were many circumstances apart from the bent of his personal views, that would go a considerable way in justifying Sir Robert Peel. The Protectionists distrusted him, and baited him in the House, not only upon their own grounds, but upon others on which we are inclined to think they might have patriotically accorded him their support; and there was an element of bitterness in his position as a Minister that predisposes men's minds to change. In Peel's case Free Trade was, as Mr. Disraeli declared it to be, not a principle but an expedient. The Irish famine came opportunely for the Free-Traders, to quicken both the Minister's conversion and the action of the Opposition; and it afforded Peel the excuse which he was perhaps waiting for, of buying the support of the League to his staggering Government. It is impossible to trace any reasonable course of principle throughout Peel's conduct, except that of political self-preservation; and although he embraced the dogmas of Free Trade, it cannot be said that he ever evinced more than a feeble and half-hearted belief in them, except when he was driven by the Protectionists to stand upon the defensive. He had no faith in the great moral revolution which Cobden prophesied Free Trade would bring about. Nor had he a sufficient answer for the warnings which the Protectionists uttered of dangers that must fall upon the land and the food-producing industries of the country. He was still to float for some time upon the wave of popularity which his conversion to Free Trade had stirred up; but his character as a statesman had sustained a shock from which it was destined never to recover. Even his position as the conceder of Free Trade stands far in the shade be

hind Cobden the agitator, although Cobden and the League might have lectured and spent money for an indefinite number of years longer, had not one or both of the great parties in Parliament resolved to take advantage of the agitation in furtherance of purely party interests. Cobden confesses that the country had been subjected to the gigantic influences of the League for a period of some seven years without making itself heard upon the subject with a distinctness that would have compelled any Ministry to listen to its wishes. The fact should not be forgotten that Free Trade was carried, not in response to a definite national sentiment, but as a means of bolstering up Sir Robert Peel's Government; and if any one doubt the fact, let him read Mr. Morley's two volumes.

Mr. Morley has told us that the Free Trade struggle aimed at displacing the landed aristocracy to make room for the "great industrialists." His 'Life of Cobden' also enables us to estimate at its true worth another of the favourite professions of the League. Cobden posed as a farmer's friend, the son of a farmer, and one who had the interests of agriculture quite as much at heart as those of trade. Yet he had sufficient penetration to foresee the severe struggle to which America, with its vast food-producing powers, would expose this country; and he prophesied that, within twenty years of 1835, the commercial importance of America would be more dreaded in England than the military power of Russia. Yet no one has done so much as Cobden himself did to aid American to supplant English industry; and his political penetration in this case only detracts from his cautiousness as a statesman. His sanguine disposi

tion, which led him to bring his own affairs to rack and ruin as often as his friends had put them right for him, led him to think that Britain had only to set the example of Free Trade to lead all the nations of the world in her train. But though other countries gladly availed themselves of the doctrine, so far as British markets were concerned, they held by their own tariffs, and very soon taught the world understand that the only practicable approach towards Free Trade is to be made through Protection.

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The other side of Cobden's political life is mainly made up of his championship of what has been called without much exaggeration the principles of "peace at any price." Here we are much more conscious of the narrowness of his intellect, than even in his promotion of a commercial policy. He had from early life a holy horror of armaments, which to him meant simply so much money misspent that might have been applied to the reduction of national taxation, and the energies of so many men withdrawn from the labour-market. In a visit to the Levant in 1837, he mourns over the ships of war that he sees at Valetta, and the men who, "to the number of six, seven, or eight hundred, are put to such exercise or employment as the ingenuity of the first lieutenant can devise on board ship, or else are suffered to wander on shore upon occasional leaves of absence. This is not the way either to make good sailors or to add to the power of the British empire. The expenses are borne by the industry of the productive classes at home. The wages of these idlers are paid out of the taxes levied upon the soap, beer, and tobacco, &c., consumed by the people of England;" and so on. Peace had the great

recommendation of keeping the markets open; and no sacrifice was too great to offer, no aggression was too severe to be forgiven, in order that we might keep on good terms with our neighbours, especially if these neighbours were considerable consumers of British exports. Russia was an early and constant object of his adoration; and though he could not shut his eyes to her abuse of her strength, he would allow her to hold on her aggressive way unchecked so long as her ports were kept open. Of treaty obligations Cobden recked nothing. and he would have had Britain draw herself like a snail within her shell, and wait until the first heavy foot that fell upon her crushed out her national existence. would even have had her to give up her foreign possessions; and he was absolutely furious over the retention of Gibraltar. "England for fifty years at Gibraltar is a spectacle of brute violence. Upon no principle of morality," he went on, "can this unique

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outrage upon the integrity of an ancient, powerful, and renowned nation be justified: the example, if imitated, instead of being shunned universally, would throw all the nations of the earth into barbarous anarchy." Inspired by this denunciation, his biographer throws the mantle of prophecy over his shoulder, and observes: " Here, as elsewhere, we see how wrong is the begetter of wrong; for if England had not possessed Gibraltar, she would not have been tempted to pursue that turbulent policy in the Mediterranean which is still likely one day to cost her dear." We shall not follow Mr. Morley into the regions of vaticination; but if we look back to the past, we shall find that it was language similarly imbecile that involved us in

the Crimean war, and that not so long ago, amid shouts of "Perish India!" would have plunged us into difficulties in Eastern Europe, had not strong hands held the destinies of the nation. As Cobden had a panacea in Free Trade for the commercial and industrial evils of nations, so by arbitration he was to settle all international difficulties, and supplement universal Free Trade by universal Peace. "You seem puzzled about my motion in favour of international arbitration," he writes to George Combe, the Edinburgh phrenologist, in whose theories Cobden was a devout believer.

"Perhaps you have mixed it up

with other theories to which I am no party. My plan does not embrace the scheme of a congress of nations, or imply the belief in the millennium, or demand your homage to the principle of non-resistance. I simply propose that England should offer to enter into an agreement with other countries France, for instance-binding them to refer any dispute that may arise to arbitration. I do not mean, to refer the matter to another sovereign Power, but that each party should appoint plenipotentiaries in the form of commissioners, with a proviso for calling in arbitrators in case they cannot agree."

Cobden entirely overlooked the probability, that as new courts breed new litigation, so the establishment of a system of arbitration would create new international difficulties, which would have had to be smothered on one side or the other if there was a risk of war springing from their being put forward. It was perhaps fortunate for Cobden that he did not live to see arbitration secure peace at the cost of injustice in the case of the Alabama award, otherwise his faith in his plan must have been considerably shaken.

The House would not hearken to Cobden more than to the other peace-at-any-price politicians; but that did not prevent either him or them from doing much national mischief. They did their utmost to make the masses believe that the best safeguard for peace was to leave the country open to invasion; they talked at their peace congresses at home and on the Continent as if the sole representation of English opinion had become centred in themselves; and they led the foreign Powers to imagine that with Free Trade the British people had actually sunk into a nation of shopkeepers. By their loose talk and pacific demonstrations Cobden and

his friends had not less to do with plunging Russia into the Crimean war than had the blunders of the Aberdeen Cabinet. Yet he would have had the Government indulge in protests at times, as when Russia invaded Hungary, or when the Czar and the Emperor demanded the extradition of the Hungarian rebels that had taken refuge in the territories of the Porte. Wiser statesmen, however, knew that such a protest, without force to back it up, would simply render the nation ridiculous. Throughout Lord Palmerston's career, Cobden was a determined opponent of his foreign policy, as indeed he would have been of the foreign policy of any British Minister. It must be admitted that after the influence which the Free Trade movement had secured him began to fade away under Repeal, Cobden sank

to the level of a mere meddler in politics; and that the House could expect no practical gain from his counsels. Soon both he and his friend Mr. Bright were made to feel the verdict of British opinion upon their want of both patriotism and common-sense. At the general

election of 1857, both Cobden and Mr. Bright received crushing defeats at the poll; and Cobden made up his mind that "so long as I was in political life, should a war again break out between England and a great Power, I would never open my mouth upon the subject from the time the first gun was fired until peace was made"-a wise resolution, which cannot be too highly commended to the imitation of all peace-at-any-price agitators.

We can only notice one other important part in Mr. Cobden's public career; and it was the last great measure in which he participated. In this country we are accustomed to give Cobden the entire credit of the French Commercial Treaty; but the suggestion was due to the French. The wellfounded mistrust of the Third Napoleon found an open expression both in the House of Commons and in the press, which Cobden and his faction did their best to stifle. Now that the policy of the Second Empire has been in a great measure laid bare, we can see that the public was right and Cobden wrong about the danger from France, not that Napoleon entertained any direct hostility towards this country, but that his devious and shifty schemes of Continental policy might have at any time compelled Britain to assume a hostile attitude towards him. A sovereign in Napoleon's unstable position could not afford to treat with contempt the suspicion with which his position was viewed in Britain, and he was anxious, if possible, to make friendly approaches. Considering how commercial views predominate in our national policy, he thought a commercial treaty

Ambassador, and M. Chevalier urged Cobden to undertake the subject. Mr. Morley seems anxious to credit Mr. Bright with the authorship of the suggestion; but he admits that the "idea was in the air." But it was from France that the wind blew; and as was to be expected, when Cobden undertook a private mission to convert the Emperor, his task was not a difficult one. Napoleon had made up his mind to have a commercial treaty, even at the risk of irritating the French Protectionists. Cobden found the approaches to the Emperor open to him, all the Ministers gracious and obliging, and Napoleon himself exhibiting only that amount of coyness that gave Cobden an excuse for explaining away difficulties and for pressing his principles. There was no occasion for diplomacy; and we cannot help thinking that Cobden himself, as well as his biographer, overestimates the importance of the part the former played in the negotiations. Indeed the fact that Cobden became the negotiator of a commercial treaty was a complete departure from his policy of Free Trade. His position was, that by means of a commercial treaty the way would be paved towards Free Trade in France; but even for this object he was, according to his own standard, doing evil that good might come. That the treaty has been of substantial benefit to French industry no one will deny; that British manufactures have benefited by it seems more than doubtful, if we may trust the evidence tendered quite recently to the Commissioners engaged in the revision of the treaty. fine, twenty years' experience of the treaty leaves France even more disposed to Protection than she was before, if we may judge by

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the difficulties which have twice postponed the negotiations for revision, and which would not improbably lead to the retirement of the Gladstone Government from the project, but for its dread of the Fair Trade feeling receiving an impetus in consequence. And twenty years' experience of the treaty has only served to stamp it as a very mediocre piece of statesmanship, with all its promises unfulfilled, and all its disadvantages aggravated.

We are obliged to say a word about Cobden's personal fortunes. The subject is not a pleasant one, but it must necessarily enter into an estimate of his political character. An attempt has been made to draw a parallel between Cobden and Pitt, who shattered his private resources in attending to the public service of the country. The two cases are as different as can well be. Cobden's only claim to public attention when he first came forward, rested on the fact that he was a man of business; and people were inclined to give him their confidence on the supposition that one who had created a great business out of nothing must surely be a person of sound financial abilities, and as such capable of giving good advice regarding the economical policy of Government. But what are the facts? In 1845,, when he was on the point of winning his great Free Trade victory, he was on the verge of bankruptcy. From this he was rescued by Mr. Bright and one or two other friends, "who procured the sum of money which sufficed to tide over the emergency." The reason of this distress is set down to Cobden's having devoted himself to the cause of Free Trade to the neglect of his private business. Such a course, it must be felt, distinctly detracts from a man's personal character. It is nothing to

the moral question involved that the cause for which Cobden was struggling might be great and glorious and disinterested. His ethical position was not one whit better than that of a grocer who gets into the Gazette' by neglecting his shop to run about the country agitating for the release of the Claimant. After Free Trade was won, Cobden, whose affairs seem to have been getting worse instead of mending, was presented by his admirers with a large sum of money, "between seventyfive and eighty thousand pounds." Mr. Morley thinks "it is not necessary to enter into a discussion of the propriety of Cobden's acceptance" of this "testimonial"; and we on our part have no wish to dwell on a matter which is as distasteful to us as it apparently is to his biographer. But it pertains to our estimate of Cobden's public capacity to inquire how he disposed of this fortune. The same sanguine spirit which had led him in 1835 to make speculative purchases of land in Manchester, expecting that factories, streets, and squares would spring up on the blocks as by the wand of an enchanter, misled him in his disposal of the means with which the public had presented him. "For five-andtwenty years waste spaces between Victoria Park and Rusholme, in Quay Street and Oxford Street, bore melancholy testimony to a miscalculation; and for five-and-twenty years Cobden paid a thousand pounds ayear in the shape of chief rent for a property which thus brought him not a shilling of return." His "miscalculation" was not less disastrous when he got the testimonial into his hands. Part of the money was happily invested in the purchase of the farm of Dunford, in West Sussex, which had once belonged to his grandfather; but with the rest he speculated in shares of the Illinois