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 XXXVII.

speech at rochdale—the land question—correspondence—last days and death.

In November Cobden went down to Rochdale to make his1864.
Æt. 60. annual speech to his constituents. He was not in very good spirits when he started, and the exertion of travelling and of speaking to an enormous audience lowered his powers still further. It was the largest meeting on one floor that he had ever attended. The speech itself is one of his longest.1 Mr. Bright, who was absent at Leamington, said that when he read it, he marvelled how Cobden could have made such a speech when times were so dull. Besides being one of his longest, it is perhaps the one that gives the best idea of his manner, and opens the easiest view to his theory of the foreign policy which is proper for Great Britain in her existing circumstances. We see in it to perfection what Mr. Disraeli commended in him, that careful art of avoiding to drive his arguments to an extremity, which was one of the secrets of his singular persuasiveness.

It was in this speech that he made the memorable declaration on the Land Question. We have already seen (above p. 429) what he said the year before in the same place: that the English peasantry had no parallel on the face of the earth; that there is no other country in the world where the 1864.
Æt. 60.peasantry is entirely divorced from the land.2 He now said:—“If I were five-and-twenty or thirty, instead of being unhappily twice that number of years, I would take Adam Smith in hand—I would not go beyond him, I would have no politics in it—I would take Adam Smith in hand, and I would have a League for free trade in land just as we had a League for free trade in corn. You will find just the same authority in Adam Smith for one as for the other; and if it were taken up, as it must be taken up to succeed, not as a political, revolutionary, Radical, Chartist notion, but taken up on politico-economical grounds, the agitation would be certain to succeed.”3 What it was that he precisely meant by free trade in land he did not more particularly specify. His reference to Adam Smith is enough to show that he contemplated the abolition of entails and other artificial means of tying land up in long settlements; and like all men of sense, he constantly advocated improved facilities in the machinery of transfer. How much further he was prepared to go, we cannot tell; but there is no evidence that, in England and Scotland, he was inclined to favour the French system of compulsory partition, and there is abundant evidence that he was not likely to sympathize with any of the vague projects for what their authors call the nationalization of the land. On the other hand, it is probable that he would have been friendly to the legislative recognition, not only in Ireland but in Great Britain, of the principle of Tenant Right. In one of the most effective of his speeches in the time of the Corn Law, which has been already referred to (see above, vol. i. p. 320), he insisted upon security of tenure as the first condition of prosperity alike to landlord, tenant, and labourer. This security he expected to find in leases, that should contain none of those restrictive covenants which now so constantly1864.
Æt. 60. hamper the tenant in the manner of applying his capital and carrying on his business. Perhaps he might have been persuaded that leases themselves are found by the people concerned to be a practical impediment to the free movement of capital; and in this way might have come round to such a form of legislative Tenant Right as would give the security of a lease without involving an inconveniently long duration. However this may be, we have as a matter of fact no complete scheme of Cobden’s views on the English Land Question.4 His solution of the question of the same name in Ireland, we have already seen (above pp. 28, 29, 50, 97). He would “give Ireland to the Irish.”

Although the few sentences which concerned a Land League did most to startle attention at the moment, Cobden’s last speech dealt much more fully with other topics, and covered a very wide space of political ground. The exhaustion after such an effort was severe. “I should have been well enough,” Cobden told Mr. Paulton, “if I could have gone to bed for four and twenty hours after the speech. But the next day Mr. Kemp had a reception of two hundred of the leading Liberals, and I spent the whole evening in shaking hands and incessant talking to relays of friends.” The journey home made things worse. He was afraid to rest in London, lest he should find himself compelled by illness to remain there. On the whole, when he reached home, he considered that he had escaped tolerably well, but he made up his mind that he must never attend another public meeting in the winter season. As it 1865.
Æt. 60.was, he found that he had suffered more harm than he supposed. Two months after his return he gave the following account of himself to Mr. Paulton:—

“Jan. 25.—I have never before had such a shake. I came back from my imprudent trip to the North out of order from top to toe. Besides my old foe (which the Doctor here calls ‘nervous asthma’) from which my breathing was so obstructed that I could hardly move a limb, I had an attack of bronchitis, which threatened to extend to my lungs, and my stomach was much disordered with feverish symptoms. Our little apothecary was very assiduous, and I am much better. The asthma has entirely disappeared, and I can walk upstairs without any of the old symptoms. But I am thinner, and without air or exercise how can any one be well? I have not been out of doors since I returned home. This cold weather keeps up the old irritation in my throat, and I am not free from cough. In fact what I want is a fortnight of July sunshine. This has been the most disagreeable winter I have ever known here. Generally we get sunshine in the middle of the day, if even for only two or three house. This year, although the average temperature has not been lower than usual, there have been great fluctuations, with much moisture and cloudiness. At present the ground is covered with snow of unusual depth.

“I am deeply obliged to you and Mrs. Paulton for your kind invitation. At present I cannot entertain the idea of going to town. I should not be able to attend the House, and in anything like my present state of health, home is the only proper place for me. Besides there never was a time when so little motive existed to lead a man to run risks of life and health in the fulfilment of his public duties..... The talk in official circles is that the election is to take place in June. That is the season of the year which will suit me best. But really what right has anybody to pre1865.
Æt. 60.tend to take the burden of affairs of state on his shoulders, when he has arrived at an age when he can hardly bear the weight of his own infirmities? I ought to give up public life. So nauseous is the present state of parliamentary parties, that if I knew the general election would give the old Premier a renewed rule, I should secretly pray that Mr. Brett5 would relieve me from the task of being a further witness, if not accomplice, to the imposture!”

His time was filled by vigilant observation of affairs, and by his unfailing practice of correspondence. The struggle in America occupied his thoughts incessantly, partly because he was looking to the questions that would remain for adjustment after the war had come to an end. One of his last letters to Mr. Sumner touched on this point:—

“Jan. 11, 1865.—I agree with a remark in the concluding passage of your last letter, that you are fighting the battle of liberalism in Europe as well as the battle of freedom in America. It is only necessary to observe who are your friends and who your opponents in the Old World, to be satisfied that great principles are at stake in your terrible conflict But it is not by victories in the field alone that you will help the cause of the masses in Europe. End when it may, the civil war will, in the eyes of mankind, have conferred quite as much ‘glory,’ so far as mere fighting goes, on the South as on the North. It is in your superiority in other things that your can alone by your example elevate the Old World. I confess I am very jealous of your taking a course which seems to hold up our old doings as an excuse for your present short-comings. Hence I was sorry to see your republication of the old indictment against us in your very able and learned pamphlet. My answer is, that your 1865.
Æt. 60.only title to existence as a Republic is that you are supposed to be superior to what we were sixty years ago, Had you returned the ‘Florida’ to Bahia without a moment’s delay, cashiered the captain of the ‘Wochusett,’ and offered to pay for the support of the survivors who were dependent on those who were killed or drowned in that wicked outrage, your friends would have felt some inches taller here. That would have been the true answer to the taunts of our Tory press, and not the disinterment of the misdeeds of our Tory Government to show that they did something almost as bad as the Federal commander.

“I was much pleased with your speech on the Canadian difficulty in the South, when you spoke of avoiding all quarrels with other countries, and devoting yourself to the one sole object of putting down the rebellion. I am not blind to the fact that very grave questions will stand over for adjustment between your country and ours. Some of them, such as the injury done to your whole shipping interest by the losses and destruction of a port, can hardly be settled by governments. They will, I fear, invite future retaliations on our shipping by citizens of your country, if we should ever go to war. But all these questions must be postponed till your war is ended, and then probably the whole world may ready for a thorough revolution in international maritime law. It will be for you to show the way.”

The topic of national expenditure kept its place in his mind, and the plans for the defence of Canada stirred his liveliest disgust, He expressed his views in two elaborate letters to Mr. Gladstone, with a sort of forlorn hope that they might through him obtain a hearing in the Cabinet. Excepting Mr. Gladstone himself, however, and Mr. Gibson, there was nobody in the Cabinet who felt the least inclination to listen. Even Mr. Gladstone thought that his corre spondent did less than justice to the Government, and more1865.
Æt. 60. than justice to the Canadians. Mr. Bright, meanwhile, was working for their views in a different direction, insisting on the proposition for which he had been fighting ever since the repeal of the Corn Law, that nothing good could be done until the representation was improved. He began the new year with a powerful speech at Birmingham, to Cobden’s great satisfaction:—

“Jan. 16. (To Mr. Bright.)—I see your meeting at Birmingham is fixed. You will, I suppose, have something to say about Reform. What is wanted is to slay and bury those delusive projects which have of late owed their existence to men who wish to mystify the simple question of principle, and lead the public astray after crotchetty details of their own. Of these Lord Grey and Buxton are the most notable. But I suppose you are aware that Stuart Mill has endorsed Hare’s incomprehensible scheme. It is a pity that Mill, who on the whole is so admirable in his sympathies and tendencies, should give his sanction to these novelties. (I got a letter the other day from an old Leaguer in Australia, saying that the Protectionists there are quoting Mill to justify a young community in resorting for a time to Protection.) It has always appeared to me that the best way to meet the wishes of those who honestly fear that particular classes or bodies of the community may be unrepresented, is to make the electoral districts as diversified as possible. With this view I would allow each constituency to return one representative. Thus, for instance, if Birmingham had six members, they should be elected by six wards. This would give every section of the community the opportunity of suiting itself. The idea of giving representation to minorities is an absurdity. It strikes at the very foundations of representative government by majorities. It ignores the fact that opinion is always represented by minorities 1865.
Æt. 60.as well as majorities, or why should there be party divisions at all?6

“Has it ever occurred to you to ascertain what was the old borough franchise? In Forster’s ‘Life of Eliot,’ giving a very detailed account of the parliamentary and constitutional struggle between the House of Commons and Charles I., at the period antecedent to the revolutionary conflict, there are constant notices of trials before Parliamentary Committees to decide the question whether the right of voting belonged to the ‘commonalty in general,’ or to privileged corporations or classes. The decisions seem to have been almost always in favour of the ‘commonalty in general.’ By this phrase I suppose was meant all householders at least. I dare say the polling-papers are preserved of the old elections, and it would be curious to see the proportions the voters bore to the whole population. I see it stated that in 1628 there was a contested election for Coventry, when the successful candidates had a majority of 600 votes. There must have been a much larger proportion of the whole1865.
Æt. 60. population voting then than is polled now.

“I was talking with Durrant Cooper, one of the leading members of our Sussex Archæological Society, and told him if instead of devoting a volume a year to the remains of old castles and monasteries, they would give us some facts throwing light upon the social and political condition of the inhabitants in former ages, it would be a much more useful employment of their talents. It is astonishing what a mass of facts of old date are in existence. The secretary of our County Society once said that an itinerary of King John’s reign, giving his whereabouts every day of his life, could be given if worth the trouble, with as much accuracy as that of William the Fourth.

“I have no recent letters from America. Goldwin Smith says he has come back a confirmed radical and free churchman, and less impatient because more assured of liberal progress...His pen is a power in the State.”

“Jan. 22. (To Mr. Bright.)—I hope you have returned safely home, and if you are well after your double effort at Birmingham, I congratulate you on your bronchial organization. I was satisfied and pleased with your speech in the Town Hall. I think you took a very wise course in using the language of warning to those ruling factions who are alone responsible for the present state of the Reform question. Not that it will have the desired effect in that quarter, where noting but fear of something worse happening ever leads to the concession of any reform. Unfortunately, in the case of the proposed change in the representation, involving, as our privileged classes believe, the destruction of their privileges, nothing worse than this spectre can be presented to their imagination; and they will contend against a measure which would make the people the depository of political power in this country, as they would against a revolution of the old 1865.
Æt. 60.French model. But you have done your duty in introducing to them the five or six millions who may at any time set their eyes on the portals of the constitution with a demand for admittance which could not be resisted; and you have given them this warning in language with which no one, however fastidious, can quarrel, and yet which nobody can fail to understand. But, after all, I sometimes think that we almost lend ourselves to an imposture in arguing on these matters, as though we believed we were appealing to a tribunal which could be swayed by appeals to reason and the principles of justice.”

Whilst he was in this mood of discouragement, he received a letter from Mr. Gladstone, written (Feb. 10) on behalf of the Government and by desire of Lord Palmerston, offering him the office of Chairman of the Board of Audit. It was proposed to reconstitute the Board, and to strengthen and raise the position of its head; the Comptrollership of the Exchequer was to be united to the Chair of the Board of Audit; and the salary was to be raised to 2000l a year. Although the duties of the office, Mr. Gladstone said, would require very high qualities for their proper discharge, they would not be very laborious. The tender of such an office was not to be taken as an adequate acknowledgment of his distinguished and long continued public services, but it was the highest civil office which the Government had it in their power to give. After taking a couple of days to think over the proposal, though probably his decision was made at once, Cobden declined it:—

• “Midhurst,

Feb. 13, 1865.

“My dear Mr. Gladstone,

“I have to acknowledge the receipt of your letter written on behalf of the Government, offering in the kindest terms to place at my option the post of Chairman of the Board of Audit, about to be vacated by Mr. Romilly. Owing to the state of my health, I am precluded from taking any office1865.
Æt. 60. which involves the performance of stated duties at all seasons of the year, or leaves a sense of responsibility for the fulfilment of those duties by others. I have for some time been liable to recurring attacks, during certain conditions of the atmosphere, of what medical authorities call nervous asthma. While giving me no pain, it disqualifies me for active exertion during its visitations, and I am certain of exemption from it only in warm weather. I cannot live in London during the season of fog and frost. Here there are good and sufficient reasons why I should for the rest of my days be exempt from the cares of salaried official life. But were my case different, still, while sensible of the kind intentions which prompted the offer, it would assuredly not be consulting my welfare to place me in the post in question, with my known views respecting the nature of our finance. Believing, as I do, that while the income of the Government is derived in a greater proportion than in any other country from the taxation of the humblest classes, its expenditure is to the last degree wasteful and indefensible, it would be almost a penal appointment to consign me for the remainder of my life to the task of passively auditing our finance accounts. I fear my health would sicken and my days be shortened by the nauseous ordeal. It will be better that I retain my seat in Parliament as long as I am able in any tolerable degree to perform its duties, where I have at least the opportunity of protesting, however unavailingly, against the Government expenditure. But I am wandering from the text of your kind letter, for which I heartily thank you, especially for the postscript,7 and I remain,

Very truly yours,

Richard Cobden,”

1865.
Æt. 60.In acknowledging the letter, Mr. Gladstone expressed his satisfaction that Cobden so clearly appreciated the spirit in which the offer had been made by the Government, and especially by Lord Palmerston. He went on to add that he did not think the most faithful discharge of the duties of the office would have made the incumbent of it in any sense whatever responsible for the expenditure of the country, or would even have brought it before him in any marked manner in the career of ordinary duty. None of Cobden’s friends have ever doubted the propriety of his decision, though it is within the range of possibility that if it had been otherwise his days might have been prolonged.

At this time Mr. Bright wrote to him (Feb. 23), saying that Mr. Seymour Fitzgerald was to talk on Canadian Fortifications some day soon. “I wish,” Mr. Bright said, “that you could be in the House when he comes on. You understand the details of the question better than any other man in the House, and I think you could knock over the stupid proposition to spend English money in fortifications at Quebec. I shall probably say something if you are not there, but I hope the matter may not be debated till you are in town.” A week later, Cobden received the last letter that he was destined to have from his friend. It was a note (Mar. 3), saying by what train Mr. Bright would come down to Midhurst on the following afternoon. Cobden now occasionally ventured out into the air during the middle of the day, and he and Mr. Bright took easy walks together on the terrace at Dunford or in the lanes. On one occasion, looking in the direction of the church, Cobden said, “My boy is buried there, and it will not be long before I am there with him.” It was, indeed, little more than a month.

Three final letters belong to this date:—

“Feb. 23. (To Mr. T. B. Potter.)—I have forwarded Lord—’s letter to Mr. Goldwin Smith. I observe that he assigns as the main cause for the hostility of the ruling1865.
Æt. 60. class (for the masses we know are on the other side) to the North to the fact that the Americans have (previous to the war as well as since) shown a disposition to go to war with us. This is the old indictment, and I have but one answer to it. The United States maintained previous to the outbreak of the Civil War an army of 17,000 men and a navy of 7000, and for ten years previous had never commissioned a line-of-battle ship. Yet in her dealings with England and Europe, with their standing armies of half a million of men, and their navies of scores of line-of-battle ships, the United States carried, we are now told, matters with a high hand! Was there ever a stronger admission of the superiority of moral force and of republicanism? When a Bobadil or a Drawcansir is represented on the stage, he is always armed to the teeth. But here you have an unarmed nation bullying great military and naval powers. Would to Heaven that France, Russia, Austria, England, Italy, and Prussia would follow this fashion of bullying!....

“What is running in Lord —’s head is the common fallacy of confounding the language of certain newspapers and parties in America with the acts of the Government. Is it fair to forget that there are nearly two millions of persons who were born in Ireland living in the United States, and perhaps as many more the offspring of Irish parents, all of whom are animated with the most intense hatred towards England? New York city alone at the last census had 260,000 Irish, actually more than the population of Dublin in1851, thus making New York the greatest Irish city in the world. These people have their newspapers, their orators, and they have votes. Considering how demonstrative they are, it is not wonderful that their voices are heard at every period of excitement. But what shall be said of the fairness of those Englishmen, who, knowing 1865.
Æt. 60.that the misery and depopulation of Ireland has sprung from centuries of oppression and outrageous injustice on the part of England, follow the Irish to America, and instead of frankly acknowledging that they have grounds of resentment towards us, fasten their quarrel on the Americans who have given them an asylum!

“Shall I confess the thought that troubles me in connexion with this subject? I have seen with disgust the altered tone with which America has been treated since she was believed to have committed suicide or something like it. In our diplomacy, our press, and with our public speakers, all hastened to kick the dead lion. New in a few months everybody will know that the North will triumph, and what troubles me is lest I should live to see our ruling class—which can understand and respect power better than any other class—grovel once more, and more basely than before, to the giant of democracy. This would not only inspire me with disgust and indignation, but with shame and humiliation. I think I see signs that it is coming. The Times. is less insolent and Lord Palmerston is more civil.”

“March 15. (To Mr. Bright.)—I have read through the whole of the debate on Monday. The alteration of tone is very remarkable. It is clear that the homage which was refused to justice and humanity will be freely given to success. No part of your speech was to me more acceptable than where you threw in the parenthetical reflection that the sacrifices of the North were not to put Bourbons on the throne of France or to keep the Turk in Europe. Still, do not let us deceive ourselves. There will be a back reckoning. It is all very well to talk of future peace and goodwill, but the Americans will feel that they have a substantial wrong to redress with this country. In international law if there be such a thing) a nation is a unit, and the whole is responsible to another people for the acts its individuals.1865.
Æt. 60. Parties will from this moment be looking for political capital in America to the resentment everywhere felt against our shipbuilders and merchants. There is not an aspirant for the presidency, even including our dear friend Sumner, who will not be ready to take the stump on the ground of ‘indemnity to American citizens for losses by the Alabama.’ I will trust none of their leading politicians except Lincoln, whose political life closes with his next term.

“Now the money question is really the smallest part of the issue between the two countries arising out of the experience we have had of the present state of international maritime law, and the interest we have, beyond all other countries, in altering it. But where is the statesmanship to deal with the problem, when nobody seems to look beyond the exigencies of the next twenty-four hours? I feel confident there can never be a war between us and America. The mass of the people here must every day feel that they have a far higher stake in the United States than in the country of their birth

“I was glad you brought out so clearly the homestead law. When it is fairly driven home to the apprehension of our dull landless millions that the people of the United States hold the largest and richest unoccupied domain in the world, not for great feudal monopolists like the Demidoffs or the Sutherlands, not even for the exclusive use of American citizens, but in trust for the landless millions aforesaid, to every one of whom is offered a farm as large as he can cultivate, and a vote six months after his settlement (which is the rule in the West), it will be impossible to marshal in hostile array the masses of this country against that people. But though the governing classes will not be able to involve us in war, they will, I think, if they continue to hold their present rule in this country, bring on us some 1865.
Æt. 60.great humiliation from America, which never could happen if the people as a whole controlled the politics of the State.”

“March 20. (To Colonel Cole.)—The most interesting debate of the session hitherto has been on Canadian affairs. This is a subject of increasing interest, and the projected confederation of the British North American colonies will bring it into great prominence this session. It seems to be generally accepted here as a desirable change, though I fail to discover any immediate interest which the British public have in the matter. There is no proposal to relieve us from the expense and risk of pretending to defend those colonies from the United States—a task which, by the way, everybody admits to be beyond our power. Then I cannot see what substantial interest the British people have in the connexion to compensate them for guaranteeing three or four millions of North Americans living in Canada, &c., against another community of Americans living in their neighbourhood. We are told indeed of the ‘loyalty’ of the Canadians; but this is an ironical term to apply to people who neither pay our taxes nor obey our laws, nor hold themselves liable to fight our battles, who would repudiate our right to the sovereignty over an acre of their territory, and who claim the right of imposing their own customs duties, even to the exclusion of our manufactures. We are two peoples to all intents and purposes, and it is a perilous delusion to both parties to attempt to keep up a sham connexion and dependence which will snap asunder if it should ever be put to the strain of stern reality. It is all very well for our Cockney newspapers to talk of defending Canada at all hazards. It would be just as possible for the United States to sustain Yorkshire in a war with England, as for us to enable Canada to contend against the United States. It is simply an impossibility. Nor must we forget that the only serious danger of a quarrel between those two neighbours arises from the connexion of Canada with this1865.
Æt. 60. country. In my opinion it is for the interest of both that we should as speedily as possible sever the political thread by which we are as communities connected, and leave the individuals on both sides to cultivate the relations of commerce and friendly intercourse as with other nations. I have felt an interest in this confederation scheme, because I thought it was a step in the direction of an amicable separation. I am afraid from the last telegrams that there may be some difficulty, either in your province or in Lower Canada, in carrying out the project. Whatever may be the wish of the colonies will meet with the concurrence of our Government and Parliament. We have recognized their right to control their own fate, even to the point of asserting their independence whenever they think fit, and which we know to be only a question of time. All this makes our present responsible position towards them truly one-sided and ridiculous. There seems to be something like a deadlock in the political machinery of the Canadas, which has driven their leading statesmen into the measure of confederation. I suspect that there has been some demoralization and corruption in that quarter, and that it is in part an effort to purify the political system by letting in new blood. There is also, I think, an inherent weakness in the parody of our old English constitution, which is performed on the miniature scenes of the colonial capitals, with their speeches from the throne, votes of confidence, appeals to the country, changes of ministry, &c., and all about such trumpery issues that the game at last becomes ridiculous in the eyes of both spectators and actors.”

A few days after Mr. Bright had left him, Cobden found himself unable to resist the desire to take a part in the discussion on the Canadian Fortifications, and on the 21st of March, in bitter weather, he travelled up to London, accompanied 1865.
Æt. 60.by Mrs. Cobden and his second daughter. Instead of going as usual to the house of Mr. Paulton or some other friend, he had taken lodgings in Suffolk Street; it was close to the Athenæum, and as near as he could get to the House of Commons. On his arrival at his journey’s end, after writing a few letters, according to his indefatigable custom, he was immediately prostrated by an attack of asthma. He lay through the bleak days watching the smoke blown from the chimneys of the houses opposite, and vainly hoping that the wind would change its quarter from the merciless east. At the end of a week he seemed convalescent, and was allowed to see one or two friends. The apparent recovery only lasted a few hours, and was followed by a sharper attack than before. For a day or two his wife and daughter watched with painful alternations of hope and fear. On the 1st of April the asthma became congestive, and bronchitis supervened. It was now evident that he would not recover. He was able to make his will, and occasionally to say a few words to those who were watching by his bedside.

Mr. Bright called in the evening, but was not allowed to see him. Early the next morning (Sunday, April 2) he called again; and as all chance of a rally had now vanished, he took his place by the side of the dying man. One other friend was in the room, Mr. George Moffatt, whose intimacy with Cobden had been long and sincere. They saw that his end was very close. As the bells of St. Martin’s Church were ringing for the morning service, the mists of death began to settle heavily on his brow, and his ardent, courageous, and brotherly spirit soon passed tranquilly away. Many tears were shed in homes where Cobden’s name was revered and loved when the tidings that he was dead reached them.

At the time of his death he was within two months of the completion of his sixty-first year. One afternoon in the summer of 1856, he and a friend took it into their1865.
Æt. 60. heads, as there was nothing of importance going on in the House, to stroll into the Abbey. His friend had never been inside before, as he confessed that he had never been inside St. Paul’s Cathedral, though he had passed it every day of his life for fifteen years. They strolled about among the monuments for a couple of hours, and the natural remark fell from his companion that perhaps one day the name of Cobden too would figure among the heroes. “I hope not,” said Cobden, “I hope not. My spirit could not rest in peace among these men of war. No, no, cathedrals are not meant to contain the remains of such men as Bright and me.” He was buried by the side of his son in the little churchyard at Lavington, on the slope of the hill among the pine woods. A large concourse gathered round his grave, some of them illustrious, others of them obscure, some his companions in past victories, other his fellow-workers in causes that still seemed forlorn; but all bound together for the moment in attachment to the memory of a frank and cordial friend, and a clear-sighted and faithful citizen.

“Before we left the house,” Mr. Bright has told us, “standing by me and leaning on the coffin, was his sorrowing daughter, one whose attachment to her father seems to have been a passion scarcely equalled among daughters. She said, ‘My father used to like me very much to read to him the Sermon on the Mount.’ His own life was to a large extent—I speak it with reverence and with hesitation—a sermon based upon that best, that greatest of all sermons. His was a life of perpetual self-sacrifice.”

On the day after Cobden’s death, when the House of Commons met, the Prime Minister commemorated the loss which they had all sustained in a few kindly sentences. It was 1865.
Æt. 60.reserved for Mr. Disraeli to strike a deeper note. “There is this consolation,” he said, “remaining to us when we remember our unequalled and irreparable losses, that these great men are not altogether lost to us, that their words will be often quoted in this House, that their examples will often be referred to and appealed to, and that even their expressions may form a part of our discussions. There are, indeed, I may say, some members of Parliament, who though they may not be present, are still members of this House, are independent of dissolutions, of the caprices of constituencies, and even of the course of time. I think that Mr. Cobden was one of these men.”

While the House was still under an impression from these words which was almost religious, Mr. Bright, yielding to a marked and silent expectation, rose and tried to say how every expression of sympathy that he had heard had been most grateful to his heart. “But the time,” he went on in broken accents, “which has elapsed since in my presence the manliest and gentlest spirit that ever quitted or tenanted a human form took its flight is so short, that I dare not even attempt to give utterance to the feelings by which I am oppressed. I shall leave to some calmer moment when I may have an opportunity of speaking before some portion of my countrymen the lesson which I think may be learned from the life and character of my friend. I have only to say that after twenty years of most intimate and almost brotherly friendship, I little knew how much I loved him until I had lost him” As Homer says of Nestor and Ulysses, so of these two it may be said that they never spoke diversely either in the assembly or in the council, but were always of one mind, and together advised the English with understanding and with counsel how all might be for the best.

[1]Speeches, ii. 339. November 23, 1864.

[2]Speeches, ii. 116.

[3]Speeches, ii. 367. See Wealth of Nations, Bk. iii., chap. ii.

[4]Mr. Thorold Rogers, who had many conversations with him on the subject, says that by free trade in land Cobden meant “the extension of the principle of free exchange in all its fulness to landed estates, and the removal of all restrictions on its transfer, either voluntarily, should the owner desire to sell it, or involuntarily if the owner becomes embarrassed.”—Cobden and Modern Political Opinion, chap. iii. p. 89.

[5]The present Lord Justice Brett. He was now before the constituency of Rochdale as the Conservative candidate.

[6]The last letter that Cobden wrote was on this subject. It was addressed a week before his death (March 22, 1865) to Mr. T. B. Potter, who had sent him a letter from Mr. Mill:—“Everything from his is entitled to respectful consideration. But I confess, after the best attention to the proposed representation of minorities which I can give it, I am so stupid as to fail to see its merits. He speaks of 50,000 electors having to elect five members, and that 30,000 may elect them all, and to obviate this he would give the 20,000 minority two votes. But I would give only one vote to each elector, and one representative to each constituency. Instead of the 50,000 returning five in a lump, I would have five constituencies of 10,000, each returning one member. Thus, if the metropolis, for example, were entitled, with a fair distribution of electoral power, to 40 votes, I would divide it into 40 districts or wards, each to return one member; and in this way every class and every variety of opinion would have a chance of a fair representation. Belgravia, Marylebone, St. James’s, St. Giles’s, Whitechapel, Spitalfields, &c., would each and all have their members. I don’t know any better plan for giving all opinions a chance of being heard; and after all, it is opinions that are to be represented. If the minority have a faith that their opinions, and not those of the majority, are the true ones, then let them agitate and discuss until their principles are in the ascendant. This is the motive for political action and the healthy agitation of public life.”

[7]The postscript was to the effect that if he were disposed to talk the matter over, Mr. Gladstone was at his service.