Instead of attendin g in Manchester to assist in the honour
of Free Trade and the encouragement of its future conquests, the " Manchester Manufacturer," and the Member for Manchester, went off to Edinburgh, to ventilate their own peculiar doctrine of Peal* before a special audience. Besides the chief actors in this conference, who came from a distance, the audience itself was re- cruited by an invasion of Southerners ; and in that hall Mr. Cob- den was free to apply history, Mr. Bright statistics, as they pleased. Thus, Mr. Cobden was enabled to point triumphantly to the actual alliance between France and England as disproving all necessity for strengthening our defences last year. Outside the Edinburgh meeting, it will be remembered, that in the alliance of states the friendly consideration which each can command will depend in a great degree upon its own available strength ; and especially is that the case in reference to a people like the French, in whom an estimate of military strength and chivalrous spirit is a positive source of moral esteem. Again, Mr. Bright, who denounces the European expenditure of 150,000,0001. annually on standing ar- mies, and applauds the American expenditure, now boasts that he opposed the Militia,—which is the cheap American kind of force that enables states to dispense with standing armies. And all the speakers can boast of making " progress " with their crot- chet, although they leave Manchester in possession of the Ministry, and their favourite plan of " arbitration" has just had such a signal illustration in the abortive Vienna Con- ference ! If, indeed, an allusion is made to other views out of doors, it is in such language as that of Mr. Cobden; who con- demns all other opinion as " foolish " or " ignorant "; and who, on the strength of having been in Turkey, hazards the extraordinary assertion, that " they "—or " other people "—" are going to fight for the maintenance of Mahomedanism in Europe." There were indeed other speakers, whom a special Pallas had not wrapped in a cloud, and whose voice had not received a supernatural aug- mentation, but who retained some sense of facts, and duly, with Mr. Miall, deplored " the rising temper of the times." Some, too, may have carried into the room the remembrance of Mr. Drum- mond's racy letter, and have felt that to put a board over your garden-wall inscribed " No man-traps or spring guns, " may not even be philanthropic, if it consult the convenience of the midnight passenger at the expense of the household.
