only cause left to him was "high rent," as he did not recognise the contraction of the currency or its improper state, for the markets had once more assumed a vigorous tone, and the export trade of the country still continued to increase. The revival of trade began in 1841, and Cobden expressed a wish in 1843 that the ensuing prosperity might be real, and not fictitious. He admitted the revival, but qualified it as being partial. He wished he could say it was general. The cause, however, of this partial revival resided, according to him, in the low price of wheat. But how can it be possible that any very serious amount of distress could be prevalent when the export trade of the country was in the ascendant? How, too, could high rents be responsible for all the distress of the nation, when by far the larger part of that distress was removed without rents undergoing any change? Still there was distress. That is undoubted. But it was a peculiar distress, arising from the contraction of the currency. Cobden did not observe this; but attributed the hardships which the poor continued to suffer, but in less degree, to a false He ascribed them to the grinding tyranny of the rich. Under these circumstances, had Cobden been aware of the paralysis of enterprise, and the diminished exchange which a contracted currency inevitably creates, would he have considered that small residuum of distress which remained after all the rest had been accounted for, a sufficient basis on which to continue his agitation? In reality, this it was which supported him in his subsequent career, up to the time when he succeeded at last in convincing, as it is supposed he convinced, Sir Robert Peel of the paramount necessity

cause.

those of our industries which were not yet mature enough to withstand the onslaughts of a foreign rival? Did he recall to mind the unfortunate results of Huskisson's policy in 1824 with regard to our silk markets? Here there was a case which might have allowed him some scope for contemplation, when he was considering the effects of the application of free trade1 to young and growing industries, without a due and proper protection. Huskisson, in reducing the silk-duties from the level of prohibition to what he deemed a due and proper protection, erred not in the object which he had in view, which was a meritorious one, but in the means by which he attempted to effect it. His policy was to stimulate the silk trade by means of foreign competition. But instead of stimulating, he paralysed. The English silk manufacture, though protected by a duty of 30 per cent, could not hold the field against her French rival. And the result was, practically, the destruction of the hopes of our silk market. This was the experience which Cobden might have derived from a past experiment in the direction of free trade. In advocating the principle of free trade, he was only aware of ideal consequences; all the practical results of it he could not know, and did not get to know. But the abstract method, by which free trade came into being, has its uses, and most important ones they are, for without it, we should scarce have any progress in the world. It has its dangers as well. For when we abstract, we assume a certain state of surrounding conditions. Such

1 Practically, Huskisson's measure was free trade, though nominally it was an attempt to make our silk industry more free, but still subject to protection.