1862.
“Er. 63,

840 LIFE OF COBDEN. [omar
and Parliament, and that it was unjust to let the general
public go scot-free. He told Cobden a story of a large
farmer whom he had canvassed in the general election of
1857. He exclaimed to the farmer against the amount of
the military and naval charges. “Well, sir,” the voter
said, “ we want to be defended ;” and no impression was
to be made upon him. In truth, as Mr. Gladstone put it,
there was a residuum of excitement standing over from the
Russian war which had nourished all the subsequent alarm.
Nor was it to be denied, either, that the world had become
more volcanic since the days to which Cobden referred. It
was in vain that he quoted Peel’s excellent practical
maxim, that in time of peace “you must consent to incur
some risk *’ (see above, p. 71). There was one risk which
statesmen and the public saw closer at hand, and which
they were bent on not incurring if they could help it, and
that was risk from the possible necessities of the French
Emperor. On the special issues, therefore, between himself
and Lord Palmerston, such as the Fortification Scheme,
Cobden made little way in opinion. What he did was certainly
 to moderate what Mr. Gladstone called “the spirit
of expenditure,” and this according to him was more
objectionable and more dangerous than the expenditure
itself s

¢ The case against Cobden’s view was well put in a letter addressed to him
by Lord John Russell :—

“ Pembroke Lodge, April 2, 1861.
“My DEAR MR. CoBDEN,—The question you raise in your letter to me of
the 22nd March is a very serious one, and 80 we must both consider it.
“ Lord Palmerston, it appears from the Times, has gaid that the policy of
France hag been for a length of time to get up a navy which shall be equal
if not superior to our own. Lord Palmerston does not complain of thie
policy, but he says that to deny it is to shut our eyes against notorious
facts, and he defends a policy which is meant to provide for our own security
against this notorious policy of France. As to the facts, I do not pre”
tend to enter into details of rival navy estimates, but I will mention what i8
notorious. It is notorious that two or three years ago France had #