The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-05-21 00:00:00

MR. JOHN MORLEY AT THE COBDEN
CLUB DINNER.

The Right Hon. John Morley, presiding at the
dinner of the Cobden Club at Greenwich on Satur-
day, said: I now rise to propose "The Memory of
Richard Cobden," and "Prosperity to the Cobden
Club." (Applause.) It is 25 years ago since the
first of the dinners was held, and amongst those who
were present then were the veteran chief of the old
Liberal party, Lord Russell—(applause)--the veteran
chief who still survives him, Mr. Gladstone—(pro-
longed cheering)--and there was also present there a
great teacher of my own, and, I suppose, of most of
you, Mr. Mill. (Applause.) On that occasion Mr.
Mill said: "The cord which binds us together is not
a political confession of faith, but a common allegiance
to the spirit of improvement, which is a greater thing
than the particular opinions of any one politician.
It is said that Mr. Cobden, if he had lived, would
have been against us on the Irish question.
I do not believe there is any more idle
pastime in this world than speculating as to
what the opinions of those who have gone
before would have been upon the questions of the
day. (Hear, hear.) I saw, indeed, that one friend
yesterday—l know not whether to cail him a seer or
a prophet—said at Ayr that if Robert Burns had
been alive to-day he would have been a Dissentient
Liberal. (Laughter.) I am not so bold; I do not
make so free with the ghosts of the illustrious dead.
(Applause.) I shrink from finding political creeds
in the shades of famous men. Each generation
niu,t find its own way through its own difficulties,
and must form its own view as to the right solution
of its own problems. (Hear, hear.) We cannot be
sure what Mr. Cobden's opinion would have been,
but what we can be sure of is that we should imitato
his political temper and his political methods.
( Applause.) Mr. Cobden was never frightened--and
I am speaking in the presence, I am glad to think,
of some of his own family—(cheers)—he was
never frightened out of a political conviction by
the fact that an incidental Parliamentary majority
was against him; and he never thought he was
and must be wrong because a particular or general
election had gone the other way. (Applause.) In
our difficulties—which to-day, as politicians of all
sentiments on both sides must recognise, are very great
and very serious—(hear, hear)—we can take example
from Mr. Cobden's energy in exploring facts, his firm-
ness in bringing the facts to a head, his persevering
advocacy of what he believed to be a great patriotic
cause, his union of vigour of principles with control of
temper, his perfect, absolute, and undenied freedom
from all the paltry and disturbing elements of person-
ality. (Hear, hear.) Above all, we can imitate Mr.
Cobden's courage. Mr. Cobden, on his first public
appearance, in his pamphlet in 1835, singled out
Ireland as one of the two or three greatest objects
which any statesman could have in his view at the
time, and remonstrated against the wicked absurdity
of our engaging in all sorts of entanglements for
Italian-, Greeks, Belgians, Poles, Spaniards, French
Bourbons, &c., while we left 0-population of our
own fellow-citizens at ohr own doors in a condition
more barbarous and more discredited than at the
moment marked any civilised population in the world.
(Applause.) We have a right to-night to justify Mr.
Cobden's foresight. Is it not exasperating to think
that if a fraction of the thought that our statesmen
have given since the year 1835 to all sorts of foreign
questions which concerned us very little or not at all
—(hear, hear)—if but one tithe of the attention,
vigilance, and solicitude had been given to Ireland
that Mr. Cobden advised, we should not to-day be
beset by the torment and the harass that make our
embarrassment and our difficulty? (Applause). I
am not going to say any more upon the Irish Ques-
tion. (Hear, hear.) This club has now attained to
years of legal discretion. Looking back upon he
past 21 years, your first meeting was held on the eve
of the Reform era, and we now meet again upon the
completion of an era of Parliamentary reform. We
all know this, who are behind the scenes and in the
secret, that there arc very strong reactionary in-
fluences, even in England, in favour both of mili-
tarism and protection. (Hear, hear). The Cobden
Club has dene good service in resisting these in-
fluences. I wish the club were more active in pro-
testing against little wars. A friend of mine
said that in the days of old Rome there was a
Temple of Janus, and whenever Rome was
at war the doors of the Temple of Janus
were opened, and my friend wished we had in Palace-
yard a little Temple of Janus—(hear, hear)—so tbtit
whenever a member of Parliament goes to the House
of an afternoon he may look at the little temple, and
see whether the doors are open or shut. We should
never find the door shut. There is always some little
war going on. The club ought not to neglect them,
but to keep their eyes on these little wars of annexa-
tion and aggression in winch we are constantly
engaged. So far as the other question is concerned,
it is in many respects more important though it
strikes the imagination less—the question of tariffs.
We have had a Royal Commission sitting for two or
three years, and they have issued a voluminous Indy
of evidence very carefully oollcded from every

quarter of the globe, and very effectually collected.
Oar friends the Protectionists and the Fair Traders
were confident that they would gain a great
deal of grist for their mill from the result
of this Commission. But men competent to
know the difference between a good argument
and a bad one, and between good evidence and bad,
and who will examine into that evidence, will
inevitably come to the conclusion that the result of
that Commission is to complete the overthrow and the
discomfiture of the whole army of Protectionists and
Reciprocitarians, or whatever they may call them-
selves. We have here representatives from those
young and thriving and strong Colonies who are not
yet, lam afraid, converted to our views. (A. Voice:
"Some of them are.") Some are, lam glad to know
it, but some are not. Upon the policy of the young
Colonists lam not now going to pass an opinion. I
have it, but I am not going to pass it; it would be
inhospitable. (Laughter.) But I say no men, not
even the representatives of the Colonies, who will go
through the Blue-book and Report, will say for one
instant that we in this old mother country can for an
instant put on one more shred or rag of Protectionist
policy. (Applause.) I would only add a word or
two more as to the position which this club takese
and as to the position which the country expects it
to take. Upon wars I have said what I have to say.
1 do not think we do enough here in protesting
against little wars, aggressions, and annexations.
in the matter of tariffs I think that we have a
great work before us, because there is something
very plausible about them. I have found it in
my own constituency even, which is a good and an
enlightened constituency—(laughter)—l have found
that even there there is some risk that the plausible
fallacies of Fair Trade which Sir Thomas Farrer has
blown out of the water may make some way; and,
therefo:e, I hope you will not abate your efforts one
jot or tittle. On the condition of the commerce of
the country, there are gentlemen here who are able to
speak with better authority than myself. I confess I
find nothing in it which may cause disquiet. There is,
no doubt, depression, but there are many reassuring
signs. The distribution of wealth—the distribution
of the annual earnings of the country—is to-day vastly
better and safer than it ever was. It is calculated
from the economic facts and figures before us that the
development of industry and increase of wealth and
income in the United Kingdom has been at a less rate
in the last ten years than in either the two decennial
periods preceding. There has been a great positive
increase—let us not forget this—but there has been
a great diminution in the rate of increase. On
the other hand, along with this movement has been
going on another economic movement. While the
rate of increase in the national earnings has been
falling off, there has been a very serious change in the
distribution of those earnings. In the years 1874-5
to 1884-5 the incomes between £290 and £lOOO per
year have increased by 30 per cent., though the
population has only increased by 10 per cent. Incomes
over £5OOO a year have decreased by 10 per cent.
You come to this as a general conclusion—that the
lower the income the more rapid has been the rate of
increase. (Hear, hear.) The Chancellor of the
Exchequer the other day gave some figures which
were very interesting. Mr. Goschen told us there
were just upon 400,000 persons contributing to the
income tax with incomes of over £5OO a year; 32.000
with incomes over £509 and under £1000; 19,000
which are over £lOOO and under £5OOO a year; and
only 2000 which are between £5OOO and £lO,OOO a
year. There are 1000 people lucky enough to have
over .£lO,OOO, and 95—and quite enough (laughter—
people who have over £50,000 a year. You take
these figures, and you take also into consideration
the fact that, owing to the lower price of food and
the necessaries of life, our working people, though
their wages may not be all that they could desire.
have greater purchasing power with those wages
than they ever had before—(applause)—all these
things give us reason to believe that the community
, in which we live is materially and economically
I sound. And it is so because of the policy of the
statesman whose name we are here to commemorate.
(Applause.) It is often said that Cobden was often
weak, and that we, who revere his memory and re-
spect his truths, are weak, on the subject of not feel-
ing the duties and calls of Empire. Ido not believe
that that for a moment was a shortcoming of his. Ile
had it in his head to enforce a particular set of
truths of great value and immense moment at the
time. Ido not believe that if he had lived now he
would in the least degree have overlooked the duties
which the Empire has laid upon us. (Cheers.)
, When they tax us with falling short of the force and
the spirit by which great Empires are maintained,
they do us less than justice. I believe as much as
any man that no kingdom can be kept up without
force, without spirit, and without energy. (Ap-
plause.) But along with force and spirit and
energy you must have also sobriety and
justice. (Applause.) All that we in this club, and
those who endeavour to press this policy, insist upon
is that you shall not forget the conditions upon which
your Empire rests, and that these conditions will not
I be carried out by artificial unions or by forced unions.
(Applause.) The solar system itself would go to
wreck if the planets were kept in their places by bonds
of adamant instead of by the law of invisible attrac-
tion. (Applause.) We of the Cobden Club are as
proud of what Englishmen do in every quarter of tho
globe as even the Primrose League—(laughter)—and
we cannot find ourselves come from Westminster here
without reflecting that from this river go forth great
swarms to carry our free laws, our great ideas, and
our great literature through the length and breadth
of the globe. We do not forget it, and do not intend
that that great process shall ever for a moment cease.
We are willing to aid and to help it, but to do what
we can in sobriety, in wisdom. We will do it all in
the spirit of justice and moderation, and by the adap-
tation of the means to the end. (Cheers.)