The Sun.
London, England, 1862-04-26 00:00:00

3IR. COBDEN, 111. P., AND THE LIVER-
POOL FINANCIAL REFORM ASSOCIATION.

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At the annual meeting on Thursday evening Mr.
J. R. Jeffery read the following letter, which had
been received from Mr. Cobden, M.P. :

" TO ROBERTSON GLADSTONE, ESQ.

" Midhurst, April 21.

"My dear Sir,—l am sorry that lam unable to
accept your invitation to be present at the approach-
ing meeting of your Financial Reform Association,
but I write to assure you of my unabated interest
in its objects. Those objects I understand to be to
advocate the substitution, as far as possible and as
fast as practicable, of direct for indirect taxation,
and to promote economy in the Government expen-
ture.

" I congratulate you on the progress that has
been made in diminishing the number of Customs
and Excise duties. To the labours of your body
since the dissolution of the League we have been
mainly indebted for keeping alive public attention
to the importance of removing those Customs
duties which were not levied for purposes of pro-
tection ; and the favourable contrast which the pre-
sent state of our tariff presents when compared with
that of 1847, is a fair measure of the trial of your
•
principles.
" I am sorry that I can offer you no congratula-

tions on the progress of economy in the Govern-
ment expenditure. On the contrary, the very pro-
sperity which has been produced by the removal of
the fetters from our commerce has been made sub-
servient to an unparalleled Government extrava-
gance; and thus, in a certain sense, the Freetraders
may be held responsible for, this waste of national
wealth.

" We have now been overtaken by one of those
reverses in our national fortunes when atten-
tion will be attracted to the Government ex-
penditure. I have passed through such a period
before, and experience has taught me that if our
efforts be merely directed to an arithmetical reduc-
tion of the estimates, though we may succeed under
the pressure of adversity, they will grow up again
when that motive for retrenchment is removed.

"To produce any lasting results we must go
deeper, and reform the policy which furnishes the
pleas for this constantly increasing expenditure.
For instance, we must bring onr colonial relations
into harmony with a free trade policy. We have,
as a people, effected one of the greatest revolutions
in the world's history in the abandonment of all
those advantages which for centuries we were sup-
posed to enjoy in the monopoly of the commerce of
the colonies, and yet our Government is clinging to
the maxims which regulated its relations with the
colonies in 1762. Again, we must enforce on our
Government the attempt, at least, to place us on
such a footing with our nearest neighbour as to be
relieved from a costly rivalry of armaments in time
of peace. And last, though not least, we must in-
sist on a revision of international law, with a view
of rendering it simple and intelligible, so that we
shall not be brought to the verge of war, and sub-
jected to the actual loss of millions, because a sea
loaptain in some remote latitude falls into the very
natural error of misinterpreting Phillimore or
Wheaton.

" These questions will now command a hearing

for which they would have probably pleaded in vain
a year or two ago. If it be true that no important
reforms are made in this country but through the
process of great national calamities, your associa-
tion at least is entitled to our gratitude for having
stood sentinel and raised the warning cry during a
long period of what I fear must be called a too con-
fident and careless prosperity. This will not, I
trust, be forgotten in the measure of confidence
which the public will in future award to you.—l
remain, very truly yours, " It. COBDEN.°