The Sun.
London, England, 1856-12-19 00:00:00

MR. COBDEN ON MARITIME LAW.

A third letter on maritime law has been written
by Mr. Cobden and forwarded to the Secretary of
the " Sheffield Foreign Affairs Committee :"
" Glyn Garth, near Bangor, Dec. 15.

" Sir,—Your letter, with the accompanying com-
ments of the Sheffield Foreign Affairs Committee' on
my letter to the President of the Manchester Chamber
of Commerce riepectii:g the proposed change in our
maritime law, has reached me here. I have already,
in reply to a communication from Bradford, briefly ex-
plained the error into which you have both fallen in
assuming that the abandonment of our ancient bellige-
rent rights was a voluntary act on our peat in favour of
Russia. I have shown that it was the attitude assumed
by the United States which led to the change. It will
not, I hope, be deemed disrespectful if I reier you to
that letter, or if I add, for the information of your
committee and others who have honoured me with their
communications, that I must decline until the meeting
of Parliament any further discussion of the subject.
" I will only offer a remark or two upon the dangers
which your committee think the proposed changes
threaten to our maritime supremacy.' If by supre-
macy' be meant the exclusive power to give laws to the
world in maritime affairs, let the word be abolished from
your vocabulary, tor the day is for ever gone when any
one nation can rule the waves' with an arbitrary
sceptre. I am reminded of the words of Nelson, that
England would spend her last guinea and sacrifice Ler
last man and last ship befere she would yield this su•
premacy; But since his day a people have grown up
beyond the Atlantic who lay claim to equal rights (and
the proposed changes ask no more) with ourselves on
the ocean. Our children will witness the creation of yet
another powerful empire iu the Pacific, which will de-
mand also to be heard in matters in which its rights and
interests are involved.
"We should indeed deserve the title of the Chinese
of the West,' if our maxims of State policy could not
be made to expand to the dimensions requisite to meet
these new conditions of the world's progress. Far
from agreeing with your committee that such an
altered state of things portends danger to Eng-
land, I believe that she will find both security and
economy in the substitution of just international laws,
having the willing assent of all nations, for that tran-
sient ascendancy which depends upon the costly dis-
play of the superior physical force. Be assured that the
people of this country have nothing to gain from assert-
, ing a supremacy over any other people. The ambition
of individuals may, indeed, be gratified by the subjection
of other communities to our will ; but itis for the in-
terest of the population of this and every other country
that their international relations should be founded on
principles of moral right and equal justice to all, totally
irrespective of their material strength ; and it is because
I see in the American'proposal, and in the proceedings
which led to it a tendency in this direction that they
have my approval and support.
"lam, Sir, your obedient servant,
" RICHARD COBDEN,
Mr. F, Carr, Secretary, &c."