Mr. Chamberlain made his campaign speeches this week at Liverpool.
The first was delivered to a large and enthusiastic popular audience on Tuesday in the Hippodrome. We have dealt elsewhere with the fantastic and impossible personal pledge given by Mr. Chamberlain that no burden should be laid on the poor by his new taxes, and will only say here that he might just as well have given a personal pledge that_the weather next year will not injure the root-crops. We have noticed also his attempt to show that Trade-Unionists ought to be opposed to Free-trade, and that, indeed, Free-trade and Trade-Unionism are irreconcilable. To prove this he quoted Cobden and Mr. Keir Hardie. As to Cobden's opinion, we can only say that his dictum on the matter affects us no morn than his alleged failure as a prophet. Mr. Cobden was a great Englishman, but Free-trade is something infinitely wider and greater than Cobdenism. Personally, we have always protested against it being ticketed with any man's name, but if we had to choose a name to couple with it, it would be that of Sir Robert Peel. In any case, the Free-traders of to-day no more feel themselves bound by Mr. Cobden's speeches than Mr. Chamberlain and the Protectionists feel themselves bound by all the extreme things said in defence of the Corn-laws by the Tory leaders in the " thirties " and " forties."
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