778 LIF? 3 COBDEN. (omar:

1860.
MAT, 56.

that we were in this position of security, and that there wss
no foundation for the reports of the sudden or unusual
increase of the French navy before I addressed my letter t0
Lord Palmerston. . . . . Recollect that we had voted for
our armaments for this year nearly 80,000,0001., before the
fortification plan was proposed. I do not see any limit tO
the future expenditure if, when a further increase is objected
to, every existing provision is to be ignored, and we are
met with the answer that, unless the additional outlay be
agreed to, we shall be unarmed.”

On the same day on which Cobden wrote in this way,
Mr. Bright, in a speech of the highest power and sagacity,
had shown equally clearly that it was not the policy of
security which he opposed, but the mistaken means of
carrying it out. After illustrating the almost daily advances
that were taking place in the engines of war, Mr. Bright
said :—“T am one of those who believe that at a time like this,
when these remarkable changes are taking place, . . . . the
course of an honest and economic government should be to
go on slowly, cautiously, and inquiringly, and not commit
themselves to a vast expenditure which twelve months’
experience may show to be of no value at all.”
If it was answered that the occasion was urgent, then
Cobden’s rejoinder by anticipation in his letter to Lord
Palmerston was perfectly good, namely, that the expenditure
on fortifications was remote and spread over a number of
years, and therefore could hardly be designed to meet an
immediate and pressing danger. Lord Palmerston’s speech
we now see, ab the distance of a score of years, to have been
a dangerous provocation to Napoleon instantly to make the
very descent for which we declared ourselves to be unprepared.
 If Napoleon had really cherished the bitter design
of avenging Waterloo, of which Lord Palmerston suspected