758

LIYE OF COBDEN, [omar

1860. were close to their base of operations, for if they wanted
&r.~+ more knowledge as to a given trade, there were men WhO
were quite able and only too happy to supply it in the nex?
street or in the anteroom. The Englishmen were dependent
on the accident of the right man having come to Paris from
home. They were obliged to represent all branches of
industry, to master the important facts of a hundred specis!
trades, to meet from their own secondhand knowledge, picked
up the evening before and digested in the forenoon, 80°
tagonists whose knowledge was personal and acquired by 2
life's experience. The enterprise called for nothing less
than the dexterity and pliancy of a first-rate advocate, united
to the dogged industry of the compiler of a commercial
encyclopedia. Iron gave most trouble. Though the
rate had been fixed in the Treaty, the classification of
its descriptions remained. The ironmasters, Cobden told
Mr. Bright, “are the landed interest of France. They
constitute the prmtorian guards of monopoly. Almost
everybody of rank and wealth is directly or indirectly
interested in iron-works of some kind. Bankers, courtiers
authors (Thiers and St. Mare Girardin, to wit), bishops, and
priests, are to be found in the ranks of the jrommasters
M. Schneider—the Duke of Richmond of the interest—i
one of the Commission sitting to try himself. The French
witnesses, of course, all tell the old story of alarm and ruit
and discourse most feelingly of the misery which their work:
people will suffer if their protection be withdrawn. + « » + 1
am transported back twenty years.”
Apart from the monotony of these proceedings, what £0
Cobden was harder to bear than tedium, was the dishonesty
and bad faith of some of those with whom he had to desl
The more unscrupulous among the protectionists falsified
the facts of their various trades, and played dishonest
tricks with returns of cost, wages, aud prices. On one