The Sun.
London, England, 1859-12-02 00:00:00

la. BRIGHT AT LIVERPOOL.

LIVERPOOL, THURSDAY NIGHT.

The Liverpool Financial Reform Association held a soiree
in the Philharmonic Hall this evening. The spacious hall,
capable of accommodating 3,100 or 4,000 persons, was filled
in every part. Messrs. Cobden and Bright had both been
invited to attend, in order to express their views upon the
&est means of advancing the objects of the association, but,
as will be teen from the subjoined letter, Mr. Cobden was
prevented by illness from being present on the occasion.
On the platform were Mr. J. Bright, M.P., Mr. J. C.
Swart, M.P., Mr. Pollard-Urquhart, Mr. Pillting-
ton, M.P., Mr. George Hadfield,.M.P. Mr. Bright was
received on his arrival with loud cheers. The chair was
occupied by Mi. Charles Robertson, in the absence from
severe indisposition of Mr. Robertson Gladstone, tho pre-
sident of the association.

Letters of apology for unavoidable absence were received
from Mr. Cobden (on account of indisposition), and the
following other members of Parliament :—Lord Fermoy,
Mr. S. Laing, Colonel Sykes, Mr. Caird, Mr. W. J.. Fox,
Mr. J. L. Ricardo, Mr. Ayrton, Mr. Scholefield, Mr. Ker-
shaw, Mr. Alcock, Mr. Salt, and Mr. W. Ewart. A com-
munication to the same effect was received from the Earl of
Sefton, Lord-Lieutenant of the county, who stated that he
wished every success to the object of the meeting.
Mr. Cobden's letter, which was addressed to Mr. Robert.
eon. Gladstone, President of the Liverpool Financial Re-
form Association, was as follows :

" Paris, Nov. 28.
"My dear Sir,—For the last 10 days I have been con-
-fined to my bedroom by severe indisposition, originating in
a cold and cough, followed by fever, which has left me in a
state of considerable debility. My medical attendant, who
promises me, with care and caution, a speedy recovery,
warns me that to undertake a journey to Liverpool to ad-
dress a large public meeting would, in the present state of
my lungs, be almost an act of suicide. I need not assure
you how deeply I regret to be unable to fulfil my long-
standing promise to be with you on the Ist. Ido not,
however, ask you to release me from my engagement, but
only to allow me to postpone its fulfilment to a future and
I hope early opportunity.
" There never was a moment when I felt greater interest
than at • present in the realisation of your society's pro;.
gramme for substituting direct for indirect taxation. If I
required an illustration of the importance of your principle,
which ,implies the removal of Custom-house impediments
between nations; I should find it in. ihe present relations of
England and France.
" What means this periodiCal visitation, which, like the
cholera or some other infectious disease, has, every two or
three years since 1547, caused the panic cry of a French in-
vasion to overspread England, and which at the present
moment is heard again in tones as loud and menacing ,as
ever? Here am I, With all my children, in the very jaws
of the imaginary monster which has been conjured up to
terrify my good countrymen, and yet I feel no less safe from
attack or injury of any kind, so long as I refrain from mo-
lesting or wronging others, than it• I were residing. in Lon-
don or Liverpool. Whence springs the idea of danger which
pervades the public mind at home ? I attribute it mainly to
the want of -intercommunication, and the consequent igno-
rance and prejudice which prevail respecting the character
and designs of our nearest continental neighbour.
"Here are two of the greatest nations, separated only by
the narrowest strip of ocean, with their distinct and proud
annals, their rival traditions, their differences in race, la-a-
guage, and religion, all tending to prodxce alienation ; but
nature, which always works by laws of compensation, has
endowed the two countries with a variety of productions,
and imparted to the population an instinctive desire to sup-
ply each others wants and deficiencies, which, had nature's
laws been allowed their free action, would have brought the
two nations into such constant contact and communication,
and laid them under such mutual dependence, as would
have subdued the merely latent causes of antagonism, and
rendered impossible the present state of hostility and alarm.
But, down almost to the present day, the Governments of
the two countries have devoted their energies to the task of
preventing,ias far as possible, any commercial intercourse
between them. The baneful consequences are naturally such
as we behold,. Let us hope that legislators will awaken to a
sensr: of the responsibility which attaches to those who thus
array themselves against the obvious laws of the Creator•.
" Meanwhile, your society will, I hope, persevere in its
useful labours, and continue to draw around you the sym-
pathy and co-operation of good men. You are not a political
organisation; your functions are those of an edricator, and
your objeatiis to prepare the public mind for the future ac-
tion of the statesman. The day for the full realisation of
your views- may still be remote, but, step by step, we every
year approach nearer to the desired goal. You have only
to persevere in the advocacy of your huniane, just, and
peaceful principles, and God will assuredly, in his own
good time, crown your labours with success.
" Believe me, yours very truly,
"RICHARD COBDEN."
Mier some introductory remarks by the Chairman, the
fallowing address to Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright, and General
Tb ompson. was read to the meeting
" Gentlemen,—We, the council and friends of the Finan-
cial Reform Association, assembled this evening, while ten-
dering to you a warm welcome to Liverpool, tak the oppor-
tunity of recording our sincere and grateful ack-nowledg-
meats for the numerous and important services rendered by
each of you during past years to the cause of public liberty
and good government. Especially do we thank you for the
energy, perseverance, and abilityso disinterestedly displayed
in obtaining for the people of the United Kingdom an un.
restricted trade in the great staple article of human food.
Livingin one of the chief centres of foreign commerce, we
have had every opportunity kr observing the operation of
Sir R. Peel's free trade measures, and we are doing only
the barest justice to those who toiled so long and so ear-
nestly to force that policy on a reluctant Government and
Parliament in thus recording our conviction that the bene-
ficial effects of these measures have in every respect exceeded
the expectations held out by their promoters, and that to
them, under Previdence, are we mainly indebted for the in-
ternal peace, good order, general improvement, and compa-
rative prosperity by which these islands have ever since
been honourably distinguished, even while engaged in fo-
reign wars, and when society in neighbouring countries
was shaken to its centre by rovolutioaary movements. But
now the/ the system to. called of protection has been for-
mally renounded by the Government and the Legislature,
why, it • inisy be asked, are so. many protective duties still
allowed to remain on our tariff, inflicting, as they admittedly
do, grievous injury on the public, and exposing us, as a
nation, to the well-merited reproach of professing the
strongest faith in the great principles of free trade, while,
practically,• we are guilty of gross inconsistency or dis-
honesty in not carrying them out to their legitimate con•
elusion ? In this unworthy position are we, and must re-
main until the protective duties on timber, wine, spirits,
butter,; eb.essse, and numerous manufactured articles are
swept away. The mission of the Anti-Corn Law League
is still unful filled.

" In'onr judgment, the time has now arrived when the
Free Trade weatioa must receive a wider application than
has hitliiirto _been accorded .to it. While fully admitting
that duties for Protection are worse in principle, and usually
More hijasions ia practice, than those levied.merely for re-
veinae, we yet believe that in their effects on the foreign
trade of the country they are, in many respects, identical.
Invented in times snore or less barbarous, when the benefits
of crunaterce were but little appreciated, they exist alike in
defiance of common justice, common sense, and sound eco-
homicalscience, Equally an obstruction to the free ex-
change of commodities, they both operate to . restrict pro-
duction, to diminish consumption, to limit the arca for the
profitable pyiployment of capital and labour, and to deprive
the workman of his natural right to exchange the produce
of his Ir,hani• where he pleasps. And while it may be per-
haps, dial hit to award to each its dos share in this heavy
catalognanf wrongs inflicted on trade and industry, it may
be safely affirmed that Customs and Excise duties have this
particular aggravation of evil, that they do in effect shift
the burden of taxation from property to industry, and com-
mit the double injustice of placing obstacles is the way of
trade, byaahich the demand for, and the wage of, labour
are dintinfshod. and at the same time of imposing on the
labour thus restricted the obligation •to pay debts incurred
and to support estliblishments existing chiefly for the pro-
tecron of pron:rty.
" They appear to us, therefore, unworthy of -retention in
any civilisttafaoininunity, and least of all among a people
boastingeof their liberty, whose wealth and greatness have
sprung, from, and are maintained by, manufactures and
trade. We cannot understand the freedom of him whe is
forbidden to labour, and to exchange the produce of his
industry in the world's market, at his own pleasure or con--
venienee; or the Willey of limiting the production and sale
of so many most important articles, by artificially increasing
their price; unless the object be to prevent trade from grow-
ing too. great,land too valuable, and the community too pros-
perous and powerful. If the relaxation or removal of some
shackles from the limbs of industry has been found so uni-
versally beneficial—and chiefly, be it observed, by those who
dreaded it-most—what incalculable blessings may not be
expected to flow from striking off those which remain ?
What limit shall we set to the progress of civilisation, ma-
terial prosperity, morality, and peace, when commerce shall
go forth among the nations to assuage the woes of poverty,
to give scope fir the spread of instruction, and, like a disen- •
• thrilled Hercules, to direct the purifying currents of health-
ful and well-requited labour through the foul haunts of
wretchedness, filth, and sin? We agree with Mr. John
Stuart Mill, in-the opinion that a Commerce first taught na-
tions no sec with goodwill the wealth-and prosperity of one
another.. ,Before, the patriot, unless sufficiently advanced
in culture to feel the world his country, wished all countries
weak, peril-, and ill-governed but his own • he now sees in
their wealth and progress a direct source of wealth and pro-
tress tai his own country. It is commerce which is rapidly
rendering; war obsolete, by strengthening .and multiplying
the persinaal interests which are in natural oppositionto it.
And it may be said without exaggeration that the great ex-
tent and rapid increase a internional trade, in being the
principi&guarantee of the peace of the world, is the great
permanefit security for the uninterrupted progress of the
ideas, the institutions, and the character of the human race.'
"We contend that it is not only most desirable, but per-
fectly practicable, whenever public opinion is matured, to
abolish the present cumbrous, costly, and barbarous sys-
tem of taxation.. Many things apparently4far more difficult,
and respecting which men's passions and prejudices were
much more violently excited, have been in our time happily.
accompliehed ; and we firmly believe that there are no diffi-
culties in the way of this great change which may not be
overemue by ordinary courage and resolution. We have the
fullest confidence that by the repeal of all taxes on industry,
awl the sithatitution era cyst eni of direct taxation levied in
some reasonably fair proportion to the means and property of
the taxpayers, every clue Of the community; and chiefly the
wealthy, would be largely and speedily benefited, while the
pressure.Of the nablic-burdens would be reduced in three
several ways :---1, by increasing vastly and indefinitely the
;avails fts liay theta through unlimited frdedotu of trade ; 2,.
by saving to the community the enormous Cost of the whole,
sale and retail profits en the duties, and the, great expense
of the tilx.eise and Customs establishments; i, by inducing
econom
expanolittlre, and making the House of Com-
mons again
in reality what they have long ceased to be,
save in wiries stewards ,of the public purse.
a we halt your presence here to-night, gentlemen, as an
assurance Mat, fri greanquestion shall- at length- receive due
We assume that you agree
"nsidernti" "n 1 (lic."si(i"ls. A ..e.ift Metal ment free
-with thinking
trade has proved taltih-aLiat not fitting that the
'indefinitely poste
the. enterprise sltol:iil be
C:ll‘.,:strimic'ef:.alispsictorf
paned, nal •nothing be clone,
the
£xcheod7r,'ln Sl•eteotyPecl pliraseelos t
L' the
money,' .ara, atilt, on the contrary,you air of opution that
the resuliai ef one recent ex peiserce combine pith the de-
ductiona4 political economy in de inenaarat in g. timt the surest
and speediest means ef increasing the revenue is
In, by remoV-
• a everniimpedinient from the peefset freedom of ins
ne•
dustry
and exclaiinges and that he alone is de,er.ie of thaname
•of statearrian who; disregarding the antiquated baclittons of
office, is prepared - boldly to ailvanee Mahe path marked ont •
by the sitecesafiel policy of theslast 17 years, and to provide
for the requirements of the public service by taxing, notthe 1