Xxxv.} OONTINUANCE OF THE CONTROVRESY. 893

You attribute to the Temes a deliberate misrapresentation of your meaning
 and that of Mr. Bright, as to the means of amending the unequal
distribution of land between the rich and the poor. I repeat that certain
Passages in your speeches will, in my opinion, bear no other interpretation
than that ascribed to them. If you merely intended to recommend mea-Sures
 for facilitating the conveyance of land, as your reference to our
transaction at Ascot would suggest, your language was the most strangely
*xaggerated that was ever used to further a humble instalment of law
teform. If you had read the Times, instead of condemning it unread, you
would have known that it has always advocated the simplification of
Means for the transfer of land, aud that its advocacy has not been altogether
 unsuccessful. But just 2 no simplification of eonveyances will
tompel the rich to sell land or enable the poor to buy it, so no legislative
Weasure will render the purchase of land a profitable investment for the
poor.
The possession, the transfer, and the tenure of land are, however,
public questions, which are best discussed, not between Mr. Cobden and
Mr. Delane, but as it has always been the practice of the English press to
discuss them—anonymously. That practice was not invented by me; it
will not be destroyed by yourself, It has approved itself to the judgment
of all, whether statesmen or publicists, who have appreciated the freedom
and independence of the press; and I believe it to be essential to the
Interests not only of the press, but of the public,

1868.
nr. 59,

Cobden, however, insisted on carrying on the controversy
with Mr. Delane see

8 rule, grown.up meu, in these busy times, read very little else but news.
Papers, I think the resding of volumes is almost the exception ; and the
wan who habitually has between his fingers 400 or 500 newspapers in the
Course of the year—that is, daily and weekly newspapers—and is engaged
Pretty actively in business, or in political or public life—depend upon it,
whatever he may say, or like to have it thought to the contrary, he reads
very little else, ag a rule, but the current periodical literature ; and I doubt
If a man with limited time could read anything else that would be much
more useful to him. I believe it has been said that one copy of the Times
contains more useful information than the whole of the historical books of
Thocydides—(laughter) ;—and I am very much inclined to think that to
un Englishman or an American of the present day that is striotly true.”
The opinion may be sound or uot, but the expression was a slip, becanse
it showed that the speaker knew little about the author on whose comparative
 value he was hinting a judgment. Too much was made of the slip
by journalists and collegians who knew little more abont Thucydides than
did Cobden himself, but who now wrote as if that rather troublesome author
rere the favourite companion of their leisure hogra,