The Daily Times.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1860-08-10 00:00:00

PLAIN SPEAKING " OF MR. COBDEN

MR. COBDEN, perhaps, is the only wise and
just man alive. His spirit alone would seem to
groan continually under a true sense of the folly
and wickedness of the nations in ages past and at
the present day ; and he alone, if we are to believe
all we hear and read, can, with more than human
prescience, scan the future, and predict the evil
that awaits them. He enumerates and deplores
all our wars, but especially our American war.
He deprecates the narrowness and selfishness of
French commercial policy, and complains of the
tedium he has suffered in respect of the commercial
treaty. His righteous soul is deeply moved by
the lavish and unprincipled policy of the English
aristocracy. He pities the people of England for
indulging in artificially stimulated panics. Every
additional ship built and fitted out by this country
stirs up his great indignation. These evils are
bad enough--.but there is one manifestation of
our national depravity which far outstrips all our
other sins, and which, in short, raises Mr.
COBDEN'S holy wrath to a height that promises
to become too much even for his patient and ever-
suffering, self-sacrificing spirit. " ONE THING,"
he says,---"
ONE THING IS INTOLERABLE, AND
THAT IS THE VOLUNTEER SYSTEM t! !"

The people of England may have prided them-
selves on their freedom, and their independence
of anything like dictation from high quarters.
They may have especially believed in the pure
tepontaneity of the present Volunteer movement,
and rejoiced in it accordingly. The calm, deli-
berate, and steady manner in which the enrol-
ment and organisation of the corps and battalions
has proceeded may have appeared to many as
evidence of the sobriety and natural fitness of
the process. The happy moderation with which
the whole business has been conducted may have
given the best ground for believing that the
Volunteer army is to be a permanent English
institution ; while the noble sacrifices of time and
money made by these volunteer soldiers, as mem-
bers of a pre-eminently self-supporting body, may
have been accepted as guarantees for their restric-
tion within moderate bounds consistent with the
every day duties of freemen and citizens. Nay,
More, , the absence of any immediate or very
apparent danger may have induced some people to
look upon the whole process as little more than an
innocent, because healthy, and manly pastime ; or
as something scarcely beyond a passing display Qf
amateur soldiering. The most sceptical may have
argued that if Englishmen are willing to pay for
and wish to wear military uniforms and practice
military evolutions, they are well entitled, under
Government sanction and, regulation, to have
their mimic ambition gratified. If any more
serious motives have prompted Englishmen to
Volunteer army, it has
embody themselves into A'
been generally supposed to be none other than;
love of freedom, devotion to country, and the
desire to protect its shores sacred from even
the threat of invasion. The hope of
the originators and promoters of the move-
ment, niay been so far from that of pp-
yoking aggression and seeking actual employ-
ment for our Volunteer arms, that it appeared
the likeliest method of preventing such a catas-
trophe. Certainly it has not occurred to us that
any one has contemplated the operations of our
Volunteers being ,in any way turned to account
on behalf of a foreign power, or any policy alien
to our own proper defence. All this we may,
have believed most ; and yet we may have
been entirely wrong. Mr. COBDEN shows us our
error. The movement is Prince ALBERT'S own.
It is a mere monomania. It is not patriotism
at all. It is Germanism. "PRINCE ALBERT'S
RiyLE moNomANL4,” says Mr. CQBDEW, in Paris,
among a few American and French friends,
sIMPLY so MUCH GERMANISAI r
NDER THE MASS
OF.ENGLISII PATRIOTISM !"

ct Is

What must be Mr• COPDEN's emotions--14ow
poiguaut his grief-7110w 9.Foruciating his sense of

degradation—when he contemplates the benighted
condition of his fellow-countrymen, thus fooled by
an illustrious Prince, and spending their substance
in a foreign cause under the delusion of defending
their own native land ? 'Phis sorrow, added to
his deep sense of the general degeneracy of the

times in this and other countries, must weigh
heavily upon his philanthropic breast. But there
is a balm in Gilead. One bright spot in the
horizon cheers his heart, and enables him to
breathe. There is, it seems, ode other man fit to
live besides RICHARD COBDEN. There may be
many of whom lie has some hope—such as
JOHN BRIGHT, for instance—but there is only.
one whose wisdom and honesty are worthy of
implicit reliance ; only one whose policy is
just and sincere ; whose aims are pure ; and
to whom England and the world may yet look
for salvation. He is, fortunately, well known
to the world, and all men may, to some extent,
judge of the accuracy of Mr. COBDEN'S choice.
"Of the Emperor," says the report we have
already quoted, " Mr. COBDEN spoke in terms of
unqualified praise : he thought his views large,
and his objects tho•ouglilr/ honest." Hencefor-
ward, then, let us implicitly believe in Louis
NAPOLEON ; disband our armaments while he
enlarges his ; or, if we retain a few ships and
soldiers, let them be ever at Louis NAPOLEON'S
disposal, under the nickname of "Allies." Let
us at once introduce the Code .Vapoleonenne, and
lend our freedom to the great dictator of Europe—
the thoroughly honest man. Avaunt ye memories
of Ham, Boulogne, the coup d'etat, Villafranca, and
Savoy and Nice ! Mr. COBDEN, the great high
priest of the nations, has absolved the perjured
and intriguing filibuster. The first NAPOLEON
avowed a policy, and endeavoured to carry it
into execution, which led to his banishment
from Europe. His nephew has announced his
faith in that policy, but seeks not to attain
it by open force. What of that ? Are
we to doubt the penetration, discretion, and
thorough honesty of the demure sage, who
has conferred upon us the inestimable bles-
sings of a French commercial treaty ? And
has he not assured us that we are safe ? Has he
not told us that there is not the slightest occasion
for alarm ? What may not befal us if we
neglect the warnings of so highly accredited a
prophet ?

England may not be perfect. She has made
grievous errors, and may make more. One of
them, perhaps will be, in the face of such admoni-
tions, to redouble her energies for the completion
of our defences, and the perfecting of our Volun-
teer system. There is this consolation, that if
Mr. COBDEN'S assurance is well founded, England
errs on the safe side, by " making assurance
doubly sure." Mr. COBDEN may live to see his
error, even if he should never recant it. He
certainly never can altogether undo the evil he
has already accomplished. Should this apostle
of Imperialism ever become so far reconciled to
his native country as to return and live amongst
us, and in a good old age descend to an English
tomb, he has fairly earned a monument—but not
in Westminster—on which the great error of his
life may be summed up by a brief inscription of
two words,—which may serve the double purpose
of a record and a warning to all future generations
of Englishmen ;--let his epitaph be,—
" CREDIDIT NAPOLEON?'