, in the wrongs of a portion of our own people, a proof that we can justly lay claim to neither ?

Ireland and the United States of America ought to be the subjects of our inquiry at this period, when we are, apparently, preparing ourselves to engage as parties to a question involving countries with which we are but remotely, and in comparison, very little interested. Before entering upon some reflections under each of these heads, we shall call the consideration of our readers to the affairs of Russia and Turkey ; and we shall use as the text of our remarks a pamphlet that has recently made its appearance under the title of " England, France, Russia, and Turkey," to which our attention was first attracted by the favourable comments bestowed upon it by the influential portion of the daily press.

The writer * appears to be versed in the diplomatic mysteries of the courts of St. Petersburg and Constantinople : indeed, he hints that he has been himself a party to the negotiations carried on with the Sublime Porte. He says, p. 77 — "The details into which we have already entered may probably contain internal evidence of our opinion not having been formed in a closet, remote from the subject we are treating." And the concluding words of the pamphlet are calculated to lead to a similar inference ; and they are, moreover, curious, as illustrating the tone of feeling with which the author regards the Russian government : — " Our words have been fewer than our thoughts ; and, while we have to regret abler hands have not wielded our arms, we owe it to our subject to state, that

* Mr. Urquhart, formerly Secretary of the English Embassy at Constanti- nople.]

A

8 Political Writings of Richard Cobden.

others, unproduced, prudence forbade to draw until the hour of retribution arrives?

After a preliminary appeal to the sympathies of his readers in favour of Poland, he proceeds to ask, " Is the substance of Turkey to be added to the growth of Russia? Is the mammoth of the Sarmatian plains to become the leviathan of the Hesperian seas ? Is another victim to be sacrificed within so short a time on the same altar, and because the same trifling succour is again withheld ? Are the remains of Turkey to be laid upon the tomb of Poland, to exclude every ray of hope, and render its doom irrevocable ? "

To what extent this trifling succour is meant to go will be explained in the writer's own words by-and-by. But we propose, in this place, to inquire what are the motives that England can have to desire to preserve the Ottoman Empire at the risk of a war, however trifling ? In entering on this question we shall, of course, premise, that no government has the right to plunge its people into hostilities, except in defence of their own national honour or interests. Unless this principle be made the rule of all, there can be no guarantee for the peace of any one country, so long as there may be found a people, whose grievances may attract the sympathy or invite the interference of another State. How, then, do we find our honour or interests concerned in defending the Turkish territory against the encroachments of its Christian neighbour ? It is not alleged that we have an alliance with the Ottoman Porte, which binds us to preserve its empire intact ; nor does there exist, with regard to this country, a treaty between Russia and Great Britain (as was the case with respect to Poland) by which we became jointly guarantees for its separate national existence. The writer we are quoting puts the motive for our interference in a singular point of view ; he says, " This obligation is imposed upon us as members of the European community by the approaching annihilation of an- other of our compeers. It is imposed upon us by the necessity of maintaining the consideration due to ourselves — the first

England. 9

element of political power and influence." From this it would appear to be the opinion of our author, that our being one of the nations of Europe imposes on us, besides the defence of our own territory, the task of upholding the rights and perpetuating the existence of all the other powers of the Con- tinent, a sentiment common, we fear, to a very large portion of the English public. In truth, Great Britain has, in contempt of the dictates of prudence and self-interest, an insatiable thirst to become the peace-maker abroad, or if that benevolent task fail her, to assume the office of gensdarme, and keep in order, gratuitously, all the refractory nations of Europe. Hence does it arise, that, with an invulnerable island for our territory, more secure against foreign molestation than is any part of the coast of North America, we magnanimously disdain to avail ourselves of the privileges which nature offers to us, but cross the ocean, in quest of quadripartite treaties or quintuple alliances, and, probably, to leave our own good name in pledge for the debts of the poorer members of such confederacies. To the same spirit of overweening national importance may in great part be traced the ruinous wars, and yet more ruinous subsidies, of our past history. Who does not now see that, to have shut ourselves in our own ocean fastness, and to have guarded its shores and its commerce by our fleets, was the line of policy we ought never to have departed from — and who is there that is not now feeling, in the burthen of our taxation, the dismal errors of our departure from this rule during the last war? How little wisdom we have gathered along with these bitter fruits of experience, let the subject of our present inquiry determine !

Judging from another passage in this pamphlet, it would appear that England and Fiance are now to be the sole dic- tators of the international relations of all Europe. The follow- ing passage is dictated by that pure spirit of English vanity which has already proved so expensive an appendage to our character ; and which, unless allayed by increased knowledge

io Political Writings of Richard Cobden.

among the people, or fairly crushed out of us by our financial burthens, will, we fear, carry us still deeper into the vortex of debt : — " The squadrons of England and France anchored in the Bosphorus, they dictate their own terms to Turkey ; to Russia they proclaim, that from that day they intend to arbitrate supremely between the nations of the earth."

We know of but one way in which the honour of this country may be involved in the defence and preservation of the Turkish empire ; and that is, through the indiscreet meddling in the intrigues of the seraglio, on the part of our diplomatists. After a few flourishes of the pen, in the style and spirit of the above quotations, shall have passed between the gentlemen of the rival embassies of St. James's and St. Petersburg, who knows but the English nation may, some day, be surprised by the discovery that it is compromised in a quarrel from which there is no honourable escape but by the disastrous course of a long and ruinous war.

If our honour be not committed in this case, still less shall we find, by examining a little more at length, that our interests are involved in the preservation of Turkey. To quote again from the pamphlet before us : — " Suffice it to say, that the countries consuming to the yearly value of thirty millions* of our exports, would be placed under the immediate control of the coalition (Russia, Prussia, and Austria), and, of course, under the regulations of the Russian tariff ; not as it is to-day, but such as it would be when the mask is wholly dropped. What would be the effect on the internal state of England, if a considerable diminution of exportation occurred ? But it is not only the direct effects of the tariffs of the coalition that are to be apprehended : would it not command the tariffs of Northern and Southern America?" Passing over, as too chimerical for comment, the allusion to the New World, we here have the argument which has, immediately or remotely, decided us to undertake almost every war in which Great Britain has been * Official value.

England. i i

involved — viz., the defence of our commerce. And yet it has, over and over again, been proved to the world, that violence and force can never prevail against the natural wants and wishes of mankind: in other words, that despotic laws against freedom of trade never can be executed. " Trade cannot, will not, be forced ; let other nations prohibit by what severity they please, interest will prevail : they may embarrass their own trade, but cannot hurt a nation whose trade is free, so much as themselves." So said a writer* a century ago, whilst experience down to our own day has done nothing but confirm the truth of his maxims ; and yet people would frighten us into war, to prevent the forcible annihilation of our trade ! Can any proofs be offered how visionary are such fears, more conclusive than are to be found in the history of Napoleon's celebrated war against English commerce ? Let us briefly state a few par- ticulars of this famous struggle. The subject, though familiar to everybody, is one the moral of which cannot be too frequently enforced.

The British Islands were, in 1807, declared by Bonaparte in a state of blockade, by those decrees which aimed at the total destruction of the trade of Great Britain. The Berlin and Milan edicts declared —

1. The British Isles were in a state of blockade. 2. All commerce and correspondence were forbidden. All English letters were to be seized in the post-houses. 3. Every English- man, of whatever rank or quality, found in France, or the countries allied with her, was declared a prisoner of war. 4. All merchandise or property, of whatever kind, belonging to English subjects, was declared lawful prize. 5. All articles of English manufacture, and articles produced in her colonies, were, in like manner, declared contraband, and lawful prize.

France, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Holland, Italy, and the States of Germany, joined in this conspiracy against the com- merce of England. To enforce more effectually these prohibi-

* Sir Matthew Decker.

12 Political Writings of Richard Cobden.

tions, commissioners of rank were appointed to each of the principal seaports of the Continent. Now, let us mark well the result of this great confederation, which was formed for the avowed purpose of annihilating us as a trading people. The following is an account of the declared value of our exports of British products for each of the years mentioned, ending 5th of January : —

1804 ,£36,100,000

1805 37,100,000

1806 37,200,000

1807 39,700,000

1808 ...... 36,400,000

1809 36,300,000

It must he borne in mind that the proclamation of war against our trade, above-mentioned, was dated in 1807. It appears, then, by the preceding tabular view, that our commerce sustained a loss to the extent of about i\ per cent in 1808 and 1809, as compared with 1806 and 1807 ; whilst the amount of exports in the year 1808, or 1809, if compared with the mean or average amount of the above six years, shows a diminution only of about two per cent. And all this took place, be it remembered, when two-thirds of our foreign trade was confined to Europe.*

It is singular to observe that, by the following table, the declared value of our exports, during the last six years, has remained nearly stationary, at a point varying from the average of the former series of years only by a fraction.

* It would be amusing, and full of romantic interest, to detail some of the ten thousand justifiable arts invented to thwart this unnatural coalition, which, of necessity, converted almost every citizen of Europe into a smuggler. Bourrienne, who was himself one of the commissioners at Hamburgh, gives some interesting anecdotes in his " Memoirs " under this head. The writer is acquainted with a merchant who was interested in a house that employed five hundred horses in transporting British goods, many of which were landed in Sclavonia, and thence conveyed overland to France, at a charge of about ^28 a cwt. — more than fifty times the present freight of merchandise from London to Calcutta 1

England. 13

Below is a table of the exports of the products of British industry for six years, ending 1833 : —

1828 ^36,400,000

1829 36,200,000

1830 35,200,000

1831 37,700,000

1832 36,600,000

1833 36,000,000

But it must be borne in view, that, as the price of the raw materials of manufactures, such as wool, cotton, silk, iron, &c, together with the price of grain, has undergone a vast depre- ciation since the former periods, of course the actual exchange- able value of the money amounts in the second table is very much greater than in the first.

In fact, the official value of our exports appears to have doubled, whilst the real or declared value has remained stationary. Bearing all this in mind, still, if we take into consideration the great increase of our exports, since 1809, to the Americas, and to Asia — the quarters where our commerce has been principally increasing — and if we also recollect the higher rate of profits at the earlier periods, it becomes a question if our trade with Europe, notwithstanding its rapid increase in population and wealth, has been benefited by the peace. It is exceedingly doubtful whether, whilst we were engaged in a war for the avowed emancipation of our com- merce, our merchants were not, all the while, carrying on a more gainful traffic with the Continent than they now do, when its people have become our bloodless rivals at the loom and the spinning frame.

Where, then, is the wisdom of our fighting European battles in defence of a commerce which knows so well of itself how to elude all its assailants ? And what have we to show as a per-contra for the four hundred millions of debt in- curred in our last continental wars ?

We have dwelt at greater length upon this point, because

14 Political Writings of Richard CoMDEJT.

the advocates of an intermeddling policy always hold up the alluring prospect of benefiting commerce ; and we think we have said enough to prove that Russian violence cannot destroy, or even sensibly injure, our trade.

But it here becomes proper to ask, Are we warranted in the presumption that Russia is less inclined than other nations for trading with us ? Our author, indeed, says, p. 90, "Is it for England to allow an empire, a principle of whose existence is freedom of commerce, to be swallowed up by the most restrictive power on the face of the earth ? Is it for England to allow the first commercial position in the world to be occupied by such a power ? Is it for England to allow free- dom of commerce to be extinguished in the only portion of Europe where it exists ? "

We are at a loss to account for the ignorance that exists with reference to the comparative importance of our trade with Russia and with Turkey. The following tables exhibit the amounts of our exports to each of the two countries, at the dates mentioned : —

ExroRTS	to Russia.	Exports	to Turkey.
A.U.	jC	a.d.	£
1700 .	60,000	1700 .	220,000
1750 .	100,000	I7SO .	135,000
1790 .	400,000	1790 .	120,000
1800 .	1,300,000	1800 .	165,000
1820 .	2,300,000	1820 .	800,000*

By which it will be seen that, whilst Turkey has, in more than a century, quadrupled the amount of her purchases, Russia has, in the same interval of time, increased her con- sumption of our goods nearly forty-fold. Our exports since the year 1700 have increased in a more rapid ratio to Russia than to any other country in Europe.

The rise of the commerce of St. Petersburg is unparal- leled by anything we meet with in Europe, out of England. * MVulloch's Diet. , 2nd Edit. , p. 671.

England. 15

This city was founded in 1703; in 17 14 only sixteen ships entered the port, whilst in 1833 twelve hundred and thirty- eight vessels arrived, and of which no less a proportion than six hundred and ninety-four were British.

Nor must it be forgotten, in drawing a comparison between the value of our trade with Russia and that with Turkey, that, whilst the former has, until very recently, possessed but little sea-coast, with but one good port, and that closed by ice one half of the year, the latter had, down to the date at which we have purposely brought the comparison (when the Greek Islands still formed a portion of the Turkish empire), more than double the extent of maritime territory of any power in Europe, situated in latitudes, too, the most favourable for commerce, including not only the best harbours in the world, but the largest river in Europe.

Neither must it be forgotten that the natural products of the Russian empire are restricted to corn, hemp, tallow, timber, and hides, with a few minor commodities ; and that of these, the two important articles of corn and timber are subjected to restrictive, or we might almost say, prohibitive, duties at our hands ; whilst Turkey contains the soil and climate adapted for producing almost every article of commerce, with the exception probably only of sugar and tea. We need only mention corn, timber, cotton-wool, sheep's-wool, wood and drugs for dyeing, wine and spirits, tobacco, silk, tallow, hides and skins, coffee, spices, and bullion — to exhibit the natural fertility of a country which is now rendered sterile by the brutalising rule of Mahomedanism. Nor can it be said that commerce is wholly free in Turkey, since the exportation of silk is burthened with a duty, and it is prohibited to export grain,* or any other article of necessity, including the product of the mines.

It is true that this otherwise barbarous government has set an example to more civilised countries, by its

* [This prohibition does not now exist. ]

16 Political Writings of Richard Cobdejt.

moderate import duties on foreign productions ; and this, we suspect, is the secret of that surprising tenacity of life which exists in the Ottoman empire, notwithstanding the thousand organic diseases that are consuming its body politic. But what avails to throw open the ports of a country to our ships, if the population will not labour to obtain the produce where- with to purchase our commodities ?

Plains, which Dr. Clarke compares to the fairest portions of Kent, capable of yielding the best silk and cotton, abound in Syria ; but despotic violence has triumphed even over nature ; and this province, which once boasted of Damascus and Antioch, of Tyre, Sidon, and Aleppo, has, by the oppressive exactions of successive pachas, become little better than a de- serted waste.

" Everywhere," says Volney, speaking of Asiatic Turkey, " everywhere I saw only tyranny and misery, robbery and de- vastation. I found daily on my route abandoned fields, deserted villages, cities in ruins. Frequently I discovered antique monuments, remains of temples, of palaces, and of fortresses ; pillars, aqueducts, and tombs. This spectacle led my mind to meditate on past times, and excited in my heart profound and serious thought I recalled those ancient ages when twenty famous nations existed in these countries; I painted to myself the Assyrian on the banks of the Tigris, the Chaldean on those of the Euphrates, the Persian reigning from the Indus to the Mediterranean. I numbered the kingdoms of Damascus and Idumea, of Jerusalem and Samaria, the war- like States of the Philistines, and the commercial republics of Phoenicia. This Syria, said I, now almost unpeopled, could then count a hundred powerful cities ; its fields were covered with towns, villages, and hamlets. Everywhere appeared culti- vated fields, frequented roads, crowded habitations. What, alas ! has become of those ages of abundance and of life ? What of so many brilliant creations of the hand of man ? Where are the ramparts of Nineveh, the walls of Babylon, the palaces

England. 17

of Persepolis, the temples of Baalbec and Jerusalem ? Where are the fleets of Tyre, the docks of Arad, the looms ot Sidon, and that multitude of sailors, of pilots, of merchants, of soldiers? Where are those labourers, those harvests, those flocks, and that crowd of living beings that then covered the face of the earth ? Alas ! I have surveyed this ravaged land — I have visited the places which were the theatre of so much splendour — and have seen only solitude and desertion. The temples are crumbled down ; the palaces are over- thrown ; the ports are filled up ; the cities are destroyed ; the earth, stripped of its inhabitants, is only a desolate place of tombs."

No less hideous is the picture given to us by another elo- quent eye-witness of the desolation of this once flourishing region.

" A few paltry shops expose nothing but wretchedness to view, and even these are frequently shut, from apprehension of the passage of a Cadi.

" Not a creature is to be seen in the streets, not a creature at the gates, except now and then a peasant gliding through the gloom, concealing under his garments the fruits of his labour, lest he should be robbed of his hard earnings by the rapacious soldier. The only noise heard from time to time is the galloping of the steed of the desert ; it is the janissary, who brings the head of the Bedouin, or returns from plundering the unhappy fellah." *

A still more recent traveller, and one of our own country- men, has these emphatic words, when speaking of the Turkish territory : " Wherever the Osmanli has trod devastation and ruin mark his steps, civilisation and the arts have fled, and made room for barbarism and the silence of the desert and the tomb." f

Bat why need we seek for foreign testimony of the wither- ing and destroying influences of Mahomedanism ? The Turks * Chateaubriand. f Macfarlane's Turkey.

C

1 8 Political Writings of Richard Cob den.

themselves have a proverb, which says, " Where the sultan's horse has trod, there no grass grows."

" And where the Spahi's hoof hath trod, The verdure flies the bloody sod."

Hvrov.

Our limits do not allow us to dwell on this portion of our task; suffice it to say, that, beneath the sway of Ottoman violence, the pursuits of agriculture and commerce are equally neglected, in regions that once comprised the mart and granary of the world. No ship was ever seen to leave a Turkish port, manned with Turkish sailors, upon tlie peaceful errand of foreign mercantile traffic. On the ocean, as upon land, this fierce people have always been the scourge of humanity, and a barrier to the progress of commerce and civilisation. In their hands, Smyrna, which was termed by the ancients the ornament of Asia, and Constantinople, chosen for the unrivalled seat of empire by one who possessed the sovereignty of the world — these two cities, adapted by nature to become the centres of a vast trade, are now, through the barbarism and indolence of their rulers, little better than nurseries of the plague !

What shall we say more to prove that England can have no interest in perpetuating the commercial bondage of such a land as we have been describing?

Before quitting the consideration of this part of our sub- ject, we will, for a moment, give way to our imagination, and picture the results that would follow, supposing that the popu- lation of the United States of America could be moved from their present position on the earth's surface, and in a moment be substituted in the place of the inhabitants of Turkey. Very little difference of latitude opposes itself to the further supposi- tion that the several pachalics, being transformed into free states, should be populated by the natives of such districts of the New World as gave the fittest adaptation to their previous habits of labour. Now, let us picture this empire, after it had

England. 19

been for fifty years only subject to the laws, the religion, and the industry of such a people.

Constantinople, outrivalling New York, may be painted, with a million of free citizens, as the focus of all the trade of eastern Europe. Let us conjure up the thousands of miles of railroads, carrying to the very extremities of this empire — not the sanguinary satrap, but — the merchandise and the busy- traders of a free state ; conveying — not the firman of a ferocious sultan, armed with death to the trembling slave, but — the millions of newspapers and letters, which stimulate the enter- prise and excite the patriotism of an enlightened people. Let us imagine the Bosphorus and the Sea of Marmora swarming with steamboats, connecting the European and Asiatic conti- nents by hourly departures and arrivals ; or issuing from the Dardanelles, to reanimate once more with life and fertility the hundred islands of the Archipelago j or, conceive the rich shores of the Black Sea in the power of the New Englander, and the Danube pouring down its produce from the plains of Moldavia and Wallachia, now subject to the plough of the hardy Kentuckian. Let us picture the Carolinians, the Vir- ginians, and the Georgians, transplanted to the coasts of Asia Minor, and behold its hundreds of cities again bursting from the tomb of ages, to recall religion and civilisation to the spot from whence they first issued forth upon the world. Alas ! that this should be only an illusion of the fancy !

There remains another argument in favour of an inter- position on our part in defence of Turkey for us to notice ; and it points to the danger our colonies might be in, from any movements which Russia should make eastward. " Our Indian possessions," says the pamphlet before quoted : " shall we fight for them on the Dnieper, as directing the whole Mussulman nation, or shall we fight for them on the Indus, at Bagdad, or in Persia, single-handed ; close to the insurrection she will raise in her rear, and when she is in possession of Turkey ? "

We might have passed over this point as too chimerical for c %

20 Political Writings of Richard Cobden.

comment, were it not that it involves a question upon which, we believe, there is greater misapprehension than upon any other subject that engages the attention of our countrymen. Supposing Russia or Austria to be in possession of the Turkish dominions, would she not find her attention and resources far too abundantly occupied in retaining the sovereignty over fifteen millions of fierce and turbulent subjects, animated with warlike hatred to their conquerors, and goaded into rebellion by the all-powerful impulse of a haughty and intolerant religion, to contemplate adding still further to her embarrassments by declaring war with England, and giving the word of march to Hindostan ? Who does not perceive that it could not, for ages at least, add to the external pcnver of either of these states, if she were to get possession of Turkey by force of arms? Is Russia stronger abroad by her recent perfidious incorporation of Polish territory ? Would Holland increase her power if she were to reconquer her Belgic provinces to-morrow? Or, to come to our own doors, for example, was Great Britain more powerful whilst, for centuries, she held Ireland in disaffected subjection to her rule; or was she not rather weakened, by offering, in the sister island, a vulnerable point of attack to her continental enemies ?

But supposing, merely by way of argument, that Russia meditated hostile views towards our eastern colonies.

Constantinople is about three thousand miles distant from Calcutta: are our Indian possessions of such value to the British people that we must guard them with operations so extended and so costly as would be necessary ii the shores ot the Bosphorus are to be made the outpost for our armies or the Ganges ? Surely it becomes a momentous question, to the already over-burdened people of England, to ascertain what advantages are to be reaped from enterprises like this, which, whatever other results they may chance to involve, are certain to entail increased taxation on themselves.

Nothing, we believe, presents so fair a field for economical

England. 21

analysts, even in this age of new lights, as the subject of colonisation. We can, of course, only briefly allude to the question ; but, in doing so, we suggest it as one that claims the investigation of independent public writers, and of all those members of the legislature who are of and for the people, distinct from selfish views or aristocratic tendencies.

Spain lies, at this moment, a miserable spectacle of a nation whose own natural greatness has been immolated on the shrinfe of Trans-Atlantic ambition. May not some future historian possibly be found recording a similar epitaph on the tomb of Britain ?

In truth, we have been planting, and supporting, and governing countries upon all degrees of habitable, and some that are not habitable, latitudes of the earth's surface ; and so grateful to our national pride has been the spectacle, that we have never, for once, paused to inquire if our interests were advanced by so much nominal greatness. Three hundred millions of permanent debt have been accumulated — millions of direct taxation are annually levied — restrictions and pro- hibitions are imposed upon our trade in all quarters of the world, for the acquisition or maintenance of colonial pos- sessions ; and all for what ? That we may repeat the fatal Spanish proverb — " The sun never sets on the King of England's dominions." For we believe that no candid investigator of our colonial policy will draw the conclusion that we have derived, or shall derive, from it advantages that can compensate for these formidable sacrifices.

But we are upon the verge of a novel combination of com- mercial necessities that will altogether change the relations in which we have hitherto stood with our colonies. We call them necessities, because they will be forced upon us, not from con. viction of the wisdom of such changes, but by the irresistible march of events. The New World is destined to become the arbiter of the commercial policy of the Old. We will see in what manner this is in operation.

22 Political Writings of Richard Cobden.

At the passing of the Negro Emancipation Act, an effort was made by the merchants of Liverpool, trading to South America, to prevail on the Legislature to abolish the dis- criminating duties on West India sugar, which operated so severely on the trade with the Brazils. It was finally decided that the bounty in favour of the importation of our colonial productions should be continued for ten years. At the end of this period, if not long before, therefore, the monstrous impolicy of sacrificing our trade with a new continent, of almost bound- less extent of rich territory, in favour of a few small islands, with comparatively exhausted soils, will cease to be sanctioned by the law. What will then follow ? If we no longer offer the exclusive privileges of our market to the West Indians, we shall cease, as a matter of justice and necessity, to compel them to purchase exclusively from us. They will be at liberty, in short, to buy wherever they can buy goods cheapest, and to sell in the dearest market. They must be placed in the very same pre- dicament as if they were not a part of his Majesty's dominions. Where, then, will be the semblance of a plea for putting our- selves to the expense of governing and defending such countries? Let us apply the same test to our other colonies.

It is no longer a debateable question, amongst enlightened and disinterested minds, that the privileges which we give to the Canadian exporters of timber to Britain, and by which alone we command a monopoly of that market for our manufactures, are founded on gross injustice to the people of this country, and are calculated to give a forced misdirection, as all such bounties are, to the natural industry of these colonies, by causing the investment of capital in the preparing and shipping of inferior timber, which would otherwise seek its legitimate employment in the pursuit of agriculture. This monopoly must yield to the claims of the United States and Baltic trades. Nor have we been contented with sacrificing our own interests to the pro- motion of a fictitious prosperity in our colonies, but we destroy the interests of one of these, in the vain hope of benefiting

England. 23

another. Thus, in the same spirit of withering protection, we have awarded to the West Indies a monopoly of the trade to „ Canada, whilst, to the latter, we give the privilege of exclusively supplying the former with corn and timber:* and all this whilst, at the same time, these islands lie within half the dis- tance of the shores of the United States, whose maritime districts possess all the identical exchangeable products with Canada, and teem with a population of industrious and enter- prising people, eager for a commerce with these prohibited people.

True, the Government of the United States has lately com- pelled us, in self-defence, to relax from this system ; and every one now sees that the same motive prescribes that the com- merce of the West Indies be wholly, and without restriction, thrown open to the people of the neighbouring continent, from which it has hitherto been shut out only by means of unnatural prohibitions.

We have said that the New World is the arbiter of the com- mercial policy of the Old ; and we will now see in what way this is the fact in the case of our East Indian trade. Hitherto it has been the custom to impose discriminating duties in favour of the products of these colonies ; and this, and this only, has given us the right to compel these dependencies, in return, to restrict themselves to the purchase of our manufac- tures. We have seen that this restrictive policy must be aban- doned in the case of the West Indies and Canada, and still less shall we find it practicable to uphold it in the East. Our leading imports from this quarter must be cotton-wool, silk, indigo, and sugar. The last of these articles, as we have already shown in speaking of the West Indies, the Brazils have, by its successful culture, forced us to remove from the list of protected commodities ; whilst the three first, being raw pro- ducts, in the supply and manufacture of which we are so closely checkmated by the competition of the United States or of * [These monopolies have, of course, long since been abolished.]

24 Political Writings of Richard Cojjdln.

European countries, it would be madness to think of subjecting the fabrication of them to restrictive duties, however trifling.

We shall then be under the necessity of levying the same duties on the cotton, sugar, &c, imported from the East Indies, as on similar products coming from North or South America ; and it will follow, of course, that, as we offer no privileges in our markets to the planters of Hindostan, we can claim none for our manufacturers in theirs. In other words, they must be left at liberty to buy wherever they can purchase cheapest, and to sell where they can do so at the dearest rate ; they will, in all respects, be, commercially and fiscally speaking, the same to us as though they did not form a part of his Majesty's dominions. Where then will be the plea for subjecting our- selves to the heavy taxation required to maintain armies and navies for the defence of these colonies ?

Provided our manufactures be cheaper than those of our rivals, we shall command the custom of these colonies by the same motives of self-interest which bring the Peruvians, the Brazilians, or the natives of North America, to clothe them- selves with the products of our industry ; and, on the other hand, they will gladly sell to us their commodities through the same all-powerful impulse, provided we offer for them a more tempting price than they will command in other markets.

We have thus hastily and incidentally glanced at a subject which we predict will speedily force itself upon the attention of our politicians; and we know of nothing that would be so likely to conduce to a diminution of our burdens, by reducing the charges of the army, navy, and ordnance (amounting to fourteen millions annually), as a proper understanding of our relative position with respect to our colonial possessions.* We are aware that no power was ever yet known, voluntarily, to give up the dominion over a part of its territory. But if it could be made manifest to the trading and industrious portions

* f The charges for army, navy, and ordnance, for the year 1865, amounted to £25,280,925.]

England. 25

of this nation, who have no honours or interested ambition of any kind at stake in the matter, that whilst our dependencies are supported at an expense to them, in direct taxation, of more than five millions annually, they serve but as gorgeous and ponderous appendages to swell our ostensible grandeur, but in reality to complicate and magnify our government ex- penditure, without improving our balance of trade — surely under such circumstances, it would become at least a question for anxious inquiry with a people so overwhelmed with debt, whether those colonies should not be suffered to support and defend themselves as separate and independent existences.

Adam Smith, more than sixty years ago, promulgated his doubts of the wisdom and profitableness of our colonial policy — at a time, be it remembered, when we were excluded, by the mother countries, from the South American markets, and when our West Indian possessions appeared to superficial minds an indispensable source of vast wealth to the British empire. Had he lived to our day, to behold the United States of America, after freeing themselves from the dominion of the mother country, become our largest and most friendly commercial con- nection— had he lived also to behold the free states of South America only prevented from outstripping in magnitude all our other customers by the fetters which an absurd law of exclusive dealing with those very West Indian Colonies has imposed on our commerce — how fully must his opinions have coincided with all that we have urged on this subject !

Here, let us observe, that it is worthy of surprise how little progress has been made in the study of that science of which Adam Smith was, more than half a century ago, the great luminary. We regret that no society has been formed for the purpose of disseminating a knowledge of the just principles of trade. Whilst agriculture can boast almost as many associa- tions as there are British counties; whilst every city in the kingdom contains its botanical, phrenological, or mechanical institutions, and these again possess their periodical journals

26 Political Writings of Richard Cobden.

(and not merely these, for even war sends forth its United Ser- vice Mugazine), we possess no association of traders, united together for the common object of enlightening the world upon a question so little understood, and so loaded with obloquy, as free trade.

We have our Banksian, our Linnaean, our Hunterian Socie- ties ; and why should not at least our greatest commercial and manufacturing towns possess their Smithian Societies, devoted to the purpose of promulgating the beneficent truths of the " Wealth of Nations ? " Such institutions, by promoting a correspondence with similar societies that would probably be organised abroad (for it is our example, in questions affecting commerce, that strangers follow), might contribute to the spread of liberal and just views of political science, and thus tend to ameliorate the restrictive policy of foreign governments, through the legitimate influence of the opinions of their people.

Nor would such societies be fruitless at home. Prizes might be offered for the best essays on the corn question ; or lecturers might be sent to enlighten the agriculturists, and to invite discussion upon a subject so difficult and of such para- mount interest to all.

The question of the policy or justice of prohibiting the export of machinery might be brought to the test of public discussion ; these, and a thousand other questions might, with usefulness, engage the attention of such associations.

But to return to the consideration of the subject more immediately before us.

It will be seen from the arguments and facts we have urged, and are about to lay before our readers, that we entertain no fears that our interests would be likely to suffer from the aggrandisement of a Christian power at the expense of Turkey, even should that power be Russia. On the contrary, we have no hesitation in avowing it as our deliberate conviction, that not merely great Britain, but the entire civilised world, will have reason to congratulate itself, the moment when that territory

England. 27

again falls beneath the sceptre of any other European power whatever. Ages must elapse before its favoured region will become, as it is by nature destined to become, the seat and centre of commerce, civilisation and true religion ; but the first step towards this consummation must be to convert Constan- tinople again into that which every lover of humanity and peace longs to behold it — the capital of a Christian people. Nor let it be objected by more enlightened believers, that the Russians would plant that corrupted branch of our religion, the Greek Church, on the spot where the first Christian monarch erected a temple to the true faith of the Apostles. We are no advocates of that Church, with its idolatrous worship and pantomimic ceremonials, fit only to delude the most degraded and ignorant minds ; but we answer — put into a people's hands the Bible in lieu of the Koran — let the religion of Mahomet give place to that of Jesus Christ; and human reason, aided by the printing press and the commerce of the world, will not fail to erase the errors which time, barbarism, or the cunning of its priesthood, may have engrafted upon it.

But to descend from these higher motives to the question of our own interests, to which, probably, as politicians, we ought to confine our consideration.

Nothing, we confess, appears so opposed to the facts of experience, as the belief which has been so industriously propagated in this country, that Russia, if she held the keys of the Dardanelles, would exclude all trade from the Black Sea and the Sea of Marmora. The writer so often quoted, says — " On the occupation of the Dardanelles disappears the importance of our possessions in the Levant. They were only valuable because the Turks held these Straits. When Russia is there, they are valueless, and will soon be untenable." It might be a sufficient reply to these assertions, unsupported by /acts or reasoning, to demand of what use will these maritime possessions be to Russia, or any other power, unless for the purposes of trade ? Why did the government of St. Petersburg,

28 Political Writings of Richard Cobden.

for nearly a century, bend a steady and longing eye on the ports of the Euxine, but for the facilities which the possession of one of them would give to the traffic between the interior provinces of Russia and the Mediterranean ?

We write, however, with no motive but to disabuse the public mind on an important question ; and as we prefer in all cases to appeal to facts, we shall here give a few particulars of the rise and progress of the only commercial port of conse- quence as yet established in the Black Sea.

The first stone of the town of Odessa was laid, by order of Catherine, in 1792.

Previously to this, the Euxine was so little visited by our mariners, that every kind of absurd story was advanced and credited respecting the danger of its navigation : the very name was held to be only synonymous with the black and dismal character of its storms, or the perilous mists that it was imagined constantly shrouded its surface. The Danube was, in a like spirit of credulity, suspected to pour from its channel so vast a deposit of mud as to fill the Black Sea with shoals, that threatened, in the course of a few ages, to convert its waters into dry land ; whilst this river, the noblest in Europe, sealed by Turkish jealousy, thus blotting out, as it were, from commercial existence, that vast pastoral district through which it flowed — this stream, whose course lay almost in the centre of Christendom, was as little known as the great yellow river of China.

Odessa has fully equalled the rapid commercial rise of St. Petersburg, to which only in importance it is now the second in the Russian empire. These two ports, which we are taught to believe belong to the most anti-commercial people, present, singularly enough, the two most astonishing instances in Europe of quick advances in wealth, trade, and population.

This town has latterly been declared a free port, with exemption from taxes ; and, therefore, we cannot but anticipate for it a much more rapid career in the time to come.

The population of Odessa is estimated at 40,000 souls. The

England.

29

exportation of tallow has increased in two years twenty-fold, thus civilising and enriching extensive districts which must have re- mained in comparative barbarism, had not this outlet been found for their produce. During the same time the breed of sheep has been much improved in these vast southern regions of the Russian territory by the introduction of the merinoes, and the consequent increase of the export of wool has been very con- siderable.

The amount of imports is stated at 30,000,000 roubles.

We subjoin a statement of the movement of Russian and British shipping at this port, to show that here, as at St. Peters- burg and elsewhere, the commerce of England finds a propor- tionate extension with the trade of other countries.

Shipping at Odessa.*

Vessels.	1826.	1827.	1828. 1829.	183a	1831.
	1 i <	i t	i > B <	i •a C/2	i "u E <	Sailed. Arrived.	i 1	Arrived. Sailed.	1 I <	•8 1
Russian . British...	164 104	in »°5	167 1 122 15s j 143	50 4	38 ; 24 8 65	38 1 172 | 194 > 155 43 j 147 169 81	136 83

Already have its merchants appeared as our customers on the Exchange of Manchester; and it only requires that we remove our suicidal restrictions on the import of corn, to

* M'Culloch's Dictionary, p. 858 ; a work of unrivalled labour and usefulness, which ought to have a place in the library of every merchant or reader who feels interested in the commerce and statistics of the world. We will quote from another part of jthis valuable work, the opinion of the author upon the influences of Russian sway in this quarter : — " On the whole, however, a gradual im- provement is taking place ; and whatever objections may, on other grounds, be made to the encroachments of Russia in this quarter, there can be no doubt that, by introducing comparative security and good order into the countries under her authority, she has materially improved their condition, and accelerated their progress to a more advanced state." — P. 1108.

30 Political Writings of Richard Cobden.

render Odessa ultimately one of the chief contributors to the trade of Liverpool.

The influence of Russia, since she has gained a settlement on the shores of the Euxine, has been successfully exercised in throwing open the navigation of its waters, with those of the Danube, to the world ; and this noble river has at length been subjected to the dominion of steam, which will, beyond all other agents, tend most rapidly to bring the population of its banks within the pale of civilisation. A Danube Steam Navigation Joint Stock Company has been projected, and will, in all probability, be in operation next summer ; and, as this will give the route from the west of Europe to Turkey, by the way of Vienna, the preference, there is no reason to doubt that eventually this river will enjoy a considerable traffic both of passengers and merchandise.

We have probably said sufficient to prove, from facts, that Russia is not an anti-commercial nation.

We have endeavoured likewise to show that alarms for the safety of our eastern possessions ought not to induce us to go to war to check a movement three thousand miles removed from their capital ; and to those who are inspired with fear for our European commerce, from the aggrandisement of Russia, we have answered by showing that Napoleon, when he had all Europe at his feet, could not diminish our trade eight per cent.

What then remains to be urged in favour of the policy of this Government putting its over-taxed people to the cost of making warlike demonstrations in favour of Turkey ? At the moment when we write a British fleet is wintering in the Gulf of Vourla, the cost of which, at a low estimate, probably exceeds two millions, to say nothing of living materiel; and this is put in requisition in behalf of a country with which we carry on a commerce less in annual amount than is turned over by either of two trading concerns that we could name in the city of London !

England. 31

But we are to await a regeneration ot this Mahometan empire. Our arms, we are told, are not only to defend its territory, but to reorganise or reconstruct the whole Turkish government, and to bestow upon its subjects improved political institutions. Let us note what the pamphlet before us says upon this subject, and let it be borne in mind that the writer's sentiments have been applauded by some of our influential journals — " It is the policy of England which alone can save her : it is therefore no trivial or idle investigation which we have undertaken, since it is her political elements that we have to embody into a new political instrument." — P. 54. Again — " In the capital, in the meanest villages, in the centre of communi- cations, on the furthest frontiers, a feeling of vague but intense expectation is spread, which will not be satisfied with less at our hands than internal reorganisation and external inde- pendence."— P. 62. Again — " Unless anticipated by visible intervention on the part of England, which will relieve them from the permanent menace of the occupation of the capital, and which will impose on the Government (!) the necessity of a change of measures, a catastrophe is inevitable." — P. 63. And again — "An empire which in extent, in resources, in population, in position, and in individual qualities and courage — in all, in fact, save instruction — is one of the greatest on the face of the earth, is brought to look with ardent expectation for the arrival of a foreign squadron, and a body of auxiliaries in its capital, and to expect from their presence the reformation of internal abuses (!) and the restoration of its political independence."

—P. 73-

To protect Turkey against her neighbour, Russia — to defend the Turks against their own government — to force on the latter a constitution, we suppose — to redress all internal griev- ances in a state where there is no law but despotism ! Here, then, in a word, is the "trifling succour" (p. 2) which we are called on to render our ancient ally; and if the people of Great Britain desired to add another couple of hundreds of

32 Political Whitings of Richard CoBDEW.

millions to their debt, we think a scheme is discovered by which they may be gratified, without seeking for quarrels in any other quarter.

If such propositions as these are, however, to be received gravely, it might be suggested to inquire, would Russia, would Austria, remain passive, whilst another power sent her squadrons