of corn and the rent of the landlord be ever so high. But nowadays many of them have been forced by foreign competition to desert the soil. And why? because the tenant-farmers do not find it profitable to cultivate wheat at present prices.

We repeat that, at the present, it is of no use to follow Cobden's example of arousing enthusiasm in the masses, when the origin of that enthusiasm springs from such impure and erroneous sources.

What Cobden effected is impossible to-day. The intelligence of the nation forbids it. Let us explain his remarkable career by alluding to his short-sighted treatment of economical problems, and to the earnestness which he infused into his political aspirations. Undoubtedly he desired and strove for the greater wellbeing of the labouring classes. And in a sense he attained it.1 But it was by means which were not only unsound, but dishonest as well.

§ 2. The analysis of distress.—It is common enough nowadays to admit that not all the prosperity which attended our commerce during the first period of the operation of the free-trade principle was due to it alone. But this admission, we maintain, has only been wrung from the free-traders by the gradual accumulation of superior proof. At any rate, we have Cobden's own authority for asserting that he believed, and believed thoroughly, that the railway extension had but little to

1 But it was an artificial advance. There are several ways of attaining the same end. Some natural, others artificial; the one set acting gradually, the other suddenly and disproportionately. Cobden believed the true source of the regeneration of the people to be in free trade.

He

And this

do with conferring prosperity upon the people. went further than this. He believed that his opponents, by adducing the important consequences which the railway would of itself effect,-with reference to the price of goods, with reference to the consumption of the unemployed labour, and with reference to an increase of wages brought about by an increased demand for labour, -ingloriously attempted to rob his favourite principle of what he considered to be its sole merit. may further be remarked, that nowhere throughout the voluminous utterances which he made upon free trade or other subjects, does he ever refer to the important factors of railway extension and the gold discoveries as bearing upon the normal development of trade. But is this surprising, when we also recall that Cobden does not allude to the universal fall in prices which occurred between 1828 and 1848? What influence would this phenomenon have upon the inventions and enterprises which tend to stimulate trade? Does Cobden state that a contracted circulation-one in which the wear and tear of the coin in use had not been sufficiently met by the annual supplies of gold-might account in some degree for the state of commercial affairs during 1837-41? No: and, it appears, for a very good reason; for such an explanation would not have made for his purpose. It would not have strengthened his arguments in favour of a free-trade policy. Could it be possible that Cobden was uninformed of this phenomenon? He could not then have been so extensive a reader as Professor Thorold Rogers avers he was. For Lord Overstone distinctly mentions the fact in a pamphlet published by him in 1841, called 'Further Reflec

B

tions on the Currency,' and he was no mean authority on financial problems.

The complex character of the causation of prosperity during the early period of free trade, we hold, Cobden did not allow. Besides the free - trade principle as partially applied by us to our commerce with other peoples, including our colonies, there entered into that causation two very important factors. These may be enumerated under the capital heads of (1) railway development, and (2) the gold discoveries. And this is the order in which they began to take effect. Now when two or three causes are in existence at the same time, it is difficult, owing to what is called by logicians the intermixture of effects, to separate that portion which is due to each cause out of the total effect, and thereby be enabled to determine its exact value. It is difficult, if not impossible, in economical phenomena so to vary our results by means of experimental investigations as to lead to accurate conclusions. Thus the chances of error in ascribing any particular degree of prosperity to this or that cause in combination with others are manifold. Of free trade we can only say this-that it caused some prosperity; the precise amount, however, is hidden in obscurity.

But the free-traders to-day are quite willing to allow that free trade was not solely responsible for all the prosperity which attended its early progress. We have this on the authority of Sir T. H. Farrer, and that ought to suffice. On p. 8 of his 'Free Trade v. Fair Trade,' he says "that the ablest free-traders-such as Mr Fawcett and Mr Gladstone-are as decided as Lord Penzance can be in condemning the short-sighted

fanaticism which has too often treated our free-trade policy as the sole factor of our commercial prosperity."1

We

Then it is admitted that there was much darkness hanging over the explanation "why it was our commerce so greatly prospered." Perhaps it has been convenient to continue the error just so long as the freetrade party, which became incorporated into the Radical section of the great Liberal party, thought it might be prolonged without any harm accruing therefrom. suppose that even free-traders will not deny that this "short-sighted fanaticism" was the principal factor in maintaining the united Liberal party for so long a period in power. They were upheld in the government of the country on the basis of an "inappreciable" error. But still, with all deference to free - trade knowledge of Cobden and his speeches, included amongst these short-sighted fanatics is Cobden himself. Thus it appears that the master had one explanation of the action of free trade, and that his pupils have come to possess themselves of another. Which is the true one? If the pupils are right, as they seem to think, then the master was wrong. Cobden, therefore, promoted the free-trade principle after the year 1850 under an erroneous impression. He believed that all the effects he witnessed were its products, while only a part of them flowed from its source. The free trade which Cobden projected in idea, cannot possibly be the

1 Some of the free-trade theorists, therefore, were wrong. There seems, too, to be another modification of free-trade doctrine in process of dissemination. Cobden and the late Professor Bonamy Price ruled that imports are "immediately" paid for "by exports." But since them, no less an authority on economics than Mr Gladstone has ruled that "in the long-run " imports and exports are equal.—‘Standard,' May 3, 1888.

free trade which his present followers are endeavouring to bolster up in practice. Just in the same way as Huskisson's free-trade policy was supposed to be Adam Smith's free-trade policy (and as Cobden believed it to be so), so now who is there but does not believe that our present policy of free trade is not that which was framed by Cobden? But just in the same manner as Huskisson's policy was misunderstood (and misunderstood, I believe, for the very simple reason that his comprehensive commercial policy being directed towards an imperial policy made against that cosmopolitan tendency which is one of the ulterior objects of a universal free trade), so are Cobden's arguments and schemes misunderstood at the present day by those who are interested in misunderstanding them. For, if any one can show us where Cobden predicted that our agriculture would be partially destroyed, and that our one-sided free trade would remain "isolated" in the international commercial policy of the world for the period of nearly half a century, then it will be time to step aside and to permit others to portray what Cobden's arguments were and in what his predictions consisted. It does not take a second reading of Cobden's speeches to become aware of the fact that, with regard to the above-mentioned assumed predictions, Cobden's own views were in direct antagonism. Does Cobden anywhere assert that "free imports into this country are to our interest," while surrounding nations place an import on our exported goods?1 We know of no passage even where he hints at such a state of things as is

1 The reader must be careful not to fall into error on this point. Cobden said, "If free trade is a good thing for us, we will have it."