The Sun.
London, England, 1863-11-25 00:00:00

ROCJIDALE,

MESSRS.. COBDEN AND BRIGHT AT

(F }ran the Special Reporters of the limes.)
ROCHDALE, Tuesday Night.
A cro• mod public meeting, attended by about 3,000 per-
sons, vials held at Rochdale this evening, to hear an address
from Mr. Cobden, M.P. Mr. Bright was present, and also
add_ressed the meeting. The chair was taken by the Mayor
of the borough.

Mr. CoBDEN, who was received with great cheering,
spoke as follows is to me, as your representative, a very
kappy and pleasant omen to find my arrival hero greeted by
so larvae an assemblage of my friends, It is the least that
can b e expected from a member of Parliament that he should
once a year meet his constituents face to face to state to them
kin views upon the passing events of the day, and to hear
front them in a public assembly like this what are their
wishes and views with reference to his future conduct.
tionerally, when a member makes his annual appearance, it
Eie expected that he should have something to say with refer-
once to the proceedings of the immediately preceding session
of Parliament. I should be much at a loss for a text if you
confined me to the topics furnished by our proceedings dur-
ing
_ the last session. The best I can say of the present Par-
liament is that it is drawing near to its end. (Cheers and
laughter,) It failed to perform any service to the country
when it was in its prime, and therefore you will not expect
anything good from it in its decrepitude. (Laughter.) The
eooner it is returned to the country, the better it will be
both for the country and for Parliament. Now I think, when
a new Parliament meets, it will have to be furnished with
Principles from the country. (Hear, hear.) The great lack
of the present Parliament is that it is destitute of principle
and of purpose, (Cheers.) Probably we, whom I may call
the Freetraders of this country—we have a right to call
ourselves Freetraders here if we have anywhere--are largely
reeponsible for this state of things in Parliament, WI e have
been, contrary to our professed principles, a kind o
temr oenfoa-
polists of the public arena for nearly the last quer
century. It will be 25 years next month since my, h on.
friend here to my left, and many around me, first
Joined
together to commence that effort which has ended now. in
the complete recognition of free•trade principles. During
of pretty
all that time we may be said to have occupiedlel
ex-
clusively the attention of political part' an men.
We fouled the field occupied by labourers who were advo-
cating other principles. For instance, there were the advo.
cates of Parliamentary Reform, there were the advocates
of religious equality, and in the words " religious equality"
I erabrace the dealing, for example, with that great and
glaring abuse, the Irish Church, which Lord Brougham
hi.s denounced as the foulest abuse in any civilized country,
(Cheers.) Well, we elbowed out of the way those questions,
for we had a question in hand that would not bear delay.
We were advocating a question of bread and employment
for the people. (Cheers.) We have accomplished our ob-
ject ; this present Parliament has finished the work. It
had just languid force to carry the last remaining measures
to complete the free-trade system, helped a little by the
extraneous and rather exceptionable proceeding of a foreign
treaty ; but with that aid this present Parliament has
trade,
completed the work of free by which I mean that it
has settled that great controversy Doubtless there remains as between protection
and free trade.
to do. Our children remains something more
must carry on the work. There is
still the question of direct and indirect taxation. (Hear.)
There is still the question of a large reduction of expenditure
in the government. But the great controversy as between
protection and, free trade
isrequired ntoowbesee
tntdleedw,eadndb I say the
.next
Parliament will be
!")les by the, oountry when we have another gyenenreawl election.prtne-
(Cheers.) Some people say there is great apathy and indif-
ferencet in the country. I don't think there is any want of
Treat in the country upon public affairs. (Hear, hear.)
ere is a lively interest in the public proceedings of the
Itholo world, and the public mind is very demonstrative ;
but what 1 observe is that the attention of the country
seems to be rather given to the affairs of other nations than
to its own. (Hear, hoar.) We are something as a nation
as you would be in Rochdale as a borough if your town
council were generally employed in discussing the affairs of
Preston, Blackburn, or Manchester, instead of its own. It
is curious enough that while we are devoting more than
ever of our attention to foreign politics, we are still con-
stantly professing the principle of non-intervention. We
he ye non-intervention on our lips, but there is always a de-
sl.re in the corner of our heart for a little intervention for
'some special object or other abroad. (Hear.) I don't charge
this against any particular party or any Government. We
have all our little pet. projects of intervention. For instance,
some would manage the affairs of the Americans, others
would take in charge to regulate the affairs of Poland,
others aro interested in Italy ; and so it is that, in spite of
our profession of non-intervention, we are in fact, as far as
my observation goes, interfering more than ever with the
affairs of foreign countries. (Hear, hear.) Borne people say
it is the telegrams. They say that Reuter's telegrams are
the daily morning dram which stimulates and excites us with
'a greatThattle in America, or a butchery in Poland ; that we
have no taste for the simple aliments of which our domestic
affairs are made up. For instance, we have at this present
moment a party in this country actively advocating an inter-
ference in the affairs of America. When I say interference,
I mean we have a party who advocate either recognition or
something which means interference if it means anything.
I have seen lately the report of two meetings of constituen-
cies in the west England, one at Bristol and the other at
Plymouth, in which Liberal members have been recom-
mending that Government should enter into arrangements
with some foreign Power in order that they may recognise
the Southern States of America, and put an end to the war
I observe that the ideas which pervade the public mind—at
least, which pervaded it in the two cases I alluded to—is
that this affair in America is to be settled in a peculiar way
according to the dictates of those particular parties. (Cheers)
From the beginning of this lamentable convulsion, from
which you have suffered so much, one of the great Nude.-
-mental errors in the conduct of statesmen, in the conduct of
Governments, and in the conduct of a large portion of the
influential classes in this country, has been tbat they have
made up their minds there can be but one issue to this war
in America, and that is, separation between North and
South. I told you when I was here last—when that spirit,
if possible, was more rife than now—that I did not believe
the war would issue in that way. I have stated the same
opinion since in the House of Commons, yet I declare to
you that, looking at what is called in cant phrase London
society--rind society is, I must tell you, that upper ten
thousand with whom members of Parliament are liable to
tome in contact at the clubs and elsewhere—looking at the
rlgittg class, if I may use the phrase, that you meet in these
""dens in London, nineteen twentieths of them have been
t'
rellilY Convinced from the first that the civil war in America
.„,o
f,Only end in separation. How far the wish was father
that thought I will not pretend to say. (Cheers.) I be-
lieve thattb•e conviction has been a severe one, that it has
been founded on the belief that, looking at the vast extent
of territorywas impossible they
by the insurgents in the civil war, it
could be tiroueilhey could be subjugated by any force that
been a moat fa:a against them by the North ; but there has
lentable display of ignorance among those
classes to which
duct of the or referred, if you may judge from the con-
exponents of thee, views press, which may be considered the
something wonderful, wsi,..:l:heerrorsin geography have been
bear no comparison, asselrislaty rivers, with which ours can
natural
as running into one another
in defiance of their
exhibited of the exiatlet.Position, and an utter igno-
ranceof old cities with 100,000,
or 150,000 inhabitants--vast
Shipping
a mileof ports for raw produce
--where I have myself seen
steamboats moored
side by side. Your ruling classes
know
nothing of this.
You don't find it in the books of ioxford and Cambridge
which the undergraduates are obliged, to study before they
lute' ignorance of
can pass their examination. It is in
resources that this opini has been cone,
more thanany thing els, has
I, theseho
accident, perhaps, madew acm
(Voirated as well with the statistics
band. geeZraPilY of that
and I believe
country as of my own, have never believed .
Grate nations withia''t
now loss than ever, that I n one in this v
n assembly
will ever live to see two sepf
kinmica. the(Cheers) \e'nfines
of the present United States o
if it were not Attho
same time I tell you candidly that
useless the at e been I
should—with tho parties upon whose views I berty cause
tempt to
commenting—regard as hopeless and.
If the
opinion renders_
subjugate the Southern States. It is the object and urpoee
'with which the war was begun that in my
(Cheers.)
success to the Secessionists impossible.
country had not
moral and intellectual population of this
they
would
been systematically misled upon that question Isre
were
have been unanimously of that opinion. (Cheers.)
a$ once the
told in the House of Commons by one who w
great champion of democracy and the rights and privileges
*
of the unsophisticated millions, that this civil war was
ori-
ginated because the South wished to establish
F travelled
principles, and the North would not allow it. I
in the United States in 1859, the year before the fatal shot
was fired at Fort Sumter, which has had such terrible re •
verberations ever since, I visited Washington during, the
session of Congress ; now I carry a flag, and wherever 1
go whenever I travel abroad, whether it be in France or
America, Austria or Russia, I at once become the centre
of all those who have strong convictions and purposes
in reference to Free-trade principles. (Hear.) Well, I
confess to you what I confessed to my friends when 1
retuned, that I was disappointed when at Washington in
1650, because there was so little interest felt on the
Free-trade question, there was no party formed, no public
agitation, the-re
wad
no discussion whatever upon the sub
jest of rtes-trade and Protection The political field was
wholly occupied by *
question, and that question was
slavery. telear.) 4 ;.'ne
will mention an illustrative fact which
I have not seen cited to my mind it is conclusive on this
subject. In December, 0, while Congress was sitting,
and when the country was -
the impending rupture, an agony of suspense, fearing
their body, comprising 33 Congressappointedmemterb. a committee of
shre for every State then in the Union.en being re then
the Committcelotf Thirty-three, sat from Decemberrum
11, 1860, to January.nto,
t1:61.
They were instructed by
Congress to inquiremeans be perilous state of the Union, and
try to devise some
rted. y
fshlthe catastrophe of a se-
cession could be aye Here
r9eport
ings of there are 4
of the proceed-
ings that committee ; pages, I have read
every line. The representatives of the Slave States were
invited by the representatives of the Free States t
what were the terms which they to
state
candidly and frankly
bontinue peaceable "
in the
d in order
quire that they might
on tee their proposition brought
Union, In every page y