THE COBDEN STATUE AT BRADFORD.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 5174, 22 October 1877, Page 3

THE COBDEN STATUE AT BRADFORD.

(From the Daily News, July, 26.)

Mr. Bright had an opportunity of keeping yesterday the promise which he made in the House of Commons more than twelve years ago, when Mr. Cobden’s death was announced to that House. Every one remembers with what earnestness and warmth of language the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, and Mr. Disraeli, then holding the place of Leader of the Opposition, which Lord Hartington holds in Parliament to-day, boro testimony to the loss which the country had sustained. Mr. Bright did not say many words. He excused himself for saying so little—it that can be called an excuse which explains a course that every one understands and approves —by the simple announcement of the fact that he could not then attempt to express the feelings with which he was overwhelmed. “At some calmer moment, when I may have the opportunity of addressing _ my countrymen, I will endeavor,” Mr. Bright went on to say, “ to show the lesson that X think may be learned from the life and character of my friend.” Yesterday’s may be considered something of an historical occasion, since it gave Mr. Bright an opportunity of redeeming his promise. The lesson of Mr, Cobden’s life is one indeed which even Mr. Bright’s eloquence could hardly impress on a people or a party who had not learned it already from its influence on the political history of our time. It is hardly necessary for us to say anything about the benefit which Mr. Cobden conferred on his country in an economic sense fcy his championship of free trade. That is one of the points on which we are all agreed. As wo had occasion to remark, in relation to the Cobden Club dinner the other day, the very men whom Mr. Cobden found it most difficult to convert in his lifetime are the men who would most indignantly repudiate the

faintest imputation of any heresy as to free trade principles now. But besides the economical advantages secured by the triumph ,of Mr. Cobden's policy, there were political and social influences in the agitation he led which cannot be without their lasting effect on the character of our national politics. We do not know that before Mr. Cobden’s time there ever was a great popular agitation which found its strength solely iu appeals to reason, to argument, to figures and facts. Other agitators aroused their audiences by stirring appeals to the emotions. ■ They were eloquent upon abstract rights. They were impassioned in their denunciation of real or imaginary social wrongs. They pleaded often a great and just cause, and it may indeed be questioned whether any agitation ever had strength enough to make it formidable or to secure it a place in history which had not some basis of justice to rest upon, some example of deserved success to boast. Even Cleon was right sometimes, and even he did not always make promises that were illusory. But all agitation up to Cobden’s time appears to have had , the common characteristic of addressing itself chiefly to the passions, or at least to the emotions of men. “ Poverty and passion ” were declared, during a famous debate in the House of Commons seventeen years ago, to be elements of popular agitation. The words were used by an orator with whom effective phrasemaking was of far more account than accuracy of historical description. But poverty and passion were undoubtedly made to work together in many a great agitation which might have had claims enough in argument and justice to be able to dispense with such stimulant as the appeal of passion to poverty. Mr. Cobden appealed to poverty many times, as he appealed many times to wealth ; but it was the peculiarity of his agitation that it dispensed largely with the appeal to passion.