1845,

a ag.

y8a4

LiF? 07 OURDEN, logs?

party. Mr, Gladstone eloquently expounded the principle?
of Free Trede, thongh it was true that he gave the adroitest
reasons for not applying them. Mr. Cobden, they said, Wo
a man of great energy, shrewdness, and strength of will, bub
the true cause of his successes in debate was the want of
spirit in those who should have been his active adversavief:
Was it not melancholy and even insufferable to witness “the
landholders of England, the representatives of the blood of
she Norman: chivalry, shrinking under the blows aimed ob
shem by & Manchester money-grubber ” ?
Unhappily there was nobody in Manchester to whom ths
evil designation was less applicable. Only a week before the
close of the session, Cobden wrote te his brother :—
“Your account is surely enough a bad turn up. Ther?
must be something radically fallacions in our mode of calctilating
 cost or fixing prices. Not that I expected very
much this year, because our lost antamn must have been #
gerions loss, and the spring business squeezed into too small
a space of time to do great things in. We must have a rigid
overhauling of expenses, and see if they can be reduced ;
and if not, we must ab all events fix our prices to cover all
charges. I rather suspect we mado a blunder in fixing
them too low last spring. But with our present reputation
we must not give our goods away. The truth is, a gread
portion of our Manchester trade bas always been done ab 1°
profit or at a loss, Still T do not fall into your despai™
We have the chance of righting ourselves yet. For after
all, our great losses have always arisen from fluctuations i
the value of the stock, and there is no risk in that way for sor®
years to come, As to other mafters henging over us, they
can only be righted by a general revival of the district, and
we shell get Free Trade from the necessities of the Exsheauer.””’?


' To ¥, W, Cobden, London, Ang. 17, 154k,