The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-25 00:00:00

MR. COBD 'N M.P. ON MARITIME AND
INTERNATIONAL LAW:

MANCHESTER, FRIDAY.
Mr. Cobden this day addressed a crowded meeting in the
Mayor's parlour of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce,
specially convened for the purpose of considering the pre-
sent state of international and maritime law in reference to
the existing distress in the manufacturing districts.
Mr. COBDEN, on coming forward, was loudly cheered. He
spoke as follows :—We meet here, when great calamities
threaten this particular district, arising out of the operation
of the American commercial blockade, and to discuss the
remedy against such ills as we are now suffering from to
discuss the questions of maritime law and belligerent rights.
It is, indeed, deplorable that we are not roused to the great
errors committed in legislating until we are suffering under
the evils which they entail. (Hear, hear.) It would be well
if it were otherwise ; but it is useless to quarrel with the
constitution of men. We are not mere abstractions, and if
the effect of the visitation of calamities such as we are now
suffering undte ie i o lead us to devisee remedy against their
recurrence, perhaps it is as much as we have a right to ex-
pect from human wisdom or forethought. There are two
points of resemblance between the protective system and
the system of maritime international law which we are met
to consider. They both had their origin in barbarous and
ignorant ages. They are both so utterly unsuited to the
times in which we live that, if once touched in any part,
they crumble to pieces entirely under the hands of the re-
former, and it is on this account that we ought to be parti-
cularly thankful that on the Treaty of Paris in 1856 the
plenipotentiaries considered this question, and made a most
important change in the international maritime law as af-
fecting belligerents and neutrals. They decided that in fn •
ture neutz proferty at sea during the time of war should
be respectit7l when in an enemy's ship, and that an enemy's
property should be respected when under a neutral flag;
they also decided that privateering should be abolished.
These proposals, after being accepted by almost every coun-
try in Europe, with the exception, perhaps, of Spain, were
sent to America, with a request for the adhesion of the
American Government. The American Government gave in
their adhesion to that declaration which affirmed the rights
of neutrals, and said that they had been the first to proclaim
those rights ; they also stated that they preferred to carry
the declaration which exempted private property from
capture by privateers at sea a little further, and to declare
that private property should be exempted from capture at
sea either by privateers or by armed Government ships.
Whether that proposal respecting privateers had been made
to America or not, after the other changes had been made
affirming the rights and privileges of neutrals, it would
have been much to the interest of England to have followed
it out to the extent proposed by the American Government.
Europe, after the Congress, of Paris, affirmed the rights and
privileges of neutrals; and Englishmen, of all people in the
world, had an interest in proposing that they should ex•
tend that exemption so as to secure private property in ships
from capture by any armed ships. It has been said that
the American Government were not sincere in the proposal
which they made—that it was only a counter proposition
made for the purpose of evading the consideration of the
questions submitted to them, and that they only accepted
the two proposals in question in order to escape the accept-
ance of the whole. It is probably not generally known that
the very proposals which the American Government made
within the last five years were made by that Government
in their first treaty with this country after the declaration
of independence 80 years ago. They had their origin with
that great man Dr. Franklin, who carried into his diplo-
macy as well as into his philosophy a genial spirit of philan-
thropy. The question of exempting private property has
been dealt with in two addresses issuing from the Chamber
of Commerce of Liverpool ; and really those two addresses,
published about two years ago,practically exhaust the ques-
tion, and leave me nothing to say upon the subject. But,
gentlemen, I said that the whole system of maritime law,
w 'aen once touched, crumbles all to pieces ; and as you begin
to mend it by putting in one sound joint, you find that in
the process you derange another, which is also necessary to
be mended, It would be utterly absurd and incompatible
with common sense, to exempt a cargo of goods from capture
when it happens to be on the ocean, but to say that it shall
be captured when it gets within three miles of a port ; or to
say that a cargo shall be perfectly free to roam the ocean
when once out of harbour, but that you will capture it as
soon as ever it gets within three miles of land. Such a state
of things would be so absurd that if a treaty were formed
with any such proviso it would be utterly impracticable. You
have therefore in dealing with this question to consider what
I venture to say is a very much greater evil, that of a com-
mercial blockade. I say it is a much greater evil, for this
reason. The question of capturing private property at sea
is one that affects the belligerents ; it affects the party who
chooses to go to war, and it only affects necessarily the mer-
chants and shipowners of that country. But the question
of a commercial blockade is a very different and a much
larger question. It affects neutrals ; and not only does it
affect merchants and shipowners, but large manufacturing
populations, and it may involve the loss of life as well as
the loss of wealth, placing the whole social system in dis-
order. The question, therefore, of a commercial blockade is
a very much larger one than that of the exemption of pri-
vate property from capture at sea, but whether it is one that
England is more interested in than the other is another ques-
tion. The American Government, again, were the first to
perceive, after they had proposed to Europe to exempt pri-
vate property from capture at sea, that that question in-
volved the question of commercial blockade. It is no merit
at all on the part of America that they have always Leen
the first to see the question in the light in which it affects
neutrals. It is neither any merit to America, nor any proof
of its disinterestedness, and I do not mention it to their
praise any more than to their blame. The United States
have been the great neutral Power of the earth. They came
into existence and started into an immense commerce
while holding themselves quite aloof from European poli-
tics. They always laid it down as a maxim from the time
of Washington, that they would be outside the balance of
European power, and whenever anything occurred in
Europe it was their commerce that suffered. America,
therefore, naturally required what all nations would claim,
namely, that they should be permitted to follow out their
own legitimate and honest interests by pressing the rights
of neutrals in all negotiations on the subject of maritime
international law. It is a remarkable circumstance that
upon the breaking out of the war in Italy between France
lT subsequent
very
and Austria, the American Government sent to their re-
presentatives in Europe a long despatch on the subject of
international law, in which they for the first time broached
to the European Government in a practical form the idea of
i abolishinggha tt
of isa
altogether
remarkable
hifbtyhat hte
ev tehnet systems circumstance
becauseof t commercialher
there
sh ennodoubt
read blockades.
in 1859 the English Government, followed as they would
have been by the other Governments of Europe, had
accepted cordially and eagerly, as I think I can prove it
was our interest to have accepted, the proposal—or sugges-
tion I would rather call it—of the American Government—it
would have been possible to have avoided the whole of what
g inthis
;disbtereftietu,saendit thathas tbhaestaraddies,tisnoeftalyr
as cotton is concerned, might have been free between Liver-
poolino wahnad"enNeiwn Orleans
intimated to America that we do not recognise their muni-
cipal right in this matter, so that if they proclaimed that
Charlestown was not to be traded with, and did not keep any
ships there, we should go and trade with it just as we should
if there were no civil war at all. It is only upon the one
condition, that there should be an effective blockade main-
tained as between belligerents, that Europe recognises the
blockade at all. No doubt then, if the proposal which the
American Government made in 1859, had been accepted
and cordially received by England, it would have been at
once welcomed and accepted by the rest of Europe. And
that shows the extraordinary and sudden mutations to
which the human family are exposed ; for there is no
doubt that the American Government would have been
obliged to have carried on this war with the Southern
States without imposing a blockade upon commercial ports,
had their own propositions been accepted ; or if they had
done so in violation of their treaty engagements with
Europe, it would have involved them in hostilities with all
the rest of the world—a state of things upon which no
rational Government would have ever dreamt of entering.
(Hear, hear.) I mention this not to draw any inference
calculated to cast blame upon any one for the past, but I
wish to draw a very serious and solemn inference from it in
regard to the future. We are suffering from the operation
of this commercial blockade in a way which might be im-
possible for human ingenuity to match by any othercalamity
which you can conceive in the course of nature or in the
revolution, of man to have befallen this land. I cannot
conceive anything that could have inflicted on Lancashire
a calamity so unmanageable, so utterly beyond any power
y. or any possibility of guarding against, as that
boawo
of the
heetrinh.: remedy.
increasing
Youeeadar st
hhhw aaphvpie
which
happened
beenehd a with
trading
productsi
dtahr ri
ne
osg respect
that
toataowtr t
fibre6i tmoh i
ys
uiaaslerb.elgyoicooknu-
e, almost every year,
have been increasing in your investment of capital, you
eflaorrmsmw youreitr with
have been training skilled workmen, you have been prepar-
ing for the continued manufacture and manipulation of that
material; have been placing your dependence upon it for
50 or 60 years, and then, as if a portcullis had been let down
at the entrance of a castle, this stream of 50 or 60 years'
continual increase is shut off, and you are deprived of those
means for the employment and subsistence of the people.
Nothing else could have produced this extraordinary and
calamitous state of things, which nobody ever looked for or
seem to have expected. There have been at various times
apprehensions expressed with reference to the danger of tak-
ing cotton supply from
the whole of our ono particular coun-
try. We have speculated, also, upon the probability of a
negro insurrection, which might destroy that social system
on which, we have sometimes regretted, this vast industry
is based, but if you reflect for a moment upon these two