The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Public and Parliamentary Speeches 1869–1873
• July 1869 to March 1873
• 143.: The Cobden Club 10 July, 1869
• 144.: Women’s Suffrage [1] 18 July, 1869
• 145.: The Education Bill [1] 25 March, 1870
• 146.: Women’s Suffrage [2] 26 March, 1870
• 147.: The Education Bill [2] 4 April, 1870
• 148.: Election to School Boards [1] 22 October, 1870
• 149.: Election to School Boards [2] 9 November, 1870
• 150.: Women’s Suffrage [3] 12 January, 1871
• 151.: The Cumulative Vote 13 February, 1871
• 152.: Discussion of the Contagious Diseases Acts 23 February, 1871
• 153.: The Army Bill 10 March, 1871
• 154.: Land Tenure Reform [1] 15 May, 1871
• 155.: Land Tenure Reform [2] 18 March, 1873
• Appendices
• Appendix A: the Manuscripts
• Appendix B: Questions Before Committees of the House of Commons (1866, 1868)
• I.: Select Committee On Metropolitan Local Government
• II.: Select Committee On Extradition
• Appendix C: Petitions In the House of Commons (1866-68)
• Appendix D: Manuscript Drafts of Speech
• I. Manuscript Draft of the Westminster Election of 1865 [2] (1865)
• II.: Manuscript Draft of Representation of the People [2] (1866)
• III.: Manuscript Draft of Women’s Suffrage [1] (1869)
• IV.: Manuscript Draft of the Education Bill [1] (1870)
• Appendix E: Missing Speeches
• Appendix F: War and Peace, By Helen Taylor (1871)
• Appendix G: Textual Emendations
• Appendix H: Index of Persons, and Works Cited, With Variants and Notes

143.

The Cobden Club

10 JULY, 1869

when i entered the room I had no expectation of being selected, as the organ of this society, to propose the health of their distinguished honorary members and guests. Fortunately, it is the less necessary that I should say much on this topic, as your grace has already expressed the sentiments of this club with your accustomed skill and good taste. As to the gentlemen who are the subjects of my toast, it is quite superfluous that I should say much of them; for among those who desire and watch the progress of European opinion, where is it that Mr. Cobden is honoured and that M. Michel Chevalier¹ is not honoured? (Cheers.) In him we recognise the Cobden of France; but for him it is very unlikely Mr. Cobden would have succeeded as he did in producing the great results he achieved. M. Michel Chevalier, at times when there were but a few enlightened men among Frenchmen who saw the advantages of free trade, was exerting himself in every way in which a man could exert himself to promote it. He is still a grand pillar of the cause of free exchange in France, and it is not in that only he has rendered service to his country and Europe. To see this one has only to watch his conduct as a member of the Senate, where he has entitled himself to the highest praise which it is possible for a member of a legislative assembly to deserve, for on more than one occasion he has not feared to stand up alone on behalf of great principles. He has often been the single solitary voter in a minority of himself. (Cheers.) The most remarkable occasion of that kind was in the cause so dear to our Cobden—the cause of peace. (Cheers.) This is the more meritorious because M. Michel Chevalier is well known to be a supporter of the present Imperial Government. As to M. Arlès-Dufour,² all who know anything of that distinguished man know that the influence he has long exercised upon commerce and manufactures in the city of Lyons, and thereby throughout France, has been exercised in the cause of free trade, in the cause of general peace and good will between nations, and I may say in every other good cause that has been at stake throughout his life. (Cheers.) I do not think I am exaggerating when I say this. We have here, too, many distinguished Americans. One of them, Mr. George Walker,³ is well known throughout the United States by the spirit and energy and enlightenment with which he has exerted himself, and by the reproach, and attack, and ill-will he has braved in the great cause of free trade, and, on behalf of that universal peace and good-will among nations, which is inseparably bound up with it; and I do say it is not possible that a nation that has, at an incredible expenditure of blood and treasure, put into effect this grand principle of economy by setting free its slaves—it is not possible in a nation in which educated intelligence goes down to the very lowest ranks—in which there is the freest and openest discussion of all great questions which come home to the understandings of every man, and, I may add, every woman throughout the community—(laughter)—it is, I say, impossible that this great nation should go on in the superstition of protection, and that it should not see that the interests of its citizens are sacrificed every day and every hour to the interests, or supposed interests, of a few. (Cheers.) It is impossible that the fallacies which our great Cobden energetically dispelled and drove out of the minds of the prejudiced among our own people should not also be driven out of the minds of the people of the United States. (Cheers.) It is impossible, now that the great question of negro labour is settled, but that the question of free trade will come into the foremost rank, and when it does become the question of the United States the time is not far distant when it will be impossible to sow dissension between them and Great Britain, when it will be impossible there should be any ill-will between the two nations, but when all differences will be cleared up by explanation and argument. (Cheers.) When that time comes we shall all recognise that the grand work of Cobden, and his great coadjutors in France, in Europe generally, and in the United States, is complete. Then, and not till then, will this club consider its work to be executed. ^aI consider that we owe a great debt of gratitude to the distinguished foreigners who have made the late Mr. Cobden’s cause their own, and I, therefore, have great pleasure in proposing the toast entrusted to me.^a The toast is, “Our honorary members and American guests.” (Loud cheers.)

[Chevalier spoke next, in French, concluding with a toast to Cobden’s memory; he was followed by Arlès-Dufour, and George Walker of Massachusetts, and then Potter proposed the Chair’s health, and after Argyll responded, the company separated, most returning by the same steamer.]

[1 ]Michel Chevalier (1806-79), who was present and later spoke, had been instrumental in securing the “Treaty of Commerce between France and Great Britain” (23 Jan., 1860) (in The Consolidated Treaty Series, ed. Clive Perry [Dobbs Ferry, N.Y.: Oceana Publications], Vol. 121, pp. 243-58).

[2 ]François Barthélemy Arlès-Dufour (1797-1872), also present, who had been a Saint-Simonian ally and a friend of Cobden’s, was another agent in the treaty of 1860.

[3 ]George Walker (1824-88) had written extensively on U.S. and international banking and currency questions.

[a-a]+MS, TT [in third person, past tense]