LIFE OF COBDEN.

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1880. Treaties with Belgium, the Zollverein, Italy, Sweden and
=r. 56. Norway, Switzerland, and Austria.
In these, and in the treaty made afterwards by England
with Austria, Sir Louis Mallet reminded its opponents if
later years, that each of them had a double operation. Not
only does each treaty open the market of another country
foreign industry; it immediately affects the markets that
are already opened. For every recent treaty recognized the
“most favoured nation’ principle, the sheet-anchor of Free
Trade, as it has been called. By means of this principle, each
new point gained in any one negotiation becomes a part of the
common commercial system of the European confederation:
“ By means of this network,” it has been excellently said by
a distinguished member of the English diplomatic services
“of which few Englishmen seem to be aware, while fewer
still know to whom they owe it, all the great trading and
industrial communities of Europe, i.e., England, France
Holland, Belgium, the Zollverein (1870), Austria, and Italy
constitute a compact international body, from which the
principle of monopoly and exclusive privilege has once for
all been eliminated, and not one member of which can take
off a single duty without all the other members at once partaking
 in the increased trading facilities thereby created:
By the self-registering action of the most favoured natio?
clause, common to this network of treaties, the tariff level of
the whole body is being continually lowered, and the road
being paved towards the final embodiment of the Free Trade
principle in the international engagement to abolish all duties
other than those levied for revenue purposes.”
In face of unquestioned facts of this kind, nothing can be
less statesmanlike than to deny that the treaties since 1860
have helped forward the great process of liberating the eX
change of the products of their industry among the nation®
of the world. It is amazing to find able men so overmastered