A BUIEF EXAMINATION OF FREE-TRADE PRINCIPLES 359 



own interests. This was true in a certain sense, for their trade was 

 languishinjf ; but they also pleaded the cause of their workmen, who 

 were starving owing to want of employment, because foreign markets 

 were practically closed by the tax on the commodity with which 

 foreigners were willing to buy their goods. Further, it was a cause 

 in which all purchasers of food were interested, for the benefits accru- 

 ing from activity in trade and an abundant sujtply of food cannot be 

 restricted to any one class or industry ; they concern the nation as a 

 whole. In a speech afterwards made in Manchester, Cobden 

 admitted fully this class-interest in the movement. He said, '1 am 

 afraid that most of us entered upon the struggle with the belief that 

 we had some distinct class-interest in the (juestion.' As Mr. Morley 

 remarks, however, ' The class-interest widened into a consciousness 

 of a commanding national interest. The class-interest of the manu- 

 facturers and merchants happened to fall in with the good of the rest 

 of the community.' " * 



The contentiou here that "food cannot he restricted to any 

 one class or industry ; they concern the nation as a whole, ^' is pre- 

 cisely what we are contending for. To serve " Class interests," 

 and therefore to benefit " one class or industry " at the expense 

 of another class, is exactly what was done by Cobden and his 

 followers, and as this is vouched for by Cobden himself in the 

 passage quoted above, there can be no doubt that to promote 

 the manufacturing interests of the nation at the cost of agricul- 

 tural interests was, and is, the guiding principle of Free-trade 

 policy. 



Morley' s " Life of Cobden " does what it can to minimise 

 the unfavourable effect that so damaging an admission is bound 

 to have on the public mind ; but, however much his biographer 

 or apologists may attempt to gloss the matter over, the fact that 

 class interest was not the least powerful of the influences which 

 prompted Cobden to undertake his great Free-trade campaign 

 is clear beyond doubt. " The class interest of the manufacturers 

 and merchants happened to fall in willi the good of tlie rest of 

 the community," says Cobden's biographer ; but whether this be 

 true of the times in which Cobden fought and gained his Free- 

 trade battle, or not, it is certain that nobody to-day will be 

 found to agree with so specious a line of reasoning save the 

 Manchester school, in which Cobden himself was so able a 

 teacher, and those who, for various motives, are personally in- 

 terested in maintaining a policy which, born of class interests, 

 can only be maintained to serve sordid ends instead of the broad 

 generous interests of national needs. 



* " The Free-trade Movement," pp. C8, 69, 



