ix}

COBDEN'S POSITION IN PARLIAMENT. 497

®Spenditare must be decreased, and it must bo decreased by _ 1848
*eduction in armaments. Hor. 44.
Cobden’s contention cannot be said to have prospered; but
the debates show how seriously his attack on expenditure was
taken by those who opposed him. Mr. Disraeli laughed at
bi a8 the successor of the Abbé St. Pierre, Rousseau, and
Robespierre in the dreams of perpetual peace, bub he re-“ognized
 the possibility of public opinion being brought
ound to Cobden’s side. Even Peel thought it necessary
formalty to express his dissent from Cobden’s views on
Nationa] defence. Fresh from his victorious onslaught upon
the Corn Law, he was dreaded by the House of Commons
nd the old political factions, as speaking the voice of an
Irresistible, if not an infallible, oracle. The Government had
10 root, The Opposition was nullified by the internecine
Quarrel between the Protectionists and the Peelites. The
b%0 parties in fact were so distracted, so uncertain in prin-Ciple,
 and so unstable in composition, that they were profoundly
 afraid of the ome party which knew its own mind
and stood aloof from the conventional game. The Conser-Vatives
 constantly felt, or pretended to feel, an irrational
apprehension that the object of the Manchester school was,
W the exaggerated language of one of them, to organize a
force that should override the legislature and dictate to the
House of Commons. The Financial Reform Association at
Liverpool, with which Cobden had entered into relations,
Was expected to imitate the redoubtable achievements of the
League, Similar associations sprang up both in the English
8nd the Scotch capitals, and there was on many sides a stir
and movement on the subject which for a time promised
Substantial results. °
In a letter to Mr. Bright, Cobden sketched an outline of
What was called a People’s Budget, already referred to in his
letter to Mr. Baines i—