The Sun.
London, England, 1861-06-27 00:00:00

PRICE 41). STAMPED, 51)

MR. COBDEN Al' ROCHDALE.

ROCHDALE, WEDNESDAY NIGHT.
This evening Mr. Cobden, M.P., addressed his
constituents in the large room of the new mill of
Messrs. Kelsall and Kemp, situate in Baillie-street.
The hon. gentleman was accompanied by Mr. G.
Wilson and some other gentlemen from Manches-
ter. On entering the carriage of the mayor at
Rochdale station the crowd collected there attempted
to take the horses out, that men might draw the
carriage, and they only refrained from carrying
their intention into effect at the urgent request of
Mr. Cobden himself. Over the meeting Mr. J. H.
Moore, the mayor, presided; and on the platform
were Mr. Cobden, Mr. Bright, M.P., Mr. Bazley,
M.P., Messrs. George Wilson, Henry Ashworth,
J. Platt, the French Consul at Manchester, &c.
The room was densely crowded. About 4,000 people
were present. Mr. Cobden and those who accom-
panied him were loudly cheered on entering the
room, the cheering being again and again repeated.
The CHAIRMAN briefly introduced Mr. Cobden to
the meeting.

Mr. COBDEN'S rising was the signal for loud
cheering. After it had Subsided, the hon. gentle-
men, after a few preliminary observations, said he
had no account of his labours in Parliament to give
them, as for the last eighteen months he had, while
honoured with the confidence of his Sovereign and
country, been seeking to form arrangements which
would unite the countries of France and England
in bonds of unity and peace. The French had not
taken any steps until jusf now to liberate commerce,
but it had only taken that Government two years to
do that which took us thirty. Everything had been
done in that country which could be done under the
circumstances, but still much remained to be done,
and that he believed would be done shortly. The
French were the most democratic nation under the
sun, and whilst they were constantly producing
things for the rich, aristocratic England was nearly
on the other hand entirely engaged in producing
articles for the consumption of the masses. He,
therefore, urged that the treaty would be reciprocal.
The people of England during the existence of the
corn laws ate annually six million quarters of corn
less than after the cora laws were abrogated. lust
so would it be with the ill-clad people of France ;
they would, by means of this treaty, be better
clothed. He looked upon this treaty with France as
the final stone of the pillar of free trade. The
honour was not due by him, but to the present Go.
vernment and their great Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer. (Applause.) He then went on to speak of
the advantages of drinking French wines instead of
port and sherry, and said that since the treaty had
been made a friend of his had looked over the drink-
ing songs of England, and he found that in a past
ago they were nearly all in honour of French
wines, but the drinking songs were now no longer
so. His friend accounted for it in this way, that
when the people drank the French wines they be-
,
came merry, while when they drank port and sherry
instead they grew stupid and went to sleep.
(Laughter and applause.) He was not so sanguine
as to the effect of this treaty as to suppose that• a
great trade would spring up at once, but he was
sure that our social and political relations with that
country would, and must be firmer and more trust-
worthy. He repudiated the idea that France was
contemplating an attack upon England, and they
ought to pause before they believed the assertions
of not over-wise admirals on the subject. He was
glad to say that Rochdale was the only town in
England that in public meeting assembled had
refused to establish a volunteer corps. He was in
France at the time, and he believed from what he
there saw that the people of Rochdale were quite
right. He had been led to form this opinion from
what he personally knew of the feeling of France
towards Enghind. (Applause.) He firmly believed
when the volunteer rage was going on in England
as now, that the French nation never contemplated
invading this country. As to the naval armaments
of the two nations, he made an estimate that
spring, and including the ten years preceding 1858
this country had, despite all the outcry of the people
of England as to the navy of France, spent half
as much more than that country did. There had
always been a sort of tacit understanding between
the two countries that England should have a navy
about double that of France. The fact was, that
while England had spent on her navy half as much
again as France, she had had an advantage over that
country of 20 per cent. She could build her engines
at 30 per cent. less, while her coals and stores each
cost her 20 per cent. less. What was the reason of
all this expenditure, then ? Why it was through
the invasion panic and the admirable mismanage-
ment of the Admiralty. His friend Lord C. Paget,
when speaking in Parliament in the spring of 1859
on the mismanagement of the Admiralty (Lord C.
Paget being then out of office, they must remember),
stated that he had gone very carefully through the
expenditure of the Admiralty during the preceding
ten years, and he had discovered that £5,000,000
sterling had been spent in that period on ships of
war which were unaccounted for. Now neither he
nor Lord C. Paget meant to say that the Admiralty
had absolutely pocketed the money—they were too
honest to do such a thing as that—but that they
were unable to keep clear accounts, and had spent
that sum in making things which were positively
useless. In 1850 it was seen that the application
of steam to ships of war was necessary, and that
such ships would supersede all the old sailing
line-of-battle ships. Well, what did France
do ? Why, she at once began to apply steam to
the new vessels she was building, and the old she
had built, but this example was only in part fol-
lowed by England. She knew as well as France
the advantage of applying steam to her ships, but
our Admiralty still continued to build sailing vessels
after the plan of old, and thus money was foolishly
and uselessly wasted. Hie then came to speak of
five years later, which included the Crimean war.
A few vessels had then been covered with iron
plates, and the French Government seeing the ad-
vantage of them built two iron•cased ships, one of
which was called La Gloire, but our Admiralty
asitnceenhad constantly been amusing themselves
Shoeburyness by getting Mr. Whitworth and Sir
Wm. Armstrong to make cannon which would send
shot through iron•plated ships. The people out of
doors only could correct this state of things. The
idea which had been palmed off upon the public,
that the French were building vessels to invade this
country, was ridiculous, and he ventured, upon his
conscience, to assert that no greater delusion than
that had been palmed upon a people since the days
of Titus Oates. Mr. Cobden then alluded to the
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the French were to invade England, what he would
charge them for his corn, replied that it would only
be bought at the price of their blood. He did not
believe—and he had as good an opportunity of
judging as any man—that the French nation ever
contemplated invading this country. If he had
ever believed it—if he had seen that France was
creating a navy equal to ours—he should have been
a traitor to his Queen and country if he had not
denounced it with all his might.
without Before France
should have a navy equal to ours, t reasons
it
for having such, which she had not now, he would
vote 100 millions sterling for the defence of our
country. After giving the statistics of the men
and boys in each navy, and other facts con-
nected therewith, the honourable gentleman went
on to speak of what he called the most lament-
able, the most deplorable civil strife which was

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