The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface.
• The Life of Richard Cobden
• Chapter I.: Early Life.
• Chapter II.: Commercial and Mental Progress.
• Chapter III.: Travels In West and East.
• Chapter IV.: The Two Pamphlets.
• Chapter V.: Life In Manchester, 1837–9.
• Chapter VI.: The Foundation of the League.
• Chapter VII.: The Corn Laws.
• Chapter VIII.: Cobden Enters Parliament—First Session.
• Chapter IX.: Cobden As an Agitator.
• Chapter X.: The New Corn Law.
• Chapter XI.: Sir Robert Peel’s New Policy.
• Chapter XII.: Renewed Activity of the League—Cobden and Sir Robert Peel—Rural Campaign.
• Chapter XIII.: The Session of 1844—Factory Legislation—The Constituencies.
• Chapter XIV.: Bastiat—New Tactics—Activity In Parliament—Maynooth Grant—Private Affairs.
• Chapter XV.: The Autumn of 1845.
• Chapter XVI.: Repeal of the Corn Laws and Fall of the Government.
• Chapter XVII.: Correspondence With Sir Robert Peel—Cessation of the Work of the League.
• Chapter XVIII.: Tour Over Europe.
• Chapter XIX.: Election For the West Riding.—Purchase of Dunford.—Correspondence.
• Chapter XX.: Miscellaneous Correspondence On Social and Political Movements.
• Chapter XXI.: The Don Pacifico Debate—The Papal Aggression—Correspondence With Mr. Bright On Reform—Kossuth.
• Chapter XXII.: The Protectionists In Office.
• Chapter XXIII.: The Panic of 1853.
• Chapter XXIV.: The Crimean War.
• Chapter XXV.: Death of His Son.
• Chapter XXVI.: Chinese Affairs—Cobden’s Motion—The Dissolution.
• Chapter XXVII.: The Indian Mutiny—Private Affairs—Second Journey to America.
• Chapter XXVIII.: Return From America.—The New Ministry.
• Chapter XXIX.: The French Treaty.
• Chapter XXX.: Holiday and Return to Paris.
• Chapter XXXI.: The Tariff—The Fortification Scheme.
• Chapter XXXII.: The Policy of the Commercial Treaty.
• Chapter XXXIII.: Miscellaneous Correspondence, 1859–60—Paris—Return to England.
• Chapter XXXIV.: The American War—Fortification Schemes—International Law.
• Chapter XXXV.: Correspondence With Mr. Delane.
• Chapter XXXVI.: The Danish War—Last Speeches In Parliament—Correspondence.
• Chapter XXXVII.: Speech At Rochdale—The Land Question—Correspondence—Last Days and Death.
• Chapter XXXVIII.: Conclusion.
• Appendix
• Note A. (see P. 115).
• Cobden to W. C. Hunt On the Hours of Labour.
• Full Text of the Last Letter Written By Mr Cobden
• Bibliography of Richard Cobden, Based On the British Museum Catalogue
• Biography, Criticism Etc

CHAPTER XXII.

the protectionists in office.

1852.
Æt. 48.The signal victory which Lord Palmerston had gained in the summer of 1850, was followed before the close of the following year by what looked to everybody but himself like a crushing repulse. His rapid and peremptory way of doing the business of his office had never been agreeable to the Court. The substantial aims of his policy had been in most instances extremely disagreeable to some of the continental personages with whom the English Court was on terms more or less close. In these high quarters, therefore, he was no favourite, At the very moment of his triumph, the Queen transmitted to him a rebuke for neglect of consideration and observance towards the Crown, so sharply worded that when it became public, men looked upon it as an affront not to be borne, and wondered that a Minister of Lord Palmerston’s spirit should not have met it by instant resignation. He did not take this course, because, in his own words, to have resigned then would have been to give the fruits of victory to adversaries whom he had defeated, and to abandon his supporters at the very moment when by their means he had just triumphed. It was not long, however, before he rashly gave his enemies their opportunity. When the President of the French Republic struck his blow against the Assembly, Lord Palmerston thought that he had done what was right and expedient, and frankly said as much in talking to the French Ambassador in London. Reference1852.
Æt. 48. was made to the conversation in an official despatch from Paris. The despatch came in due course before the Queen and the Prime Minister. It was conceived that Lord Palmerston’s expression of opinion on the President’s action, before consultation with his colleagues, was a violation of prudence and decorum which showed him to be unfit for his post. Lord John Russell in a summary manner dismissed him from office; and in the debate which afterwards took place upon the matter in the House of Commons, was generally held at the time to have amply justified the dismissal. Hasty observers made up their minds that Lord Palmerston’s career was at an end.

Lord Palmerston himself took a very different view. He reckoned confidently that the nation would not forget his power in foreign affairs. He knew that it did him more good than harm to figure as the victim of the Germanism of the Court. He saw that the press of the country was almost boisterously on his side. Finally, he perceived like everybody else that the Ministry could not get through the session, and would probably not stand long after the meeting of Parliament.1 His opportunity came within a few days. He had his tit-for-tat with John Russell—so he wrote—and turned him out by carrying an amendment in the Militia Bill, which the Minister took as a vote of want of confidence. Lord John Russell immediately resigned (February 23), and the first administration of the Earl of Derby took the place of the last administration of pure Whigs.

In Cobden’s eyes the policy of the Militia Bill, and the accession to power of the Protectionists, were equally startling and equally ill-omened. One event certainly showed a revival of the military spirit, and the other for some time was seriously believed to threaten a reaction against Free 1852.
Æt. 48.Trade. Cobden made a vigorous speech against the proposal for organizing the militia, contending that we should be amply protected by our navy, if our ships were not systematically sent abroad. He denied the reasonable probability of invasion, appealing to Lord John Russell’s emphatic declaration on the first night of the session, that the relations of peace existed between this country and foreign nations in the fullest degree. Why should we suddenly act as if a remote and highly improbable contingency were an assured certainty? This point of view was not agreeable to the majority, and all that Cobden took by his protest was the assurance from a member on his own side that he was labouring under a monomania whish deprived the country of the services of a very clever man. Cobden knew very well what price he and his friends might expect to pay for standing aloof from either of the two great factions, and refusing to echo the conventional cries of the political market-place. In the Course of the previous year he had told a great meeting of Liberals at Manchester how he stood. Spiteful newspapers had begun to talk of him as a disappointed demagogue. “This disappointed demagogue,” he said, “wants no public employment; if I did, I might have had it before now. I want no favour and no title. I want nothing that any Government or any party can give me; and if I am in the House of Commons at all, it is to give my feeble aid to the advancement of certain questions on which I have strong convictions.” If they deprived him of this power, if they told him not to do this because it was likely to destroy a Government with which he could have little sympathy, then the sooner he betook himself to something more profitable than sitting up in the House of Commons night after night, the better both for himself and his friends.2

If Cobden found little support from either the House of Commons or the country for his opinions on war and arma1852.
Æt. 48.ments, he was compensated in part by finding that upon Free Trade at any rate there was no backsliding in either the press or the constituencies. The new Government professed to leave the question of Protection open until it should be convenient to appeal to the country. This made it impossible for the Free Traders to do anything but oppose them. If them Ministers were not for a Corn Law, Mr. Bright told them, let them say so. If one of them were authorized boldly to avow that the time had gone by when any duty could be imposed upon corn, and to promise that they would not tamper with the taxation with a view to compensate certain classes for losses alleged to be due to Free Trade, then the Government should certainly never find him voting a want of confidence in them. The same rather bitter but perfectly intelligible indifference of the Manchester school to the ties which nominally connected them with the official world, shows itself pretty clearly in Cobden’s letters during this long crisis:—

“House of Commons, Feb. 28. (To George Wilson.)— Whilst I am writing, Stanley [Lord Derby] is still speaking, but from what I hear, his plan is to hold the Corn question in suspense, on the plea of other grave Parliamentary affairs, and admitting himself in a minority in the Commons, to do nothing unless forced to a dissolution by what he calls a factious opposition. The House of Commons is always afraid of a dissolution, and this threat may not be without its influences on Members. But it appears to me that our course is clear. We must not allow the country to be kept both in its agricultural and manufacturing interests in hot water and confusion for a year. We must challenge to instant combat, and memorialize the Queen from all parts of the country to dissolve. This will give courage and confidence to our friends, and prevent the Members of the 1852.
Æt. 48.House from temporizing. We have everything to fear from delay. Popular enthusiasm cools, and the enemy being in power will be sharpening the sword with which to slay us as soon as we are off guard. Let no other question be mixed up with ours. The country will not entertain other reforms until our question is disposed of.”

“London, Feb. 28. (To George Wilson.)—Further reflection, and the perusal of Lord Derby’s speech, have confirmed me in my views. We must go for memorials to the Queen for a dissolution. We must mix up no other question with it, because no other will interest the public till it is settled. We may talk of Reform in Parliament, but I would have no resolution excepting upon our own question. There should be one resolution affirming our determination to renew the League agitation, if necessary to maintain Free Trade inviolate; and another expressing the wish of the meeting for the interests of all concerned, to have the question for ever settled by an appeal to the country, and therefore praying the Queen to dissolve as soon as the forms of Parliament admit. I have my doubts yet, whether Lord Derby will dare to go to the country on the bread question; but if he should, he will find nine-tenths of the men, women, and children even in the rural districts dead against him. There is no doubt as to the result of a dissolution. Free Trade is stronger in the agricultural districts amongst the mass of the people, than you perhaps imagine in Manchester. There need not be too much sound and fury in our proceedings. The very apparition of the League will settle the question. In fact it is the only thing that all parties at headquarters are afraid of.”

A couple of days after this letter, the Council of the League me in their old quarters at Manchester. Crowds from all parts of the country thronged into the great room of Newall’s Buildings, and as one familiar face after another was recognized, the assembly became almost as animated as when the great struggle was at its height. Cobden moved1852.
Æt. 48. the first resolution in a terse and pithy speech, Mr. Bright and Mr. Gibson followed, and before the meeting was over, the men in the room thoroughly understood one another and what was to be done; a large sum of money had been subscribed; and the plan of the electoral campaign had been determined upon and prepared.3

“Manchester, March 3. (To Mrs. Cobden.)—The meeting was all I could wish in point of influence, numbers, and earnestness. But it struck me that people with difficulty realise in their minds the necessity of another effort to secure Free Trade. However the blow will I expect tell decisively.”

“March 5. (To Mrs. Cobden)—The feeling in the West-Riding of Yorkshire is most intense amongst the working class. They will never allow the Corn Law to be reimposed.”

“London, March 11. (To Mr. Sturge.)—I am not sure that I correctly interpret your letter to mean that you prefer to let Lord Derby remain in office for fear of seeing back the Whigs. My object is to settle the Free Trade question for ever, and to clear the ground for other questions. If in 1852.
Æt. 48.doing so, I should be instrumental in bringing back the Whigs it would not be my fault. I have no such object in view, and agree with you in wishing they could remain in Opposition for the rest of their lives—or at least to the day of their reformation. Let us not however deceive ourselves by supposing that Lord Derby would be less inclined for the Militia than the Whigs. All the aristocratic parties and the Court are in favour of more armaments. Our business is to try to make the people of a different opinion; and when I say the people, I mean that public opinion which alone can enable us to break down the martial propensities of the Government. I am more and more convinced that we have much to do with the public, before we can with any sense or usefulness quarrel with this or that aristocratic party.

“I have watched naturally the tone of the press upon the late (as I think monstrous) proposal to increase our armaments. It is decidedly against us. I do not speak of the dailies, but of the weekly papers; and I do not allude to such papers as the Examiner or Spectator, but to the Weekly Dispatch, read by artisans and small shopkeepers, and the Illustrated Weekly News, a thorough middle-class print. By these and such as these I have been denounced and put out of the pale of practical statesmanship for opposing an increase of armaments. I care nothing for this, because I prefer to enjoy the pleasure of advocating my own views to the prospects of office. But how many public men who have ambition to gratify will range themselves alongside of us, so long as the press is thus opposed to them? To change the press, we must change public opinion. And, Mind, when I speak of the press I speak of those weekly papers which are really supported by the people.

“Never was the military spirit half so rampant in this country since the Peace as at present. Look at the late news from Rangoon.4 Nobody inquires why we killed 3001852.
Æt. 48. Burmese. The papers applaud the deed without asking for a justification. This makes about 5400 persons killed by our ships in the East during the last five years, without our having lost one man by the butcheries! Now give me Free Trade as the recognized policy of all parties in this country, and I will find the best possible argument against these marauding atrocities. I will then demonstrate to all by their own admission that they cannot profit by such proceedings. To take away the motive of self-interest is, after all, the nearest way to influence the conduct of wicked human nature. Therefore, as the moral of this, I exhort you to give the finishing-stroke to Free Trade as the best means of advancing your peace principles.”

“March. 20. (To J. Sturge.)—As you will have seen by Lord Derby’s speech in the Lords, the present Government will carry a Militia Bill if they can. It is the question upon which they will try to raise a discussion in the House with a view to gain time. And Lord John Russell and his party are so hampered with pledges upon the subject, that they cannot offer any opposition to at least an introduction of the measure. Therefore you must not relax in your efforts to prevent the scheme from being carried out. The invasion panic seems pretty nearly forgotten.”

“London, March 20. (To George Wilson.)—...The Derby-Disraelites are not going to give up their berths in a hurry, and they would be fools if they did so, for they are opposed to an Opposition whose leaders have not the pluck (and Dizzy’s insolence shows that he knows it) to stop the supplies. I have been in constant communication with Lord John and Graham, but they are not the men to strike the 1852.
Æt. 48.blow, and we are powerless without them. The excuse they put forward is the fear that some of the Peel party and Palmerston will not join in a vote of want of confidence—such as limiting the supplies, and that we might be in a minority. I have urged upon them again and again that promptness and courage will carry everybody with them—that the members on our side of the House will for the sake of their elections vote for the Free Trade majority. But timidity carries the day. And so I suppose these men will be in office till November. In the meantime they will get rid of their Protectionist pledges, and try to reconstruct a Tory party—and as we, the present Opposition, are a rope of sand with an Irish party pledged against the Whigs, I see no reason why Derby should not have a fresh lease upon a Free Trade policy. Gladstone, Goulburn, Sidney Herbert, Palmerston, have more affinity for the Tories than for us, and nothing but Free Trade keeps us on the same benches. True, there will be one difficulty in the way of their making a party. What could they do with Disraeli, if Gladstone were on the same bench?

“There is now no doubt that the Protectionists are slipping away from their principles at a gallop, and we shall be in danger of wasting our strength in firing ball cartridges at a dead lion.”

“London, March 23. (To George Wilson.)—I have done all I possibly could with Lord John to induce him to act with more vigour. He is hampered with pledges and opinions given or expressed to the Queen or Lord Derby when he went out of office, which prevent him from taking a leading part in advocating an immediate dissolution of Parliament. And yet, as you will have seen, he is in no way inclined to let anybody else lead our side of the House.

“I have spoken in the same way to Sir James Graham, who has been in consultation with his colleagues of the late Peel party, and I have a long letter from him explaining1852.
Æt. 48. why he thinks we must be content for the present with the declaration of Lord Derby. He fears that some of his party would not vote for limiting the supplies for the military services. But they still leave it open to deal with the miscellaneous estimates, if the Government should be inclined to postpone unreasonably the appeal to the country. Last night, owing to the rapidity with which the money was voted there seemed to be an impression that we should dissolve early in May.

“What are you doing? You ought at once to make out a list of those places which are safe, and waste no attention or money on them. Then look to places like Sunderland, Liverpool, Lincoln, Boston, where there will be Protectionists standing, and there you ought to concentrate your strength by distribution of telling tracts and handbills. Not caricatures or poetry or sarcasm, but brief and pithy facts, for in those places people are not up to the mark. Pictorial tracts or handbills are good, but they should be pictorial facts, not caricatures.”

“May 5. (To J. Sturge.)—I am not quite sure yet that we may not draw the sting from the Militia Bill, and make it so different a thing in Committee that its author may repudiate it. It is thought that the present Government is vexed at having to carry the measure through, and they will be far more sick of it before we have done with them. Last night, or rather this morning at one o’clock, in the heat of the strife Disraeli was drawn into another Protectionist avowal, which will embarrass him again. In fact the Militia Bill seems destined to bring no end of trouble upon all Governments who meddle with it, and we shall do our best to make the present ministers sick of their adopted child. It is the wretched Whigs alone who render such bad measures possible. But Lord John seems to have paid an ample penalty.”

1852.
Æt. 48.“June 9. (To J. Sturge.)—I admire your hopefulness, and must confess myself to be much disgusted and almost dismayed at the proceedings on the Militia Bill. I will never forgive the Whigs for this retrograde step. On analysing the division list, I find that in almost every case, where it was possible to bring public opinion to bear upon members, your party succeeded in preventing them from supporting the third reading. The majority was made up of county members (chiefly Protectionists) and the representatives of small pocket boroughs. This shows that if we had a fair representation, you could hold the military party in check. But you can do nothing without a change in the county representation, and there is no county that sends such bad members as that where you live.”

The elections for a new Parliament extended over the month of July. Cobden and his Conservative colleague again divided the representation of the West Riding without a contest. Mr. Gibson and Mr. Bright won at Manchester by handsome majorities. Taken broadly the strength of parties had not shifted, and there was no approach to such a change as would have justified a reversal of the policy of Free Trade. The Government gained strength enough to resist a vote of want of confidence, if it should be proposed, but not strength enough to carry their measures. What shrewd observers like Lord Palmerston expected was that they would be beaten upon some fanciful scheme for relieving everybody without increasing anybody’s burdens, “which would be speedily seen to be too mountebankish to be practicable.”5 This is what actually happened. Meanwhile Cobden and his friends did not relax their vigilance.

“Midhurst, August 18. (To George Wilson.)—If you have money in hand, would it not be well to keep it until we have fairly disposed of the Protectionist party? The Government ought to be driven to avow Free Trade opinions,1852.
Æt. 48. or be driven from office. It will not be easy to do either, unless the League still shows a formidable front to all trimmers. We must not abandon the field whilst professing Protectionists hold office. The Government will be in a difficulty how to change their Protectionist garments for a Free Trade suit without breaking up their party. But our object is or ought to be to break up the County gang, which exists only upon the basis of Protection. Do not therefore throw away your balance, but keep it and let the world know that you have it.”

“Midhurst, Sept. 14, 1852. (To Mr. Sturge.)—I hold, that before you can rationally hope to reduce the army or the navy, you must bring the public mind to agree to the abolition of the militia. And I should also, with all due deference say, that until we can recover this lost ground for the Peace party in England, it will be a little inconsistent in us to travel abroad to teach our doctrines to other nations. The establishment of the militia was a disastrous defeat sustained by the Peace party, and until we can regain our position of 1851, it is useless to think of getting back to 1835. How are we to take this step and thus recover our lost position? I repeat by acquiring some influence in the Counties, for it was by the votes of county members in opposition to a majority of the representatives of boroughs that the measure was passed. And if you have watched the announcements in the Gazette since the passing of the law, you must have seen the sinister influences which were at work to carry the Bill. Have you marked the shoal of deputy-lieutenants created as a part of the working machinery of the law? Every magistrate almost in these parts has been gazetted as a deputy-lieutenant, and is of course entitled to appear at Court with his official costume and cocked hat and feathers. Then have you observed the 1852.
Æt. 48.lists of appointments and promotions as officers of the militia? There is quite a flood of flunkeyism and patronage in the counties. Lords Lieutenant are looking patronizingly upon the Squire; and the Squire’s son is snobbishly looking up to his Lordship for a grade in the county militia. Then there is all the small patronage for printers, surgeons, lawyers, etc., with its necessary consequence of servility and demoralization on the part of all interested. The whole of the working of the militia is calculated to foster and strengthen an aristocratic system and to degrade the mass of the people.”

Sept. 20. (To Mr. Sturge.)—The death of the Duke6 would, one thinks, tend to weaken the military party. But, if the spirit survive, it will find its champions. After all if the country will do such work as Wellington was called on to perform, I don’t know that it could find a more honest instrument. He hated jobs and spoke the truth (the very opposite of Marlborough), and although he grew rich in the service, it was by the voluntary contributions of the Parliament and Government. If he had been told to help himself at the Exchequer, his modesty and honesty would never have allowed him to take as much as was forced upon him. I, who saw with what frenzy of admiration he was welcomed by all classes at the Exhibition, can never honestly admit that in what the Legislature and Government had done for him, they had exceeded the wishes of the nation. Let us hope that a more rational sentiment may be promoted amongst us, but we are slow to learn. At this moment we are doing more than any other people to keep up the vast peace armaments of which we complain..... Can you in the face of such facts travel to the Continent to advocate a reduction of establishments?”

“Midhurst, October 4. (To J. Wilson.)—It having been decided to hold a meeting,7 there is nothing more to be said1852.
Æt. 48. but to make the best of it. I think you are quite right in having determined to mix nothing with the Free Trade question..... All the reflection I can give to the subject confirms me in the opinion that we ought to confine ourselves in the first instance to the settlement of the Free Trade question, without attempting to tie to that proceeding any ulterior plan whether of a personal or political nature. We are entitled to at least a Free Trade Government to represent the opinion of the country. If the present Administration do not avow themselves to have cast off their Protectionist opinions and to have adopted Free Trade views, they ought to be turned out. I would not be contented by their saying that they will not attempt to reverse the policy of Sir R. Peel ‘because they have not the power to do so.’ They must profess adhesion to that policy and recant their own errors; they must promise to promote and extend these principles; and failing in all this, we must by any legitimate means drive them into resignation. Can we do this? All depends upon the course taken by the Peel party, and I am glad to see by the tone of Henley’s speech that the old bitterness of the Protectionists towards them still survives. Indeed, so long as Disraeli continues at the head of the Tory party, I do not see how Gladstone, Sidney Herbert, and the rest of Peel’s followers can ever rejoin them. But much depends upon the League pursuing an honest course. We must not look to the right to left, but as of old go with a single purpose to our object. We must not allow ourselves to be used by the Whigs or Peelites, but hold the balance fairly between them.”

Parliament met on the 4th of November, but it was the 11th before the preliminary formalities were over. The Queen’s 1852.
Æt. 48.Speech contained a paragraph of a very oblique kind on the question which was uppermost in everybody’s mind. If Parliament was of opinion that recent legislation had contributed to the improved condition of the country, and yet had at the same time inflicted injury on important interests, then it was recommended by the Queen to consider how far it was practicable to mitigate the injury, and to enable the country to meet unrestricted competition. Writing to his wife on the day after the debate on the Address, Cobden says,—“We had a queer tricky allusion to the Free Trade question in the Queen’s Speech, which brought on a sharp attack upon the Government last night, and as all parties are agreed to force the Disraelities, I hope we shall bring matters to an end soon. It is time we were done with the question.”

The process, however, took a little time, and was attended with some difficulties. “I am sorry to say,” Cobden wrote a few days later (November 18), “I think it is quite impossible under any circumstances that I can be released before the 10th December. If even the Government were upset, there would still be certain things to be done which would take till that time. This has been luckily a very fine day. I have not been near the line of procession.8 But Sale and Henry Ashworth have both called since it was over, and they think people are disappointed. It is the last piece of paganism of the kind that will ever be performed in this country, for I hear everybody in private in the House (even Tories) condemn it. But nobody dares to speak out in public.

“You will see by the paper that on Thursday Dizzy is to move an amendment to Villiers’s address. Altogether, what with this inconsistent declaration of Free Trade principles coming from their own party, and this escapade of Disraeli’s on moving the address for Wellington’s funeral,9 the Pro1852.
Æt. 48.tectionist party is very much demoralized, and will I think be broken up in a week or two. They never can hold together, for a score or two of honest, stupid people will still hold out, and in fact will be in a more creditable plight than in going over with the herd.”

“Nov. 24 (To J. Wilson.)—We have a fresh complication in the House, owing to Palmerston having played us a trick in moving a new amendment. The Whigs are very indignant, and the Liberals are now confessing that we found him out some years ago, and they now call him a traitor and worse. It is impossible to say how matters will go.”

The story of these final manœuvres need not detain us. It was indispensable to pin the Ministers to an explicit acceptance of the policy of Free Trade. The Ministers were willing to give the require pledge, but they sought to escape the humiliation of a formal confession that the legislation which they had resisted with an obstinacy and a rancour unsurpassed in political history, had been wise, just, and beneficial. These were the “there odious epithets,” as Mr. Disraeli styled them, with which Mr. Villiers asked the House by their resolution to stamp the Act of 1846. To call the policy just was particularly unpalatable, because if it was just, then what wrong was left for compensation? Mr. Disraeli deprecated this revival of the cries of exhausted factions and obsolete politics. He proposed a resolution which while acknowledging the effect of recent legislation in cheapening 1852.
Æt. 48.provisions, and binding the Government unreservedly to adhere to the policy of unrestricted competition, still contained no declaration that the opinions of the Protectionist party had been mistaken or had undergone any change. The whole question turned upon the way in which the national verdict was to be worded. Was this solemn final declaration to be drawn up, Mr. Bright asked, by one who had repudiated Free Trade as Mr. Disraeli had done, or by one who had consistently supported it as Mr. Villiers had done? The question was not an idle point of etiquette. A majority of the friends of the Government no further back than the recent elections had openly declared either for a reversal of Sir Robert Peel’s policy, or for compensation—the word that never fails to come into our ears when a favoured order is stripped of some unjust and mischievous privilege. Under these circumstances, ought the House to tolerate any evasion?

This was a manly statement of the case. The interests of political morality demanded that the Protectionists should either be forced publicly to recant an error which they had upheld with so much stupidity and so much virulence, and in some cases with such unscrupulous hypocrisy and want of principle, or else that on this issue, and no other, they should be driven from power. But the complex play of party combinations seldom permits these plain and unsophisticated courses. It did not suit Lord Palmerston that the Government should be turned out too soon. His plans for the succession were not ripe. A hurried crisis might make Lord John Russell again Prime Minister, and unde him Lord Palmerston was resolved not to serve. A little more time was needed to clear this up, and accordingly with a view of saving the Ministry from a repulse which would for his purposes have been premature, Lord Palmerston suggested a third form of resolution which would con tent Liberals, and which Protectionists might swallow. It1852.
Æt. 48. became evident that this would meet the wishes of important sections of the House, always ready to be captivated by anything that wears the air of moderation and compromise. Mr. Disraeli perceived that he was saved, and withdrew his own amendment in favour of Lord Palmerston’s. Cobden now made his first direct attack on Lord Palmerston, and he made it in very straightforward terms. But in the long-run Mr. Villier’s motion was rejected by a majority of eighty, and then Lord Palmerston’s was carried by a majority of four hundred and fifteen.

The field was now clear of Mr. Disraeli’s Budget. It had been awaited with eager expectation. The Government was without weight, but it was not unpopular. There was no general anxiety to see the Whigs back again. A miracle of financial talent might still save the Ministry, though it had neither political principles nor administrative experience. There was a vivid curiosity of a personal and dramatic kind. Men wondered how the skilful gladiator would acquit himself, who had never been in office until he was made leader of the House of Commons. In a few hours after Mr. Disraeli had stated his plans, it seemed as if they were a success. One thing at any rate was clear; Free Trade was safe. “The Budget,” Cobden wrote to Mr. George Wilson, the day after Mr. Disraeli’s speech (December 4), “has finally closed the controversy with Protection. Dizzy has in the most impudent way thrown over the ‘local burdens,’ as he did before a fixed duty.1 The League may be dissolved when you like.”

When the discussion on the ministerial proposals opened 1852.
Æt. 48.a week later, it was at once seen that the first favourable impression had been a mistake, and that they could not stand the heavy fire which was now opened upon them by all the ablest and most experienced men in the House. All Mr. Disraeli’s energy, self-possession, and resource were no match in defending a plan that was hollow and vicious in itself, against the forces that were now combined to overthrow him. Among other shifts, he conceived the idea of detaching the Manchester party from the Whigs and the Peelites. He asked one of their leaders to call upon him. “Protection,” he said to the illustrious Free Trader, “is done with. That quarrel is at an end. If you turn us out, you will only have Whigs in. And what have the Whigs done for you? They will never do anything for you.” As a matter of fact Lord Palmerston’s manœuvre had made the Free Traders even less friendly to the Whigs than they had been before. But it was impossible that Economic Liberals could support a Budget so fantastic and unsound. It proposed to repeal the malt-tax to please the farmers, and then to reimburse the exchequer by an increase of the house-tax, which was of course chiefly payable in the towns. “We don’t want the Whigs to give us office,” said Mr. Disraeli’s visitor, “We don’t think of that. In any case, we cannot support the new house-tax. And there are other things in your Budget which we think wrong.” So the interview came to an end. Cobden spoke against the Ministerial plan in the course of the debate, but apparently with rather less power than usual. Mr. Disraeli wound up a vehement defence of himself by an invective against political coalitions. He had himself, it is true, a few days before been a party to an attempt to coalesce with Lord Palmerston. But nothing could save him against the union of Whigs, Peelites, and Economic Liberals, and he was beaten by a majority of nineteen. The next day Lord Derby resigned (December 17), and the Aberdeen Administration was formed. The long deferred1852.
Æt. 48. fusion took place between the chief followers of Sir Robert Peel and their old adversaries. Philosophic Radicalism was represented in the cabinet by Sir William Molesworth. The economic Radicalism of Cobden and his friends was left out, as Mr. Disraeli had foretold. The time speedily come when Cobden was driven to say that he never repented so much of a vote in his life as of that which he had now just given.

[1]See Mr. Ashley’s Life of Lord Palmerston, ii. 218.

[2]Manchester, Feb. 23, 1851.

[3]Cobden usually tried to get one salient fact into a speech. On this occasion he mentioned a fact that he described as comprising almost their main case:—” Since the day when we laid down our arms there has been imported into this country in grain and flour of all kinds an amount of human subsistence equal to upwards of 50,000,000 of quarters of grain—a larger quantity than had been imported from foreign countries during the thirty-one years preceding 1846—that is, from the peace of 1815 down to the time at which we brought our labours to a close. Now, gentlemen, in that one fact is comprised our case. You have had, at the lowest computation, 5,000,000 of your countrymen, or countrywomen, or children, subsisting on the corn that has been brought from foreign countries. And what does that say? What does it say of the comfort you have brought to the homes of those families? What does it say of the peace and prosperity and security of domestic life in those homes, where 50,000,000 of quarters of grain extra have been introduced, and where, but for your exertions, the inmates might have been left either in hopeless penury or subsisting on potatoes?”

[4]This was the beginning of the Second Burmese War, which Cobden dealt with in the following year in his pamphlet, How Wars are got up in India. See Collected Writings, vol. ii.

[5]Lord Palmerston, in Mr. Ashley’s Life, ii. 247, 248.

[6]The Duke of Wellington died on the 14th of September.

[7]A great meeting of the League party in Manchester, in opposition to the Derby-Disraeli ministry.

[8]The Duke of Wellington’s funeral.

[9]Mr. Disraeli in his funeral oration on the duke introduced bodily a passage from a panegyric delivered by M. Thiers many years before on Marshal Gouvion de Saint Cyr. It had already appeared in an article in the Morning Chronicle in 1848; but the writer, a brilliant man well known in society, came forward to say that it was Mr. Disraeli who had called his attention to the passage from Thiers. The “escapade” was singular and it was certainly unfortunate, but men of letters, who know the tricks that memory is capable of playing, will hardly think it incapable of fair explanation.

[1]When the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that he was not going to recommend any change whatever in the system of raising the local taxes, a good deal of loud and derisive triumph was exhibited on the other side. “Oh,” said Mr. Disraeli with composure, “there are greater subjects for us to consider than the triumph of obsolete opinions.”