The Sun.
London, England, 1865-04-03 00:00:00

DEATH OF MR. COBDEN.

Yesterday, about the time when Morning Service
was beginning in our churches, one of the most re-
markable men of our time was breathing his last,
and to-day there will be but one voice of lamenta-
tion for the loss of Richard Cobden. Not yet sunk
into the vale of years, though worn away by gradu-
ally increasing illness, this distinguished man has
passed from among us, if not in the full zenith of his
influence, at any rate in the full enjoyment of his
powers and without any warning of the approaching
termination of his career. A generation has arisen
which does not remember the old days of Protection,
or the momentous struggle which terminated in the
liberation of our commerce ; but while Mr. Cobden
was among us we scarcely felt how far these things
have drifted away from the region of contemporary
history. His fame, his success, his personal pre-
sence, were all so intimately connected with that
great struggle that it was hardly possible to see him
without going back for twenty years, and forgetting
the less brilliant period of his life by which that
struggle has been succeeded.
Richard Cobden was one of those men whom the
fertile soil of freedom never fails to cast up when-
ever there is a great deed to do, or a great reputa-
tion to make. In some respects he might appear at
first sight one who was not peculiarly well qualified
to conduct a great popular agitation. His man-
ners, at least in private life, were gentle and cour-
teous ; he habitually shunned all occasions of giving
offence, and, without deserting his opinions, took
no particular delight in supporting them. Nature had
given him tastes for both what is correct in design and
elegant in language, but his voice had neither flexibi-
lity nor power, and his manner and action were not such
as greatly to commend him to turbulent and mixed as-
semblies; he probably was more at home in the House
of Commons than in those large meetings over which
he exercised so great and so decisive an influence.
But though he was scantily endowed with the ex-
ternal gifts and graces of oratory, Mr. Cobden
had that within which amply compensated for
these trifling defects. His delivery was earnest and
impressive, his language was clear, vernacular, and
well chosen, his appeals to the reason of his hearers
weighty and well directed, his power of argument
singularly sustained, subtle, and elastic. He could
impress upon an uncultivated audience long and
subtle arguments on matters far removed from
ordinary experience, and by the united power of
language, vigour of thought, and homeliness of
illustration, could convince as well as persuade,
and win converts while he was overwhelming
adversaries. No man took up the ground he
meant to maintain with more caution ; no man
saw more clearly the weakness and difficulty
of his own position, or the assailable points o
his adversary. It was his habit to anticipate objec

tions, and to answer arguments before they had been
urged, and so to qualify and limit his position as to
leave as few vulnerable points as possible. His
English was clear, racy, and idiomatic, free from
common and vulgar expressions on the one side, or
from exaggerated or inflated periods on the other.
He was Nature herself ; but Nature straining and
bending all her powers to the attainment of a single
object, to the establishment of a single point. He
had a mastery over every part of the great Free
Trade controversy such as nobody else could pre-
tendto, and in the number of speeches which he made
on the•same subject he showed a boundless fertility
of illustration, and an inexhaustible ingenuity in
varying the arrangements and the form of his argu-
ments. Although not exempt from that inequality
which attends even the best public speakers, there
is no orator of the present day who was so sure to
bring out the facts, to adduce the arguments, and
to make the impression that he desired. Such a man
could not fail of great success, especially among the
hard heads and shrewd understandings of the

North. Year after year he laboured_ on in the
cause of Free Trade, and it might be difficult to
say what amount of progress he had made, when
suddenly the whole edifice of Protection crumbled
away before him, and he found himself victorious
in a struggle which many had considered as almost
without hope.

At that moment he occupied a position as proud,
perhaps, as has ever fallen to the lot of any English
subject who, by the mere exercise of energy and
talent, has raised himself above his fellow-citizens.

Just 70 years after the discoveries of Adam Smith
were made public the victory was obtained, and the

20 years of Mr. Cobden's life which have succeeded

;his glorious epoch have witnessed the verification

of his ideas and the gradual diffusion of his prin-
ciples. Mankind begin to see that Protection is the

sure cause of poverty to Governments, while Free

Trade is a mine of wealth that yields more the

more it is worked.

Mr. Cobden had also the merit

of first calling the attention of the country to

sound and judicious views with reference to the

colonies. He pointed out the absurdity of supposing
that these possessions conferred on the country an
advantage at all similar to that which would arise
from an increase of the population or territory from
which we draw our taxes, and the means of defend-
ing ourselves in foreign wars. Mr. Cobden was
several times invited to take a part in a Liberal
administration, but always refused to fetter his
liberty with the toils of office, even at periods when
it might reasonably have been supposed that the
possession of an official income would be a consider-
able object to him. The public has not been un-
mindful of the benefits it has received at the hands
of this great Reformer. Once and again it has come
forward to mark its sense of his services, and to take
care that one who has done so much to. make these

islands richer and happier should not have any

reason to repine in the midst of the abundance and
prosperity which have followed his exertions.
Mr. Cobden was not 61 years of age when he
died ; and at his years a statesmands in this country
still deemed young. When the story of his life comes
to be written, there are few ;things in biography
which will be more interesting than the account of
his rise from the home of a Sussex yeoman, and from
the position of a boy in a London warehouse, to a
place in the Senate, where he could- command his
audience and influence the destiny of nations. Born
in 1804 at Durnford, near Midhurst, he lost his
father early, and while still young found a post
in a wholesale warehouse in the city. In process
of time he became a traveller for this establish-
ment, and ultimately settled down with some
friends of his own standing as partners in a
cotton-printing business in Manchester. He
quickly threw himself into local politics, and
took an active part in /public life. In 1834 he
sought a change in travel. In that year he visited
Egypt, Greece, and Turkey ; in the following year
he went to America ; and the fruit of his travels
appeared in two well-known pamphlets, as well as
in references through many subsequent speeches to
the views which he had in these visits imbibed. In
the year 1837, when he was but 33 years of age, he
felt strong enough in his position to think of going
into Parliament, and he offered himself, though
without success, to the borough of Stockport. It
was in the year which followed that he commenced
that great agitation which outside the walls
of Parliament until 1841, and as member for Stock-
port afterwards, ended only in 1846 in the repeal of
the Corn Laws.

Were it our object to write an indiscriminating
panegyric on Mr. Cobden we should stop here, and
pass over in silence the part which he subsequently
took in public affairs, except indeed the negotiation
of the French Treaty. After the repeal of the Corn
Laws, however, Mr. Cobden distinguished himself
by a succession of speeches directed against our
foreign policy, by which he came to be con-
sidered as the advocate of what is called Peace
at any Price. We will not stop to examine
how far this criticism was just ; it is certain that
for a time, and especially during the days of the
Crimean and Chinese wars, these speeches were
a great drawback to his well-won popularity. He
also took great delight in foretelling events, and as
these events very seldom corresponded with his ex-
pectations, his reputation suffered somewhat by the
failure of his predictions. We have also remarked
that Mr. Cobden's later efforts have been marked by
a spirit of intolerance towards those who differed
from him and an impatience of contradiction which,
it is only fair to say, did not manifest themselves
to the same degree in his earlier days. Perhaps the
impatience arising from repeated attacks of illness
may be held to excuse these occasional flaws of
temper. We only mention them now with the view
to make our sketch complete, and not to pass over
anything which seems necessary to the comprehen-
sion of the man such as he really was. Our ownlot
has been for many years past to oppose those
schemes which Mr. Cobden has nearest at heart ;

but we do not the less recognise him as a great
benefactor to the country, nor regret the loss of a
man who, though not exempt from human failings,
was pure and disinterested as well as able, and who
has left behind him a name which, as Sir Robert
Peel in his celebrated eulogium said of himself, will
be ever remembered by his countrymen when " they
recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and
untaxed food, the sweeter because no longer lea-
vened by a sense of injustice."