The Sun.
London, England, 1853-02-14 00:00:00

THE "UNADORNED ELOQUENCE."

(From the Weekly Dispatch.)
It is now some 14 years since we first knew Richard
Cobden. He was in his counting-house in Mosely-street,
Manchester, selling his 40,000 pieces of calico prints
a slight,
somewhat intlsi perlt
week—" a prosperous gentleman." He
somewhat juvenescent, appearance, and did not_ strike the
beholder with any impression save that of plain good
sense, and that " concentrativeness," as the phrenologists
call it, which rivets the whole thoughts and feelings
on
the subject in hand. Few men have altered more in ex-
pression and bearing. The discovery to himself _of
away
the
powers, and their effect upon the world, have cleared
the youthful look, and given a certain firm self-possessed
air to the man which we think would impress all men with
the sense of being in the presence of a notability, and which
makes you feel that no opinion is lightly formed or idly
_
garnered by him. We think we know him thoroughly.
We recollect how frequently ho was urged to enter Parlia-
ment, and how decidedly he opposed the pressing instance
of his friends. His reason was this—he said he had seen
so many earnest, sincere, highminded men oilier the
House of Commons with the most exalted resolves and the
most intrepid purposes, all sunk under the corruption or the
insidious blandishments by which they were surrounded,
that he could not hope to escape the contagion of the
atmosphere, and would not, therefore, tempt his fate.
We have, however, seen the civil Curtius leap into the
gulf, and all must confess that he has proved that his
diffidence was misplaced. No man who has risen so
high has remained more pure. Few who have been so
lavishly tempted, and so often tried, have stood so well the
various tests of the blandishments of corruption. He has
grown less temporizing as he has grown older. The further
he goes the more progessive he becomes. The more he
mingles among, and wields the power of politics, the more
uncompromising and the less practicable" (to use the
whipper-in phrase) does he show himself. Commanding
great influence in public opinion ; he never hesitates to
defy it at the call of duty. Although his whole strength
lies in his popularity, to his eternal honour be it said, he
never follows merely where the democratic spirit indicates
an inclination to be led, but always endeavours to frame
the tendencies of the general mind towards his own honest
convictions of truth and right. No man has with more ge-
nerous abandonment thrown away a reputation for saga-
city, that he might vindicate a great principle to his con-
science. No man regarded as pre-eminent for a thrifty
shrewdness has so scorned the applauses of the worldy and
braved the ridicule of the politician, by apparent extrava-
gance and fanaitcism, whenever a great cause seemed to
stand for a nation's hearin. With faculties and powers
quite equal to " wield the fierce Democratie," and com-
manding not only. popular ascendency, but perhaps
Parliamentary majorities, he has, with his eyes open,
narrowed the numbers of the " Manchester school," by
what are called his " extreme opinions," and turned
away millions of quondam admirers and followers
with the 'conviction that he is an impracticable fa-
natic. It surprises ourselves to hear numbers of his
former most enthusiastic followers inveighing against
him as having taken leave of his statesmanship and com-
mon sense. Well, for all this, we admire the man the
more. A demagogue follows, does not lead the masses,
He flatters their follies and prejudices, while Cobden defies
and attacks both at the mandates of his convictions.
He transfers the great spirit of Christianity from
the pulpit to the platform, and insists upon quadrat-
ing politics by the measure of the Gospel. Nothing so
enterprising, so daring, was ever undertaken by a mind es-
sentially practical and sagacious as this Peace Movement.
One shakes oneself and rubs one's eyes to know if they have
dreamt or are awake while they learn that large masses of
middle-class Englishmen entertain the hope, in this day and
generation, of making war ridiculous throughout Europe,
and of converting public opinion everywhere to the wisdom
and incumbency of general disarmament. Already have the
apostles of the new religion been received with deference,
almost ceremonious reverence, by many of the Courts of
Europe • and even their proffered mediation has been re-
spectfully considered by diplomatists. Great is truth, and
it will prevail. If anything is to le accomplished, it must
first of all be begun. It is a startling fact that four mil-
lions of the finest men Ein'Europe are idle, unproductive
cumberers of the ground, by vice of the jealousies
and bad passions of human nature, costing at least
80,000,0001. yearly to support, and losing to society not
less than 80,000,0001. worth of productive labour. Who
will tell us that these startling facts will not sink.into the
minds of over-taxed and oppressed subjects;. and that the
insane folly of cultivating the art of human destruction
and social mischief will not, sooner than we know, burst
upon the convictions of mankind, linked • together by rail-
road, steam-beat, commerce, and mutual profitable inter-
course, in all its hideous deformity? If Mr. Cobden would
become Peter the Hermit for this peace movement, he
would, we are sure, meet with universal encourgement.
But nothing is so dangerous as for men to become prac-
tical in fanaticism. Mr. Cobden has certain defects of
education, of which it would be wholesome for his mind
to be cleared. He happens to have a . contempt for what-
ever he does not know. He cannot be brought to be-
lieve that anything is worth having that he does not
possess. He has been heard to ridicule classical acquire-
ments, of which he knew nothing, and merely because
he really did not know in what their spirit or use con-
sisted. He has often shown his contempt for the study
of metaphysics, when he has made the judicious grieve
that he did not know something more of them. A little of

that subtilty of thought whichexercitation in that science
imparts would have prevented him from perpetrating
many somewhat jejune blunders. His thoughts on military
glory are really excessively puerile. We do not hesitate to
say that the grandest qualities of our moral nature are.
brought out in war, in a way in which they can be de-
veloped under no other circumstances, and that alto-
gether irrespective of the cause of quarrel. The absurd
theory of Mr. Cobden is, that because great qualities are
exhibited in war, of which, on principle, he disapproves,
they are, therefore, not great. According to him, courage,
constancy, self-denial, incorruptibility, serenity in mis-
fortune, collected hopelessness in disaster, moderation, hu-
manity, honesty in victory, unshaken fidelity to those who
trust and depend on you, vast administrative powers,
almost prescient providence, infinite fertility of resources,
and godlike presence of mind—these are not grand qualities
if they are used in war. Then, forsooth, we are assured
that it is the cause in which qualities are exercised which
determines their quality. Every day, as Mr. Cobden enters
the House of Commons, he passes between the statues of
Hampden and Falkland. Those men fought on opposite
sides ; but for the life of us we cannot say which was the
greater Englishman, or the truer-hearted patriot. Was
not Washington's glory of the military sort? Or, to make
the very most of it, was his greatness founded on any other
qualities than just on those for which Mr. Cobden seeks to
depreciate the Duke of Wellington—hopefulness and con-
stancy in disaster—faithfulness to those from whom he de-
rived his power—self-denial—disdain of creature comforts—
an exalted sense of duty as the first and greatest of obliga-
tions ? The cause of the French Republicans was just—
but their instruments, their chiefs, their acts were exe-
crable and infamous. The cause of the Pretender was
bad, yet who can read the history of our rebellions,
and consider the lavish heroism, the unshaken fidelity,
the spotless honour, the high-souled devotion, and un-
hesitating self-sacrifice which marked many of the fol-
lowers of that forlorn cause, without thinking better of
human nature, and feeling more proud that they belong to
the same species? We demur to the proposition that it is
the cause which sanctifies the deed, or damns it. The
judge who declares for the law he is sworn to administer, in
spite of the consequences, either in the way of inflicting
practical injustice, or in relieving palpable wrong, displays
all the more magnanimity that he sacrifices his sense of
justice to the call of duty. The servant of the State is not
to be its master. • Individuals are not to be self-constituted
judges either of the prudence or principle of that which is
resolved upon by the great body of society, through the
legitimate organs of Government. The responsibility for
that resolution is not with the individual, but with the
aggregate of the body politic. What a subject has to do is
to perform with singleness of heart and faithful self-denial
the duty prescribed to him by society and by circum-
stances. We cannot conceive how Mr. Cobden should
show such a narrow spirit in handling the military
profession. Why, now, a lawyer is waging constant war with
society—every litigant has declared war—policemen are
engaged in an endless campaign with the army of crime.
The strife collected into the one focus of armies of the line
is as nothing to that which is diffused in individual mischief-
mongers, over the surface of domestic civil society. Nay,
it is, perhaps, not quite so certain that war itself is not as
it were an outlet, invented by the instincts of human pas-
sion, for rancours and malice, which, festering in the heart
of States, in the piping times of peace, may be productive
of a far greater aggregate of misery than overflowed from
the " plumed troop and the big war that make ambition
virtue." To uproot the war spirit is far more efficacious
than to put down its mere instrumentalities. It is a mis-
take to conceive that we pluck antipathy ftom the heart
by merely taking off the breastplate, or putting aside great
" ordnance in the field." Until we make mankind "love
one another," it is in vain that we call them to turn their
swords into ploughshares. We think Mr. Cobden's agita-
tion a clumsy way of propagating peace. It is but an at-
tack on symptoms, driving the disease, perhaps, to another
vent less natural, and, therefore, more dangerous. We cannot
for the life of us see why he should fasten upon bayonets and
muskets, while law rages in every street, and litigation in
every county. Why should a man of his good sense presume
to form a House of Commons clique of crocheteers, against
the convictions of the great body of the nation, to turn out
every Ministry who, in strict obedience to the collective
national will, and to their own sense of responsibility for
the safety of the State, seek to strengthen our defences and
fortify our bulwarks? There can be nothing more Irish
and less Cobden than such a folly of faction • and we
dear
earneto the best entreatorder him,
of for
his his own reputation, deservedly head of all countrymen, to "clear his
such nonsense."