802 LIFE OF COBDEN. [omar

1860.
Xr. 66.

customs duties as might be best suited to our own interests
without reference to the amount of duties which foreig?
powers might think expedient to levy on British goods. The
discussion was very meagre, and the House was counted out:
To return to the Treaty of 1860. Cobden, unable to be present
 to defend his measure in the House of Commons, t00k
ap the points of the case against it in a letter to Mr. Bright:—
“I observe that some of the recent converts to Free
Trade, who gave you and me so much trouble to convert
them, are concerned at our doing anything so unsound 88 10
enter into a Commercial Treaty. Iwill undertake that there
is not a syllable on our side of the Treaty that is inconsistent
with the soundest principles of Free Trade. We do nob
propose to reduce a duty which, on its own merits, ought
not to have been dealt with long ago. We give no concessions
 to France which do not apply to all other nations:
We leave ourselves free to lay on any amount of internal
duties, and to put on an equal tax on foreign articles of the
same kind at the Custom House. It is true we bind our”
selves, for ten years, not otherwise to raise such of our customs
as affect the French trade, or put on fresh ones; and this, I
think, no true Free Trader will regret.
“And here I may suggest, that if you observe the members
 on the Opposition side averse to parting with the power
of putting on higher customs duties on these articles of
French origin, it may be well to read them a lesson on the
impossibility of their being able to lay any further burdens
on commerce in future, and to remind them that if they
sanction higher expenditure, they must expect to pay it in #
direct income tax. Public opinion, without any French
Treaty, is daily tending to this result.
“ There being no objection on the ground of principles
there are, and will be, many specious arguments resorted
by those who really at heart have no sympathy for a cordial