Cobden reminds the Liberals in Parliament that the motto of their party is “Economy, Retrenchment, and Reform!” (1862)

Cobden used the word “retrenchment” in a number of contexts to summarize his beliefs in free trade, cheap limited government, and a non-interventionist foreign policy. In his political theory “retrenchment” could mean cuts in the size of the government bureaucracy, cuts in the size of the military establishment, or cuts to government expenditure in general made possible by each of these two policies. For example, in 1835 he talked about the need for “an unflinching economy and retrenchment” even if it meant a threat to monarchical and aristocratic institutions; in 1836 he referred to the need for “ retrenchment, and a reduction of the duties and taxes upon the ingredients of our manufactures and the food of our artisans” if the government truly wished to “protect and extend our commerce”; in 1850 Cobden argued that “peace, non-intervention, and retrenchment, should be the watchwords of the Whig party” (the forerunner of the LIberal Party which was formed in 1859) and they he supported a policy of “economy, entrenchment, or possibility of reducing our establishments for ever”; in 1851 he stated that he was “the advocate of education, peace, and retrenchment”. In the speech from 1862 in the House of Commons which is our quote here Cobden reminds his colleagues that “the professed principles of the so-called Liberal party” were “Economy, Non-intervention, Reform” and that if they were to march in a local fête along with the guilds and artisanal companies the flag they would fly as they marched should have sown on it “the motto, ‘Economy, Retrenchment, and Reform!”. If one were to draw up a composite motto for Cobden’s faction within the Liberal party it might well be just “Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform.”