756
If it appears absurd that Cobden should ever have beed
Ar. 56. content with an arrangement that left the French with &
possible protection so high as thirty per cent., we mush
recall the conditions of the case. Hitherto the gystem 12
France had been one of absolute prohibition. It was the
system of monopolies in all its perfection and completeness:
Suddenly to break down this high wall of exclusion Wa8
politically impossible. To tell the great irommasters, the
cotton-spinners, the woollen manufacturers, that they were
bo pass at a step from monopoly to free competition, would
be to shake the very Throne. A duty in their favour of BO
more than ten per cent. would have seemed a mockery 10
men who had been accustomed to command their own prices
The Emperor dared not open the battle with a lower pro”
tection than thirty per cent. It was for the English Government
 to have this brought down to as near ten per cent. 83
they could. M. Rouher, who believed faithfully in free
competition, hoped and intended that this process of beating
down the great duty allowed by the terms of the Treaty
should be effectively carried out. Cobden knew much better
shan his critics how much remained to be done; but then ho
rusted M. Rouher and the Emperor. This was the merit
of his diplomacy, that he knew whom he could trust; and
he always felt that here, and not in perpetual suspicion, if
the secret of effective and wise diplomacy, as distinguished
from the policy of craft and war. The result showed in the
present instance, that the Emperor and M. Rouher deserved
his confidence.
Cobden arrived in Paris on April 20th, aud it was the

LIFE OF COBDEN. [cuag:

1860,

stood between France and ourselves, that we proceed with regard to tbe
commodities of all countries alike. England engages, then, to reduce the
duty on wine, from a rate nearly reaching Bs. 10d. per gallon, to 85 PF
gallon. Bhe engages, besides a present reduction, farther to reduce thab
duty from the lst of April, 1861, to a scale which has reference to the
strength of the wine measured by the quantity of svirit it contain.”