The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-18 00:00:00

MR. COBDEN AND THE "TIMES."

We publish today another instalment of this
most unnecessary correspondence:—
To JOHN T. DELANE, ESQ. _

Sir,—l have received the letter dated from your
private residence, and bearing your proper signa-
ture, in which you take on yourself personally the
responsibility of the interpretation put by the 7 Imes
on the speeches of Mr. Bright and myself at Roch-
dale—namely, that we proposed " a division among
the poor of the lands of the rich." Your letter to
me says :
You attribute to the Times a deliberate miss presentation
of your meaning, and that of Mr. Bright, as to the means
of amending the unequal distribution of the land between
the rich and the poor. I repeat that certain passages in
your speeches will, in my opinion, bear no other interpreta-
tion than that ascribed to them. _ _ .

This is a grave accusation. lam told thlt, if
proved, it would bring Mr. Bright and myself
within the provisions of the Act 57th George 111.,
cap. 19, and render us liable to the penal cunse-
quences of transportation for seven years.
I will not believe that you can be so wanting in
the respect due to others, as well as yourself, as to
have addressed this accusation to me, unless with the
belief that you have evidence to substantiate it.
I call on you to give me those " certain passages"
to which you refer, and which are really now the
only quest:on at issue between you and me. That
there may be no excuse or ground for delay, I accept

the rf port which appeared in your paper as an ac-
curate version of my speech ; and to aid you in your
task I have cut from the Times the entire passage
which contains all I said in reference to the condi-
tion of the whole people, or to the agricultural
population and the land question in particular. But
tet it be distinctly understood that I do not confine
you to this passage, but that I give you the entire
rarge of my speech.
Before giving the passage I will say a few words,
which, although I do not in the slightest degree
claim for them the character of evidence, may have

interest in some quarters.
It is known that I am not in the habit of writing
a word beforehand of what I speak in public. Like
other speakers, practice has given me as perfect
self-possession in the presence of an audience as if
I were in my closet. Now, my one constant and
overruling thought while addressing a public meet-
ing, the one necessity which tho long experience of
the arts of controversialists has impressed on my
mind is to avoid the possibility of being misrepre-
sented, and prevent my opponents from raising
a false issue—a trick of logic as old as the time of
Aristotle. If I have, as some favourable critics are
pleased to Ojai., sometimes spoken with clearness,
It is more owing to this ever-present fear of mis-
representation than any other cause ; it is thus
that the most noxious things in life may have their
uses. When in my speech at Rochdale I came to
touch upon the subject of the land, the thought in-
stantly flashed through my brain—and none but the
public speaker knows with what velocity thought
moves when iu the presence of 4,000 listeners—that
I was dealing with a question about which there is
a superstition in England unknown elsewhere, and
!hat the enemy would raise the cry of agrarianism

against me, and hence my denunciation of agrarian
outrage, which will be found in the following ex-
tract. Had I been inspired with the faculty of se-
condsight, to have foreseen the Editor of the limes
sitting bodily penning his criticism on my speech,
I could not have more completely refuted and con-
founded beforehand the charge now brought against

The following is the passage referred to :
It has been a fashion of late to talk of an extension of the
franchise as something not to be tolerated, because it is as-
sumed that the mass of the people are not fitted to take a
part in Government, and they point to America or France,
and other places, and draw comparisons between this coun-
try and others countries. Now, I hope I shall not be consi-
dered revolutionary, because at my age I don't want any
revolutions. They won't serve me, lam sure, or anybody
that belongs to me. England may compare very favourably
with most other countries, if you draw the line in society
tolerably high, and if you compare the condition of the rich
and the upper classes of this country, or a considerable por-
tion of the middle classes, with the same classes abroad. I
don't think a rich man, barring the climate, which is not
very good, could be very much happier anywhere else than
in England ; but 'when my opponents treat this question of
the franchise as one that Is likely to bring the masses of the
people down from ;heir present state to the level of other
countries, I say I have travelled in most civilised countries
and that the masses of the people of this country do not
compare so favourably with the masses of other countries
as I could wish, I find in other countries a greziter number
of people with property than there are in England. I don't
know a Protestant country in the world where the masses
of the people are so illiterate as iu England. These are not
bad tests of the condition of a people. It is no use your
talking of year army and navy, your 07ports and your im-
ports—it is no use telling me you have a small portion of
your people exceedingly well off. I want to bring the test
to a comparison of the majority of the people with a ma-
jority of the people in other countries. Now, I say with
regard to some things in foreign countries we don't corn-
pare favourably, The condition of the English peasantry
'has no parallel on the Cana of the earth. (Hear.) You
have no other peasantry but that of England which is en-
tirely divorced from the land. There is no other country
in the world where you will not find men holding the
plough and turning up the furrow upon their own freehold.
I don't want any agrarian outrages by which we should
change all this; but this I fled, and it is quire consistent
with human nature, that wherever I ga the condition of
generally pretty good, in comparison with the
tphoewle)eropthiee is
they have to take care of themselves ; and if you
have a class entirely divorced from political power, while in
another country they possess it, they will be treated tire
with more consideration, they will have greater advantages,
they will be better educated, and have a better chance of