We have often deeply regretted that Tomkins did not survive to witness the consummation of the triumphs of free-trade – a cause which he contributed materially by his efforts and his writings to advance. The leading feature of his character was the total absence of every kind of prejudice or bigotry. He held it to be a fundamental principle, as old as Magna Charta, that England was to be governed mainly through the influence of cotton: that all other interests were immeasurably inferior to this, and that the settlement and maintenance of our colonies was a gross instance of reckless and frantic extravagance. "Let us thrive," he would say, "through the arts of universal peace. Let us set a bright example to the world by opening our ports to the free admission of all foreign produce, without any kind of reciprocity whatever. If our artisans and workmen cannot maintain their ground, let them go to the comfortable Unions we have provided, and pick oakum in return for their rations of wholesome bone-soup! Let us hear no more nonsense about humanity or short-time! Cram the children into the factories so soon as they can walk. Early habits are the surest means of promoting and fostering industry. Let us look to our imports, and the exports will look after themselves. Disband the army. Reduce the navy. Do away with Church establishments. Contract the currency. Flabbergast the colonies; and Great Britain must go ahead!" Such were the expressed opinions of that great and good man, who now sleeps in a premature sepulchre at Staley Bridge: and we need hardly add, that in matters of revenue, he was an uncompromising advocate of the sponge. Had his valuable existence been prolonged for a few years, he would doubtless have been at the head of the onward movement, and might have shared in the rewards which are gratefully accorded to the patriots of this latter age. Andrew Marvell, sitting incorruptible in his garret with a shoulder-blade of mutton, has ceased to be a favourite example with the new democratic school. They affect ovations and banquets, perform continental reforming tours, and demean themselves after the manner of our able correspondent, Mr Dunshunner, who, we are glad to observe, has been lately invited to a free-trade demonstration on the banks of the Bosphorus, by several of the leading Muftis of Constantinople. Dunshunner writes in great spirits, and has promised us an early paper, on the advantage of our establishing free-trade relations with the domestic Circassian market.
Failing Tomkins, we have every reason to be proud of his disciple and successor, Mr Cobden. In fact, the mantle of our lamented friend has fallen most gracefully upon his shoulders; and in nothing is the genuine likeness more displayed, than in the contempt which both of them have exhibited for the standing army of Great Britain. Yet, perhaps, in this we may be doing Mr Cobden some little wrong. Tomkins, we know, had just and natural reason for abhorring the sight of a red-coat; Cobden, so far as we are aware, has no such motive for dislike. Of the two, he is the calmer and the cooler man, and very naturally looks sedulously about him for the means of substantiating his theories. After all the fine words which Sir Robert Peel bestowed upon him, to no visible improvement of his parsnips, Mr Cobden very naturally felt a little uneasy at the non-fulfilment of several of his prophecies. It is a pity that a man cannot vaticinate in this country without undergoing a certain risk of subsequent stultification; and yet, if he does not affect the gift of prophecy, your patriot is usually at a discount. Our memory is not a very good one, and yet we have hardly forgotten certain flourishes by Mr Cobden, regarding the immense amount of employment which was to accrue to this country, immediately after the passing of his favourite measures. Bread was to be as cheap as dirt, common luxuries within the reach of every one, and the whole British nation, through its length and breadth, was to hold a perpetual jubilee and jollification, to the music of the engine and the shuttle.
"Wild dreams! but such
As Plato loved; such as, with holy zeal,
Our Milton worship'd. Blessed hopes! awhile
From man withheld, even to the latter days!"
and, were we to add, in the words of Mr Canning's imitation of the above passage, the concluding line,
"Till France shall come, and all laws be repeal'd,"
it would not, we apprehend, be entirely foreign to the subject. The result, however, so far as we have yet seen, has by no means justified the experiment. Trade, instead of improving under the stimulus of free-trade, has fallen off, and a year of commercial panic and misery has been the result of the liberal nostrum. This, no doubt, is very galling to our friends of the billy-roller. Old stagers like us, who are sometimes represented as prosy, because we reverence time-honoured principles, love the constitution of our country, and defend the memory of those who were the true founders of its greatness, are supposed to feel some triumph at the aspect of the present depression, and to exult over the slough of despond in which the Whigs are left to flounder. If there be any who, judging from their own mean nature, so think of us, it is hardly worth our while to undeceive them. Bitterly indeed have we mourned over the spectacle of fraud and imbecility which the last two years have disclosed in the higher places of the land, and most earnestly do we hope that, ere long, the true-hearted people of this country will awake to a full sense of their present perilous and by no means creditable position. All the difficulties which are just now pressing upon ministers, and which, for a longer period than we can venture to calculate, must continue to environ them, are of their own creating, and are the natural effects of that unconstitutional policy which would sacrifice every thing for the mere possession of power. Do we speak truth or not? Let the Chancellor of the Exchequer answer us. What but free-trade and its concomitant schemes has lessened the revenue and increased the pauperism of the country? What but the vicious and yet invincible desire of change, consequent on a contest for popularity, has struck a blow at the prosperity, and even the existence, of our colonies, which has already reacted with fearful effect within the centre of the mother-country?
Mr Cobden, on being twitted with the failure, or, at all events, the non-realisation of his unqualified prophecies, very naturally, but not very wisely, flies into a passion. He fixes, of course, upon the failure of the harvest of 1846 as the prime element of justification. Can I control the elements? – says he – can I regulate the seasons? Certainly not, Mr Cobden. We presume that no one, not even the stupidest operative that used to bellow in your congregation, and who believed every one of the golden promises which you were hardy enough to enunciate, ever dreamed that you were in possession of that power. Several of us, moreover, are of opinion that, upon the whole, you have been rather overrated as a conjurer, and that, having failed in your endeavours to get into an empty quart bottle, you are not a whit more likely