sufficient to reconcile the people and the Government to what was done or intended. There lay under the surface, but cropping out very distinctly here, there, and all about, an uneasy feeling with regard to the state of the political relations between the two countries, and a desire, as Sir William Brown put it, to "make a sacri"sacrifice." fice" in order to ameliorate these relations. Acknowledged Cobden Mr. Cobden's real aims extended be were questionable. So lately as the year 1870 the Cobden Club, under the motto of Free-trade, peace, goodwill among nations," published Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, by Richard Cobden, M.P., edited by John Bright and Jas. E. Thorold Rogers. I turn to these volumes, hoping to find some speech regarding the French Treaty. The nearest approach to that is to be found in a speech delivered at Rochdale to his constituents, on June 26th, 1861, " after the French commercial treaty had been negotiated." From it the following are extracts : I ... "I have been endeavouring to make such arrangements as shall lead two great countries. . . to enter upon new relations. I have been yond trade seeking to form arrangements by which these two countries shall be united together in mutual bonds of dependence [a strange aim!] and, I hope, of future peace. What I confess, as an Englishman, I have been led in this important duty most to consider is, how this matter has benefited you, not by what it will allow you to export, but by what it will allow you to import. [If this means to import in substitution for articles of the kind already being made within the United Kingdom, it involves a lessening of demand for labour at home. If it means increased use of French wines and spirits, I refer to what say elsewhere on that subject.] . . . My aim and hope have been to promote such a change as shall lead to a better moral and political tone between the two nations. . . Your worthy mayor has alluded to the immense preparations now making by the governments of these two countries for warlike operations. These preparations, as far as the navies of the two countries are concerned, are undoubtedly-nay, avowedly with the view to mutual attack or defence from these two countries alone. . . . I ask you . . . is there no presumptive evidence calculated to make you pause before you believe. when you find that government engaged in this most difficult task, the subversion of their commercial system [a very slight subversion indeed,] by throwing open the markets of that country to the manufactures of England [open to not very much more than the extent to which a field can be said to be open when you can look over the wall as you pass along without gaining admittance] . . . before you believe. . . that it is the design of the French Emperor to come and invade your shores. . . Looking at him as an intelligent man, what must we say of his conduct in proposing at the same time to adopt a policy which would knit the two countries in the bonds of commercial dependence? I should have suspected some sinister design on the part of the French Government, and should have considered myself a traitor to my country, if I had allowed the government Cobden and the Cobden Club. 13 of that country to have made use of me to mislead or hoodwink England by leading me to suppose that my instrumentality was being used for the promotion of commercial intercourse, when I had grounds to believe they were entering upon a policy of war." Allusion will be made further on to strength for war purposes which shipping bounties are now proposed in order to secure. May I here interject an expression of regret that the reciprocal dependence sought should not rather have been between the mother country and the colonies! Some light on the quotations just given is thrown by a more recent publication of the club, Cobden and Modern Political Opinion, by Professor Rogers, M.P. I find on page 324 thereof: : War. Rogers' com "Mission “He even thought Lord Palmerston to be as mischievous a man Professor as Napoleon. . . . The formal development of such international ments. relations as Cobden contemplated in the diplomatic negotiations which are identified with his later activity, is part of that high political education in mutual duties and mutual benefits, which must be in time to come the process of modern civilisation. The true student of political philosophy . . . is a stranger to that enthusiasm which some men call loyalty. . . . An economist may accept the title of a missionary. “Loyalty." ... They who know Cobden can confirm my statement, that in the ary." ultimate victory of his principles, of which, indeed, he never doubted, the smallest consequence which he foresaw was the distribution of the benefits which nature accords through the machinery of free trade. . . . It is possible that the avowal of these purposes would have led to the charge that the work which Cobden undertook was visionary and Utopian. . . . For the majority of men it was expedient to show that the interests of trade would be furthered by a relaxation of those Objectionable object restrictions which had formerly prevailed, and that the form of a com- in view. mercial treaty was a guarantee against the reversal of a policy which had been once adopted. [I don't like these words. Surely a Liberal Government of to-day will not act on such an intent?]. . . I am ready enough to admit that a commercial treaty is not the highest manifestation of economic intelligence; but it may be the best under the circumstances. Men must walk before they can run; they must be taught their alphabet, and con words of one syllable before they can read an ordinary sentence with fluency. . . . It is still a good, if we can Apologies. induce them to travel a little way on the same road with ourselves; the education of nations is something.... What should we say of a man who declined to teach a child anything whatever, on the ground that he saw no prospect of carrying his pupil through all the arts and sciences. Cobden's treaty was an arrangement by which a true reciprocity of free trade was made a question of time." An interesting account of the Treaty, contained in the Memoirs of the Prince Consort, begins our Appendix. Thiers. France required freedom of policy. The following extract is significant as showing how much France, a dozen of years after the treaty was negotiated, wished to have greater freedom than that treaty allows her : "Upon all those points some remedy must be applied for a state of things which was becoming worse from day to day, and particularly with respect to the mercantile marine, which the foreign warehouses were causing to disappear. . . . We propose, while leaving to foreign trade all the freedom compatible with the public welfare, to insure to our manufacturers, to those who, during three-quarters of a century, have made the fortune of France [a much kindlier spirit this than the British Government ventures to express, or, I fear, feels], the proteccommercial tion of adequate tariffs, in order that they might not perish under the unlimited competition of foreigners,-sufficient stimulants to prevent them from falling into a state of indolent security, but not sufficient to reduce them to the position of abandoning production. this view, although we had a strong preference for the abrogation of the treaties by which we are bound, because we, above all, aim at the recovery of the freedom of our commercial policy [the United Kingdom has more to recover, the freedom of finance], we thought it would be more prudent to propose to England to agree with us to a simple modification of the existing treaties, a modification which we deemed indispensable under the empire. Thus, while allowing to continue all the tariffs affecting iron, coal, chemical products, glass, porcelain, woollens, salt and fresh fish, . . . we should prefer, we said to the English Government, the denunciation of the treaty, because, like you, we desire to recover the liberty of our commercial relations; but, in a spirit of friendship and cordial relations, we consent to remain bound by stipulations which are very inconvenient for us, upon condition that those which are so hurtful as to threaten the existence of our principal manufactures are relaxed." A lesson for us. Manchester Commerce. Twice, or oftener, in the course of the same speech, the great French minister used strongly the words "recover our freedom." Here, then, is a lesson for us. An interesting report was made in 1872 to the Manchester Chamber of Chamber of Commerce by Mr. Hugh Mason, then its President, and Mr. Slagg, Director (both gentlemen are members of the present Parliament). It said that they had waited on Mr. Kennedy, the Commissioner appointed by our Government to negotiate a new French Treaty, and the head of the commercial department of the Foreign Office, who informed them "that it was not within the scope of his functions to discuss with us questions of general policy or of principle. His duty was simply to listen to any objections we might have to make as to the method and degree in which the new compensatory duties were to be applied by the French authorities to cotton, yarns, and goods. . . . We succeeded Manchester Chamber of Commerce. 15 Slagg's in 1872. in convincing him that . . . the new duties far exceeded the amounts Mason and justified by the taxes on raw materials, and that an attempt was made report. at every stage of the tariff to tax the industry of this country, especially so in cases where it might possibly come into competition with that of France. . . . We obtained an inteview with Earl Granville. The Government seems to have considered that the anticipations of Mr. Cobden, that his treaty (apart from trade questions) would tend to draw closer the ties of mutual interest and good feeling between the two countries, had been so far realised as to render the abrupt termination of such relations undesirable. . . . The conditions of the new treaty may be generally summarised thus:-The tariff of the treaty of Negotiations 1860 to remain in force, with the addition of compensatory duties equivalent to the taxes paid on raw materials by the French producers; England to be replaced in the position assured to her for her navigation by the law of the 19th April 1866, now repealed in France. Complete freedom regained by England in respect to her own duties on wine, coal, and all other imports and exports. . . . We regretted that it was then too late usefully to urge our unshaken belief that the principles of treaties of commerce, justified by Mr. Cobden in 1860, was inadmissible in 1862. We derive but scanty consolation Treaty of from the fact that while abetting the commercial slavery of France, denounced. England has taken pains to regain complete liberty for herself. We rely on the conviction that this chamber will support us in the view, that no temporary advantage, however apparently expedient, can justify departure from well-ascertained principles." The Manchester Examiner said— "It is regarded as highly probable that the aspirations of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce will, after all, be fulfilled to the extent possibly of the defeat of the treaty under discussion, and, it may be, by the establishment of commercial relations with France on a broader or more satisfactory basis." A letter, honoured with conspicuous type, in the Times of 16th October 1872, concluded thus commerce France. "To the denunciation England has only to make her bow and gracefully retire. Sure may we feel that if the individuals composing Disfavour in the four classes to which I have adverted could be polled and represented, so as to convey their own wishes to the Government, they would say, by a large preponderance of voices, 'Leave us alone."" A fortiori, much more should the united kingdom, whose freedom of action was so much more extensively compromised, desire for herself freedom. Lord Salisbury spoke plainly on this subject. Lord Salisbury, in addressing the Manchester Chamber, October 20, 1879, said bury. "I cannot help thinking the time will come when the farmers of Lord SalisAmerica will prefer cheap cotton to dear, and cheap iron to dear. When that time comes none of those obstacles to which I have referred will prevent the United States from entering on a sound policy of of British negotiators. fiscal and commercial legislation; but with respect to other countries Helplessness of the world we have no such immediate hope. Now, in the address which has been placed before me, we are recommended to try and foster the interests of commerce by the conclusion of treaties which shall remove the fiscal obstacles which are now arresting the flow of commerce. Undoubtedly it is our duty to do so, and undoubtedly we shall make the utmost efforts we can wherever we have the materials in our hands; but we are in the position, the well-known position, of being asked to make bricks without straw. We have to open the doors to the access of trade when the keys have unfortunately been thrown away by the mistakes of our predecessors. I am not here speaking party politics, and by our predecessors I refer to a generation ago. Now the doctrine of free-trade, which has obtained such a complete victory in this country, has passed through two phases, and there have been two versions of it. There has been the theoretical version sanctioned by Sir Robert Peel, and the more practical version sanctioned by Mr. Gladstone. In the days of Sir Robert Peel it seems to have been generally believed that free-trade was so evidently true that no sooner should it have been proclaimed by this country than all other nations would hasten to adopt it. But the experience of some fifteen years has shown that that was entirely groundless; but, under the influence of the belief, treaties of commerce were looked upon as a species of economical heresy, and vast numbers of duties were repealed which might have been repealed, conditional that reciprocal repeals were made in other countries. Of course, steps of that kind once taken can never be retraced; but the result of the materials which are in our hands for the conclusion of treaties of commerce are very meagre." Exploded expectations. Inconveni ences ac I now give extracts from Free-Trade and Protection, by the Right Hon. Professor Fawcett, M.P., Postmaster-General : "Great as are the advantages which result from such a Treaty, knowledged they are accompanied by at least one important disadvantage. When certain fiscal arrangements are entered into between two countries which are to remain in operation during a fixed number of years, it is evident that throughout the continuance of this period, the freedom of each country to introduce changes in its tariff is somewhat [!] curtailed. Thus by the Anglo-French Treaty it was stipulated that only certain by Professor defined duties should be levied upon French wines imported into England. Some event might have occurred, such, for instance, as a prolonged and costly war, which might have made it necessary for England to have raised additional revenue by indirect taxation. If this had been the case, the Treaty stipulations into which she had entered would have virtually prevented her obtaining any portion of this additional revenue by increased taxation on alcoholic drinks.. Fawcett. "Without expressing a positive opinion as to the justice of these complaints, belief in them is so general in Spain, that the Government of that country was induced last year so to frame its budget as to place English commerce at a special disadvantage. Such an occurrence |