The Express.
London, England, 1848-01-28 00:00:00

EXPAES§LF4I:

x

MOND EDITION.
FREE TRADE BANQUET AT
MANCHESTER.
MR. COBDEN'S SPEECH.

(Continued from ow' first edition.)
MICHAUD COODISX, Esq., M.P., rose, and experienced
• most enthusiastic and flattering reception, all the cons-
ny rising and cheering for several minutes. As soon •
he was able to proceed with his remarks, he said: I have
in the first place to tender you my thanks, and the thanks
of those gentlemen who represent North and South Lan-
cashier, and the West Riding of Yorkshire, for the honour
you have done us in drinking our healths. I believe a very
large proportion of the members of those divisions of the
counties are now free-traders, and I have no doubt they
will all be found to do their duty to the satisfaction of this
nesemlily. (Hear, hear.) Now, gentlemen, I have been
asked a dozen times, I dare say, what is the object of this
meeting ? I confess to you that Ido not wish to regard it as
a meeting to celebrate put triumph., still leas to glorify
ourselves or one another. I wish rather that it should be
made to show that we are alive to the future—" Hear,
hear," and applause) ; that having secured upon the
statute-book a guarantee for free trade I. corn, we intend
to make it a prelude to free trade in skipping ; that we in-
tend to prevent the West India. proprietors from taxing
this community for their advantage ; and that, in fact, we
intend to carry out in every article of commerce the prin-
ciples of free trade which we have applied to corn. (Cheers.)
Now, gentlemen, our esteemed representative has so ably
and efficiently anticipated some points I Intended to refer to,
In connexion with the sugar question in justification
of our principles of free trade,
;saidtha I am relieved
from the necessity of repeating them
most heartily for the speech he has given, whicli A on.
of the ablest I hive ever heard in this ball. (Applause.) I
believe this question 'of free trade—the question of free
Mae in all its details is understood oy this assembly ; that
what I have told you would be our future objects has the
concurrence of this assembly, and I have no doubt that
every member on this platform will joie us in carrying out
those principles in the legislature. (Hear, hear.) Bat
now, gentlemen, I with to allude to another subject;
and although 1 admit that subje. tto have an intimate con-
nection with the questim of free trade, yet I wish distinctly
what understood that sayo not presume for a moment la
at lam going to to speak the sentiments of any
member of parliament or of the gentlemen beside me.
speak only for myself, and do not wish to compromise any
other individual ; I allude, as you may probably have anti-
cipated, to the intention which has been announced of
increasing our war armaments. (AppAuse.) Gentlemen
will beer me out that throughout the long agitation for free
trade the most earnest men who co-operated with us were
those who constantly advocated free trade, nut merely
on account of the material advantages which it would
bring. to the community, but fur the far loftier motive of
securing peace between nations. (Applause.) I believe
it was that that mainly drew to our ranks the great
host of ministers of religion, who were so powerful an im-
petus to our progress at the commencement of the agita-
tion. I have known most of the leading men in this
struggle, and have had an opportunity of understanding
their motives ; and I believe that the most earnest, the
most perseveringthe meet devoted of our coadjutors, have
been men who have been promoted by those purely moral
and religious motives to which I have referred by the desire
for peace. (Applause.) And lam sure that every one of
throe men has shared with me the shock which I hunt-tined,
when, within one short twelvemonth almost after we had
announced ourselves as free traders to the world, we
were started with the announcement that we were going
to increase our warlike arrangements. (Applause.) I
ask what is the explanation of this ? Probsely we may
find it in the Duke of Wellington's letter, in the private
efforts which he announces he has made with the Govern-
ment, and • correspondence he has had with Lord
John Russell. We may attribute this, then, to the Duke
of Wellington, his letter and his private efforts. Well, I do
not profess to share that veneration which some men cuter-
lain for successful warriors—(hear, hear) ;—but is there
amongst the most ardent admirers of the duke—one man
possessing the ordinary feelings of humanity—who does
not wish that that letter had never been written or
never published. (Hear, hear, and applause.) His grace
has past the greatest probable duration of human exist-
ence, and we may say, almost without figure of speech, that
he is tottering on the verge of the grave. (Hear, hear )
It is not lamentable—(applause)—• most lamentable spec-
tacle, that that band which is no longer capable of wielding
a sword, should devote its still remaining feeble strength to
the penning of a letter—and that letter may possibly be the
last public letter which he may address to his fellow-coun-
trymen, and which is more calculated than anything else in
the present day to create evil passions and animosities in
the breasts of two great and neighbeurly nations. (Ap-
plause.) Would it not have been a better employment fur
him to have been preaching forgiveness for, and oblivion of,
the past, than in reviving the recollection of Toulon, Paris,
and Waterloo, and in fact doing ovoiithillg to :unite &bosons
people to retaliatory measures to retrieve themselves from
past disasters t (Hear, hear.) Would it Dot have been a
more glorious object had he poured oil into those
wounds, which are now almost healed up, rather than apply
the cauteric in re-opening those wounds, and leaving to
another generation the task of repairing the mischief
which he has perpetrated. I left the subject of the
duke's letter when I read that part where he said,
" I am in my 77th year,"—and I said that explains
it all and excuses it. (Applause.) We have not
to deal with the Duke of Wellington, we have to deal
with those younger men who want to make use of his au-
thority to carry out their own special purposes. (Hear,
hear.) Now, what I want to stipulate with you and the
people of England is this—that the question before us is
not a military question, that it is not • naval question, but
that it is a question for civilians to decide. (Hear, hear,
and applause.) When we are at war, then the men with
red coats and swords by their sides may step in to do their
work ; and it is one which is not to be envied, and which
that great military officer, Sr Harry Smith, has happily
described as "a most dsmnable trade.", (Hear, hear.) This
is a question for the merchants, for the manufacturers, for
the shopkeepers, for the operatives, and for the farmers of
this country. Aye, and pardon me, my Lord Ellesmere, it
le a question for calico-prtnters too. (Loud and continuous
applause.) What is this prospect ef war ? Where does it
come_from ? You, I say, are competent to judge better than
military men ; you are more impartial ; at all events
your interests do not lie on the side of war. I say
there never was • time in the history of France, when
there was • greater tendency to a pacific policy, and
especially towards this kingdom, than there is at this
moment. Why, the French people have gone through a
processwhich almost disqualifies them from going to war.
They have gone through that social revolution which so
much equalises the division of the property, that the people
contribute, almost equally, to support the Government of
the country. The taxation is for the most part direct, and
therefore the people are most sensitive on the score of
expenditure, and are not likely to agree in the necessity
of going to war. I will venture to say that, there is
not a more affectionate and domesticated race on the face
of the earth than the French. (Applause.) Why, I have
seen with horror and shame and indignation the way in
which some of our newspapers have spoken of the French
people. They have placed them before the community in a
most ignominious, a most degraded position, and marked
them as a most ignorant people. Without saying anything
about prejudices and want of Christian charity, I am glad of
the opportunity of rising in such assemblies as this to repu-
diate the statements which have been made,—to speak on
behalf of the French people, to assist in setting them right
with the world, and with ourselves. There is a paper in this
city, which I always wish totreat with respect, if it will allow
me,—(laughter)—there is one paper here which last week
gravely took this line of argument,—that it was necessary
that we should have police in Manchester to constantly
protect us against thieves, pickpockets, ruffians, and mur-
derers, and therefore we should have an armament to pro-
tect us against the French—(laughter)—as if they were
thieves, pickpockets, ruffians, and murderers. Why, the
French community is at the present as well organised and
as orderly as our own ; and there has bean as little discord
in France as in England during the last five or six years.
Then there is another paper in London—a weekly paper—
that used to write with great gravity ; but I suppose it has
been so panic-stricken of late that it has lost its wits.
(Lau ter.) That paper tells us that the next engagement
gh with France will be without a declaration of war, and
that we shall literally have to protect our queen
at Osborne-house against those unscrupulous Frenchmen
who may carry off her Majesty. (Laughter.) Well,
now, what a lesson has our courageous queen taught
such people as these. She went over to France, unattended
and unprotected, and threw herself on the shone at the
Chateau d'Eu, literally in a bathing machine. (Laughter.)
Now there is either great courage on the) oae side, or great
cowardice on the other. (Laughter.) But this is, after all,
a sort of periodical visitation. I sometimes compare it to
the cholera ; for I believe the last visitation we had of this
kind came about the time of the cholera. It was then said
we were to have an invasion frem the Russians, and I rather
identified myself with the Russian invasion, as it is called.
I believe it is quite possible, that if I had notbeen struck by
the insanity of some of the public papers, who told us
that the Russians would come some foggy day and land near
Portsmouth, I should never have turned author, have written
pamphlets, or become a public man; and might have peen
up to this day a thrifty pains-taking calico-printer. (Con-
tinuous applause). Now, gentlemen, I want us to under-
stand three followers • little better. You may remember
that three weeks or a month ago, I had occasion to ad-
dress a few remarks, at Newton, on the occasion of the
election of my friend Mr. Henry, and there I let fall sow
remarks relative to the reduction of our armanessis;
showing how necessary it was to reduce our expewlltnze
in order to sorry out the fiscal reforms. I little drummed
at that time, that, at the very moment I was spook*, a
large meeting was being held at Rouen, the Manchester of
France, at which 1,800 electors were 'assembled to
at a public dinner, the progress of Parliamentary =;
and that there a gentleman was making a speech so 'Whir
to my own, that he sent me a newspaper, and estimated
his astonishment Loaf it should be possible for two speeekie
to be made, without allusion, so similar to each ethic.
New, I will read you, if you please, this gentleman's 21,-.
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