FRIENDSHIP wind MB. BRIGHT.

19]

0 that one question~—whether it was good for a man to 184
have half a loaf or a whole loaf——for seven years the dis- Ze. 31
CUssion was maintained, I will not say with doubtful result,
for the result was never doubtful, and never could be in
“ch a cause; but for five years or more [1841-6] we
devoteq ourselves without stint ; every working hour almost
Vas piven up to the discussion and to the movement in
*uexion with this question.”
This is an appropriate place for considering some of the
alifications that Cobden brought to the mission which he
and his ally thus imposed upon themselves. In speaking of
bir may seem to ignore fellow-workers whose share in the
3gitation was hardly less important than his own ; without
Whose zeal, disinterestedness, and intelligence, the work of
bimself and Mer. Bright would have been of little effect, and
“ould never have been undertaken. No history of the
League could be perfect which did not commemorate the
“ames and labours of many other able men, who devoted
themselves with hardly inferior energy to the exhausting
Work of organization and propagandism. But these pages
have no pretensions to tell the whole story; they only are
®Oncerned with so much of it as relates to one of its heroes.
“We Were not even the first,” said Mr. Bright, “though after-Wards,
 perhaps, we became the foremost before the public.
Bug there were others before us.” The public imagination
Was struck by the figures of the pair who had given them-3
 Ives up to a great public cause. The alliance between
ther, far more than doubled the power that either could
have exerted without the other. The picture of two plain
Wen leaving their homes and their business, and going

a : This and the preceding passages are from the very beautiful address
bo iverad by Mr. Bright, when he uuveiled the statue of his friend 5}
roy Ford, July 25,1877. The address is to be found in Mr. Thorold Rogere’s
0 of Public Addresses of John Bright, pp. 854-—868.