ambition on her hands, unable to cope with a rebellion of Land Leaguers at home, and beginning to doubt whether she will be able to maintain her union with Ireland.

These volumes show that Cobden had no sympathy with Repeal. His policy for Ireland was the abolition of the feudal land law, which fosters great estates and, in the case of Ireland, absenteeism. The feudal law ought indeed to have been abolished, by the abrogation of primogeniture and entail, before entering on a course of more violent and equivocal legislation. But Cobden had not fathomed the Irish abyss. He did not see that if Ireland were given to the Irish, and all of them were collected in their native land, not a third of them could live.

Cobden, I repeat, was not an un-Englishman. Nor was he a Quaker. He disliked all armaments which were capa

tions. England, as represented by him, was a gentleman, and not a bully. He desired for his country the leadership of international morality, and he believed that her real interest was bound up with the interest of humanity; but he did not disregard her interest on the contrary, he always looked to it first, and never without distinct reference to it proposed any plan of cosmopolitan improvement. If he advocated and encouraged a friend to advocate colonial emancipation, it was not because either of them wished to deprive their country of anything that could bring her wealth or strength, but because both of them were convinced that these distant dependencies brought neither wealth nor strength, but, on the contrary, loss of money and weakness; that, in a military point of view, they entailed a forfeiture of the advantages of an insular position; and that the only bond which could permanently and usefully unite En-ble of being used for purposes of aggresgland to free colonies was the bond of the heart. He certainly looked forward to the ultimate junction of Canada with the United States, and the union of the whole English-speaking race on the American continent; but he expected this to take place with the consent of the mother country, and believed that it would be greatly to her advantage. In question ing, as his friend questioned, the expediency of retaining Gibraltar, he was actuated by no indifference to English honor, or wish that England should make Quixotic sacrifices, but by the conviction that since the introduction of steam and other changes the naval and military importance of the rock had been greatly diminished; while, as it often had thrown, so it would be sure again to throw, insulted Spain into the ranks of our enemies. I have no doubt that while he fully appreciated the genius for war and government which Englishmen had shown in the conquest and administration of India, he would gladly have resigned that glittering appanage had it been possible to retire without leaving anarchy behind; but here again he would have been actuated not by the craven motives which Jingoism imputed to him, but by a profound conviction that on the whole the Indian empire was materially a bane to us, and that there was great danger of its becoming a moral and political bane also. Some strong men agree with him on that point. His opinions on the subject of imperialism might have been confirmed, as those of his friend are, by seeing England, with all these distant objects of far-reaching

sion, and he had a belief, well founded, at all events, as the army was then constituted, that militarism was the great pillar of aristocracy; but he emphatically declared that he was ready to incur any expense that might be necessary for the purpose of maintaining the supremacy of England on the sea. He meant what he said, too, when he told the House of Commons that, though opposed to a war which he deemed unjust, he would in a just war serve in the hospital if he could not serve in the field. He certainly erred in pronouncing against the volunteer movement, in which he saw another reinforcement of aristocracy, but failed to see a great antidote to panic. Nor can it be truly said that he never laid himself open to misconstruction. Mr. Kinglake says that Cobden and his great associate had no chance of getting a hearing when they strove to keep the peace with Russia, because, as they had declared against war in general, it was impossible that they should command attention when they spoke against any particular war. Morley replies with truth that Cobden had not declared against war in general. But he had attended peace conferences, the object of which was to denounce all war. A demonstration for or against a definite measure or course of policy, such as the repeal of the Corn Laws or the support of the Ottoman dominion, is often useful; put a demonstration in favor of a general principle always seems to commit, and usually does in fact commit, those who take part in it to an indiscriminate application. Cobden's authority on

Mr.

questions of peace and war was undoubt- | felt that free trade itself would be tainted edly weakened in this way. in the mind of the French people by assoHardly any mind can escape the bias ciation with the violence done by a highof its history; Cobden's had no doubt handed stretch of power to national opincontracted a bias, and a serious one, from ion. It must be admitted also that, as in the free-trade struggle. Absolutely free the case of the arbitrary monarchy of from any sordid sentiment, from any dis- Prussia, on which he bestows praises position to believe that man lives by rather unwelcome to the Liberal ear, so bread alone, from any conscious prefer- in the case of the French empire, Cobence of material over moral and political den's political toleration of all forms of considerations, he yet was inclined to government which were or seemed to be overrate the beneficent power of com- economically beneficent carried him somemercial influences, and consequently the what too far. Nor could I at the time, value of commercial objects. This was nor can I now, share the contempt with seen at the beginning of the war between which he treated all suspicion of the the free and slave States in America, French emperor's designs, and every sug when, though his heart was as thoroughly gestion that necessity might at last impel on the side of political and industrial free- the conspirators of the coup d'état to an dom as that of any human being could attack on England, from which, if so combe, he was for a time prevented from rais-pelled, they would no more have shrunk ing his voice for the right, if not held in than they shrank from the perfidies and a wavering state of mind, by his strong massacres by which they raised themfeeling in favor of the Southerners as free-selves to power. Alarm always takes traders, though he could hardly have forms more or less irrational and ridicuhelped knowing that with them, as with lous; but all Cobden's expressions of the Turks, free trade was not an enlight- scorn for English panic would have been ened principle, but the barbarous neces- nearly as applicable to the nervousness sity of a community incapable of manu- of Austria and Germany, upon each of facturing anything for itself, as appears which the French bandit sprang without more clearly than ever now that, slavery notice, and without any cause of war exbeing abolished, manufactures have been cept his personal necessities and those of introduced into the South, and have his dynasty. That free trade and peace brought protectionist tendencies with are closely connected in fact as well as in them. The same thing was seen again in the motto of the Cobden Club is very the case of the French Treaty. Mr. Mor- certain, but the relation is not simply that ley is mistaken in thinking that anybody of cause and effect; it is reciprocal, and objected to negotiating with the French free trade depends fully as much on government on account of its character peace as peace does upon free trade: if and origin: we were all ready to do busi- there are large armaments there must be ness with Nero; though certainly, if import duties to maintain them, and it is there was a hand which Liberals might vain to suppose that the policy of the Enbe excused for not wishing to take even glish tariff will be allowed to regulate the in the course of business, it was that of tariffs of other countries, or that there Louis Napoleon. The objection which can be any absolute rule for them all. some of us felt was to abetting the em- Nor is it by any means true in all cases, peror in an arbitrary use of his treaty-perhaps it is not true even in the majority making power for the purpose of overrid ing on a question of domestic policy the well-known sentiments of his legislature and his people. We thus, for a commercial object, became accomplices in absolutist encroachment. There could be no That the good effects even of commermistake about the matter. The emperor cial prosperity were neither unlimited nor assured Cobden that the legislative body unmixed, Cobden himself had reason to was irreconcilably hostile to every manner observe. Writing about the rejection of of free trade, and Cobden himself says Mr. Bright at Manchester, he ascribes that it would be impossible to assemble" this display of snobbishness and ingratfive hundred persons in France by any process of selection, and not find ninetenths of them at least in favor of the restrictive system. An apprehension, which events have too well justified, was

of cases, that the passions of nations are controlled by their commercial interests. If they were, no matter what the fiscal system might be, there could hardly ever be a war.

itude" to the great prosperity which Lancashire enjoys mainly through the efforts of Mr. Bright; and predicts that those vices and the political apostasy connected with them will go on in the north of En.

"the statement was made from Bentinck's personal experience and memory, and was the tradition of the circle in which he lived and the conviction of his heart." How came it to pass, then, that a man of Bentinck's temper, and devoted as he was to the memory of Canning, whose private secretary he had been, and with whom he was connected by marriage, not only remained for so many years a steady follower of Peel, but when Disraeli began to attack Peel ascribed the attacks, as Disraeli says he did, to personal motives? Is it not more likely that this, among other things which Bentinck said and did, was really the infusion of "a friend"?

Mr. Morley also is somewhat in error, as I venture to think, in saying that, with the accession of the Duke of Wellington

Catholic Emancipation, which had been made an open question in the Cabinet, but about foreign policy and in their general tendencies. The prime minister was their only bond of union, and on his departure they inevitably fell asunder. Falling asunder is not a very amicable operation, nor is it easy to state with perfect frankness your general want of sympathy with the political character and principles of a man with whom you have just been acting, however natural, in the eyes of all the world, that want of sympamay be. That there was also a rivalry between Peel and Canning need not be questioned; under the party system and between heads of opposing sections such things must be; but rivalry is not conspiracy or cabal. The letters of resignation sent by the seceders seem to me to power in 1827, all the worst impulses perfectly spontaneous and independent. If there was anything like intrigue, I suspect it was on the part of Canning, who was a man of eager, not to say, inordinate, ambition, as he showed in his conduct to Addington and afterwards to Percival. The conversion of the AntiJacobin to Liberalism seems glorious now; but it was natural that it should not seem so glorious to the Tories then. There is no reason for supposing that Peel instigated the attacks which Dawson and other Tories made on Canning, and which after all were no more than the counterpart of those which Canning himself had made upon Addington and others who had come in his way. To say that Peel killed Canning is preposterous. Canning had been in very bad health before he became premier, and his febrile temperament succumbed to the cares and vexations of a difficult and equivocal position. If any bolt went to his heart, it was that of Grey. Canning's son assuredly did not regard Peel as his father's murderer. In Stapleton's first work on Canning, published in 1839, the charge against Peel of behaving dishonorably to Canning does not appear. It appears in the work published in 1859. Between those dates it had been brought forward in the House of Commons among other rabid personalities by Lord George Bentinck in a specific form, and in that form it had been met and repelled by Peel. The author of the "Life of Lord George Bentinck" is compelled to admit that the charge cannot be sustained, while he artfully labors to leave the impression that it is true. With a somewhat suspicious anxiety he fixes the responsibility of it on the memory of his friend, protesting that vol. iii., p. 302. VOL. XXXIX, 1980

LIVING AGE.

of the privileged classes acquired new confidence and intensity. The duke was never averse, and Peel was always most favorable, to measures of administrative reform. Even in 1827 exclusionists and jobbers saw that it was not their game that was being played, and this became still more clear to them in 1834, when a foreign statesman said of Peel that he had proved himself the most liberal of Conservatives, the most conservative of Liberals, and the most capable man of all in both parties; while bigoted Tories not only withheld praise, but broke out into denunciation, and accused the minister of preparing the final ruin of the Church.* A European Conservative Wellington was in the highest degree; he had monarchical views of English government, and was strongly opposed to organic change: a bigot or a corruptionist he never was. Canning, it must be remembered, was to the last an opponent of Parliamentary reform.

Peel has been called the greatest member of Parliament who ever lived. A sneer perhaps lurks in the compliment; but, apart from the sneer the compliment belongs rather to Pym or to one of the Pitts. It may more truly be said of Peel that he was about the best public servant whom England ever had. No other minister ever was so thoroughly conversant with all the interests and master of all the business of the State. This it was that lent such weight to his speeches, and gave him his immense power over the House of Commons. Lord Russell said that, of all the speakers whom he had ever heard,

See Mr. Spencer Walpole's History of England,

man who was chiefly responsible for the welfare of the people should not upon such a question as the Corn Laws have been allowed to act freely for the public good, and that the country should have been compelled to deprive itself of the services of its great administrator because there had been a change in national opinion upon an economical question, have always seemed to me heavy counts in the indictment against the party system, and that constitutional rule which requires that, whenever a new light breaks upon the mind of the legislative body, the execu

the most eloquent was Plunket, the most | lic character. That the intellect of the charming was Canning, the weightiest was Peel. That, so far as the evil system of party for the establishment of which he was not responsible would let him, Peel was a true patriot, and served his country to the utmost of his power and with all his heart, never sparing himself, but giving the most conscientious attention to all the details of the public business, must be the conviction of every one who really knows his history. His great qualities were rather those of an administrator than those of a legislator, and were liable to be rated lower than they deserved under the party system, which counts only legislative government shall be overturned. tive triumphs. In legislation he was not Factious things must, in the course of an originator, at least upon the greatest nature, be done by every leader of opposiquestions; but, as one who gave practical tion; but no leader of opposition ever did effect to the conclusions of the time, his fewer of them than Peel. He never record on the statute book is immense. weakened or degraded government. He When once he put his hand to the work he played no jockey tricks. He never dewas bold, and never stopped at half-meas- scended to the tactics familiar to those ures. His bills were framed with the who supplanted him, of coalescing with greatest care, so as to pass with the least the extreme section of the other party for possible amendment. For his memora- the purpose of upsetting the ministry. ble budgets, his financial experiments, He would have spurned such a suggesthe creation of the fiscal system under tion as the utter betrayal of all the obwhich England has prospered, he had the jects for which his party existed, as the assistance of first-rate coadjutors, official depth at once of folly and dishonor. and non-official; yet the measures may Never did he give his followers the signal fairly be said to have been his own. Irre- to turn round and vote against the second spectively of the party ties by which in his reading of a bill when they had voted in very boyhood he had been tightly and favor of the first reading, because it ap: almost inextricably bound, he was by na-peared that advantage might be taken of ture a Conservative-ready for any praca division in the ranks of the government. tical reform, but averse from organic Never did he on a great question belie his change. Such is apt to be the tempera- recorded convictions and trifle with the ment of great administrators, who are sat-political life of the nation for the purpose isfied with their tools as they are; and it is a better temperament, at all events, than that of politicians who seek power through great convulsions and use it for small jobs. The weak points of Peel's career are his conversions on Catholic Emancipation and the Corn Laws, of which nobody denies either the sincerity or the necessity, but which involved an appearance of infidelity to party; while the desperate awkwardness of the position in which, during the process of conversion, a leader is placed, between the im- A man of genius Peel cannot be called. possibility of keeping silence as a private He was not imaginative or creative; even man whose mind was wavering would do, in appreciation his mind, open as it was, and the danger of prematurely avowing moved slowly. It moved slowly in all conclusions which may shake the State, things; and, like Burleigh, he used his has furnished malice with materials for pen a good deal in the process of deliberimputations of deceitfulness of which un-ation. Nor did he always see the limits sparing use has been made. To these imputations Peel was too nervously susceptible; but we have tried effrontery, and can tell which has the best effect on pub

of " dishing " his rivals. He avoided rather than sought faction fights; held back his followers as much as he could from premature attacks; never attempted to filch office, but waited till his time was fully come, and, instead of climbing over the wall, he could enter by the great gate. In time of public peril he knew that party feeling and personal ambition must be restrained. The country has bitter reason to wish that he was the leader of the opposition now.

of a principle; if he had, perhaps he would have perceived more clearly and maintained more firmly that the principle of free competition, however sound as ap