The Sun.
London, England, 1864-11-28 00:00:00

r
;G

social connections to the politician, but these are imP°
chiefly at the start, and Mr Cobden's ability and achieve'e"
ments have been of a kind to make his original rank a q
tion of no importance, if only he did not so coustandl
remind the world that he does not belong to that repailet
of political letters where all are equal except in indivl4U°
gifts, by pouring forth private grudges against the culture,
of ages, and against the acts of aristrooratic statesmen Ile
because they have done amiss, but because they areast°,.
cratic. Mr Cobden no doubt suspects it very little, bat it laa‘
still true that even in this speech we can find for him a g°°.
many better reasons why he cannot be Premier than the ou°
he has found for himself. We venture to suggest that Iklr
Cobden's reason for thinking the geography of the gee is'
sippi more important to young men at the University al
the geography of the Ilissus—namely, that he once 100.,
the latter stream dammed up by a few Athenian laundress:l
while the Mississippi with its tributaries flows "throes,.
20,000 miles of navigable waters into the Gulf of Mexico r
—is at least one ground, and probably a sufficient one, le
declining to put him at the head of the English Statmea
The man who could measure the cultivating influents
of knowledge on the mind of the young 11,„,..
utility for practical affairs—who could avoid seeing tw.
America, with its rude though gigantic preparations for ei;
istence, its not merely unfinished but almost uncommon it;
civilisation, its tentative literature, its germinal ocieth I
political log-huts of State constitutions, is not a stud/
sr
discipline undisciplined understandings and form lltere,,g
tastes of youth—nay, that for such a task we must go ce"
to the only era which, however imperfect in its elementat
was at least complete and 'harmonious in itself-000
have that finer judgment which, though it may not be
as
main instrument of the politician, is almost as essentialf
political knowledge or sagacity itself for the regulation ui
i
our internal affairs, Mr Cobden evidently considers lte,
far more importance for young men to know the populat.°o
of Chicagc—" a place of 150,000 inhabitants, from
one or two millions of people in our country are annll7,o
fed"—then to know what kind of a world was that
Attica some dozen of whose citizens have fed the Willa.%
Europe for the last 2,000 years. We know what relsti
value Mr Cobden attaches to a single issue of the riittg;d
probably he would now prefer to substitute the ifetu-os
Star to " all the works of Thucydides," and we du, 114
think he has been more fortunate with the MissiseiPP:lolo
the Ilissus, even though Athenian washerwomen did ee ji
him a momentary exultation by damming up the latter. ,
will be centuries at least before the exports from the
sissippi, with all its 20,000 miles of navigable water°,
equal in "real value" the intellectual exports from tbe';
cient Piraeus. There are other confessions in Mr COIYI,
speech which we cannot but think far more fatal to
01
selection as Prime Minister than that virtuous Ili°
aide/
his of refusing to flatter the English people; for e%-
his very peculiar view that for England to have 11,11.
reign policy at all is very much the same as for ft 4•
dale to manage the municipal affairs of Leeds or 1311:1;or
burn, instead of attending to its own; and that
virtue he inculcates, at the sacrifice of so P.-00
‘`,momentary popularity," on the English people, retic'ellll
in expressing even their sympathy with other nations' i 0
we cannot avoid feeling sympathy with the people off IO
countries, he says, we should at least do well to avel c)
expression of our feeling, a duty in the discharge of 10
Mr Cobden sets us all so practical an example by del(iiiiif
the last hour of his speech to an admirable expression
aeo
sympathy with the cause of the freemen of the PO
against the rebel slaveholders of the Southern State t 0
truth is that though Mr Cobden has never give...l/J-0,
party " what was meant for mankind," his strong 11',.,0"
has been unfortunately limited by the narrow /Orr tioo
the world of ideas in which he was educated,--artu,in
not the sort of limitation which England can endn'
Prime Minister. The benefits he has conferred 11101,„01'
nation are almost immeasurable in degree, but are u'rel
lectually analogous to those conferred upon it byArirl tri!
Mr Cobden has as it were enriched us, in giving *H4.I
trade, with a moral spinning-jenny, which bus nalllPlol
the resources and indirectly also the comfort,eduost..ll;lo
moral strength of England beyond all calculation. P"opei
almost all inventors of this class, he can think of ItoftliO
benefit to his ceuntry except some further extension
same machinery. •

al

Out