Mr. Crombie in a letter to Monday's Westminster Gazette gives
a quotation from a speech made by Mr. Cobden at Aberdeen in 1844, which finally disposes of Mr. Chamberlain's statement—again and again repeated—that Mr. Cobden promised that universal Free-trade would follow the adoption of that policy by Britain. The speech is not in the collected speeches, but has been unearthed in the report of a local paper, and recently reprinted by the Aberdeen Free Press. Here are Cobden's own words :—" But to take the first objection made such ample use of by the Opposition— that we must not carry out the principles of Free Trade till others did the same. It would be ruinous to carry our liberality further than our neighbours.' So speak the reciprocity party, of whom he understood there were some in this city ; but the baselessness of this doctrine was suffi- ciently shown by Sir Robert Peel himself in the revisal of the tariff. It was his boast that he had made his reductions without reference to any nation whatever, and that it was but justice to disregard the tariff dues of all the nations in regu- lating our own. But he would not appeal to the foes of Free Trade in support of its doctrine. He would take another and a better system. He would appeal to the reason of the audience. The greater the restrictions in other countries, the more necessity was there for Free Trade in this ; in order that we might establish an indirect trade to compensate as much as possible for the want of a direct one." That is as true to-day as it was sixty years ago. It may be a mis- fortune that other nations are not Free-traders, but the only way to combat and neutralise that evil is by Free-trade.
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