I -

LIFE OF OORDEN, [oma®:

1838. They boldly charged Parliament with fostering the rivalry of
Zr. 84. foreign competitors; and the charge could not be answered:
By denying to America and to Germany the liberty of e
changing their surplus food for our manufactures, the English
 Legislature had actually forced America and Germany ©
divert their resources from the production of food, in orde”
to satisfy their natural demand for manufactures. It wad
the corn laws which nursed foreign competition into full
vitality.
But this strictly commercial aspect could not suffice:
Moral ideas of the relations of class to class in this country:
and of the relations of country to country in the civilized
world, lay behind the contention of the hour, and in the
course of that contention came into new light. The prompt”
ings of a commercial shrewdness were gradually enlarged
into enthusiasm for a far-reaching principle, and the hardbeaded
 man of business gradually felt himself touched with
the generous glow of the patriot and the deliverer.
Cobden’s speculative mind had speedily placed the
conflict in its true relation to other causes. We have
already seen how ample a conception he possessed of the
transformation for which English society was ripe, and
how thoroughly he had accustomed himself to think of
the corn laws as merely part of a great whole of abuse and
obstruction. But he was now, as at all times, far too wise 8
man to fall into the characteristic weakness of the system~
monger, by passing over the work that lay to his hand, and
insisting that people should swallow his system whole. No
body knew better how great a part of wisdom it is for &
man who seeks to improve society, to be right in discerning
at a given moment what is the next thing to be done, of
whether there is anything to be done at all. His interest
in remoter issues did not prevent him from throwing him
wolf with all the energy of apostolic spirit upon the pal”