CHAPTER XXXII

THE POLICY OF THE COMMERCIAL TREATY,

I will be convenient to insert here a few short remarks on 1860.
the general character of the work that Cobden had now "gm, ga.
Sccomplished. We shall find that under a different form
' must still be regarded as an extension of the same prin-Ciples
 which had inspired his first great effort. It was one
Wore move in the direction of free exchange. By many
Prominent men, indeed, at the time, and by many more
Ufterwards, the Treaty was regarded as an infraction of
Sound economic principles. Some came to this opinion from
lack of accuracy, but more from a failure in copiousness of
thoughg, One or two of those who had been with Cobden
W the van of the assault on the Corn Laws, now looked
%kance on a transaction which savoured of the fallacy of
feciprocity. Those rigid adherents of economics who insist,
'n Mili’s phrase, on treating their science as if it were a
thing not to guide our judgment, but to stand in its place,
denounced the doctrine of treaties as a new-fangled heresy.
Bven the old Protectionists professed a virtuous alarm at an
novation on the principles of Free Trade.
The discussion of 1860 did little more than reproduce a
discussion that had taken place seventeen years before.
When Sir Robert Peel entered office, he found four sets of
Yegotiations pending for commercial treaties, between
Bogiand snd France, Portugal, Spain, and Brasil, Those