MR. COBDEN AS THE MONITEUR ANGLAIS.
Mn. COBDEN has many times been called the English O'Connell, and he seems to be resolved that the parallel shall continue to the end.
O'Connell was remarkable for the fertility of his invention in framing agitation after agitation, so as to employ a very extensive machinery and to keep himself permanently engaged, self-appointed in the service of his country : but although the carefully framed agitations which he devised to stimulate and utilize public feeling were ingeniously designed, and although he was supported with a kind of set following on the faith of his anterior successes, it be- came yearly more evident that he had positively succeeded only in one agitation, and that his first. He established the right of him- self and his co-religionists to sit in Parliament ; but his Precursor Association, his Repeal movement, his monster meetings, his Vo- lunteer" dodge, followed each other with steadiness of bathos, un- til at last the very enemies of the man spared him in pity for his delusions and his infirmities.
Mr. Cobden was equally successful in his first agitation, the Anti-Corn-law movement, which was made for him as he seemed made for it; but his subsequent movements have been mistakes, in which, to speak practically, he was the most agitated person. He led with energy but was scantily followed; always, however, like O'Connell, preserving a certain organized band of retainers who were inclined to speculate in his chances of ultimate success. His Financial Reform dropped. He attached himself to the cause of National Education, to compromise it by the faint language which marked his accession, and the Association did not long survive the enlistment of its most important recruit. He has now set on foot the Peace project, which he has so long been dallying with, and which he has brought definitively to bear at the very time when public feeling is bent upon a juster view of the national position. Free-trade Hall, like Conciliation Hall, has seen vicissitudes and change of use ; and now, like Conciliation Hall, it rings with ora- tions that find no echo in the public at large.
As in O'Connell's case, Mr. Cobden has only to form an agitation machinery, and he is sure of acceptance and support from a certain number. He proclaims that he will raise his 10,0001., organize a band of lecturers, and spread them throughout the country : and we have no doubt that he will be as good as his word. We have no doubt that he will so far succeed, because we do not believe that his reputation has yet declined so low as to prevent his col- lecting the funds which he names. Men and money to the re- quisite amount can be found, if it were only to oblige Mr. Cobden. The lecturers are ready to deliver themselves when paid for ; and Mr. Cobden's knowledge of political topography will make it quite easy for him to engage the proper rooms, if not the proper audi- ences, for lectures which will serve to be reported in the newspapers. The results we would rather leave to time, than present in a form which may seem invidious while it is in the future tense. To some extent, indeed, we are saved any anticipative estimate of his achievements, since one result is already apparent. Mr. Cobden's object appears to be the pacification of the globe, beginning with England. To the men whose courage is inspired with the recol- lections of Crecy and Waterloo he now recommends a new and more exalted species of courage, which should induce them to re- main meekly quiescent even in the face of preparation for attack. It is evident that the general feeling runs quite in the contrary di- rection ; and the first effect of Mr. Cobden's exhortations is a strong outburst from every quarter in the totally opposite tone. His eloquence has had a marked effect as a counter-irritant. The Times, for example, which had been comparatively mild in its treat- ment of warlike and French affairs, is provoked by Mr. Cob- den's pacification to outspoken avowals in favour of armed preparation, and to indignant not to say challenge-bearing de- nunciations of Louis Napoleon, his mistaken marriage, and his " tenfold iniquities." The assertion of a policy consisting in passive peace renders it necessary to assert the existence of the opposite spirit throughout the English people ; and thus an ex- aggerated peaceableness, which cannot remain uncontradicted, ren-
ders necessary the utterance of language which can but be re- garded as threatful by those whose advocate Mr. Cobden has be- come. Ingenious politicians have supposed, that so shrewd a man, whose results are so opposite to his professed intentions, must secretly have meant what he realizes practically, and that Richard Cobden is really nothing else than a jesuitical Chatham, rousing his countrymen by telling insinuations of a recreant policy. We do not believe he has any such purpose, but we do perceive that he has such a success.
Another species of prosperity has been ascribed to him: he is so cosmopolitan, that he is anti-English ; he is so candid towards the neighbours whom others suspect, that he becomes the agent for France ; his pamphlet, scouted in England, is reprinted in France "cum auctoritate et privilegio," and his language is adopted by the officially sanctioned journals. Consular powers have often been conferred upon the resident natives of one country to represent the government of a foreign country : why should not this be extended, in Mr. Cobden's favour, to ambassadorial offices P It is evident from the French papers that Mr. Cobden is more useful to his Imperial master than M. Walewski. He has earned his favour ; and while he cannot be less English than the present Ambassador in his sentiments, be has been endowed by nature with a thoroughly Saxon tongue. He thus indeed labours under one disadvantage, which might make him, quite unconsciously, mislead his Impe- rial master. M. Walewski himself could not be more foreign to the feeling of the English people than Mr. Cobden ; and while his language must tend to flatter the Imperial hopes of entering into possession, on Cornhill or Constitution Hill, without resistance from the " shopkeeping nation," it might per- chance betray his Imperial friend into a tremendous ambush. It may be all very well to copy the language of Monsieur Cobden into the official journals of Paris, in order to make the French peo- ple believe what they ought about the Englishipeople ; but if Na- poleon III. is prudent, he will, for his own information and guidance, contrast the peculiar language held by his writer with that of the whole English press, in those "leading articles" which, ad exemplar Imperatoris, Mr. Cobden would expunge.
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