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"But after all you can't under our present conditions dissociate capital and labour. The benefit of one will be the benefit of the other. No food stuffs are taxed, you know." His neighbour grunted. "Pity Cobden's ghost can't come and listen to the rot those fellows are talking," he remarked. "We shall see in a dozen years how the thing works."
For literature, as such, he seemed to have had little thought, literature being purely a secondary love-product. Cobden's work was statistical, economic, political and philosophic. From writing he read his pamphlets before various societies and lyceums. Debates naturally followed, and soon Cobden was forced to defend his theories. He was nominated for a seat in Parliament and was defeated.
He had had all he could do to keep his feet and his basket while crossing the marsh on his way back to the station. Then he added: "There's a lot o' people there yit. That feller from Philadelphy who's mashed on Cobden's aunt was swellin' around in a potato-bug suit o' clothes as big as life."
Of course not, for so long as there is an unbaptized child, or a bed-ridden old woman in the parish, you must stay at home, even if you do grow as rusty as did Professor Cobden's coat before we boys made him a present of a new one. I say, Arthur, there was a capital fellow spoiled when you took to the ministry, with your splendid talents, and rare gift for making people like and believe in you.
See, for a very complete statement of Bright's views on the point, his speech on Canadian Fortifications, 23 March, 1865. Cobden's colonial policy is scattered broadcast through his speeches. Morley, Life of Gladstone, i. p. 269. See the preliminary chapter in his Colonial Policy. Elgin-Grey Correspondence: Elgin to Grey, 6 December, 1848.
Tradition tells now only of the splendid turns-out, the dinner-table luxury, the educated commercial polish, the "feast of reason and the flow of soul" enjoyment, of a race defunct; the degenerate crew of Cobden's association, with wages cut down to short common commissions, dined not at home; tea and turn-in, with a sleeping draught of whisky toddy, were the staples of mine host's bill.
Two years after Cobden's election, Bright was obliged to purchase a suit of solemn black and a chimney-pot hat, for he, too, had been chosen a member of the House of Commons. "Another Manchester man I do declare, you know, it will be a convention of bagmen, yet!" remarked Sir Robert Peel, as he adjusted his monocle. Peel, however, grew to have a very wholesome respect for the Manchester men.
Cobden's contention was that all money necessary to run the Government should be raised by direct taxation on land, property and incomes, and not on food any more than on air, since both are necessary to actual existence. To place a tariff on necessities, keeping these things out of the country and out of the reach of the plain and poor people who needed them, was an inhumanity.
We have, moreover, to request the reader to observe, that we have proceeded all along on the basis of the wild assumptions of Mr Cobden's own self created and unexplained calculations; that by his own figures we have tried and convicted his own conclusions of monstrous exaggeration, and ignorant, if not wilful, deception.
If in one sense the Corn Laws did not seem a promising theme for a popular agitation, they were excellently fitted to bring out Cobden's peculiar strength. It was not passion, but persuasiveness, to which we must look for the secret of his oratorical success.
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