estion, the Suez Canal,
and some other important subjects; but the plea can only be allowed
after it has been frankly recognized that they really were mistakes,
and that these abused men exposed and avoided them. Lord Palmerston,
for instance, asked why the Czar could not be "satisfied, as we all
are, with the progressively liberal system of Turkey." Cobden, in
his pamphlet twenty years before, insisted that this progressively
liberal system of Turkey had no existence. Which of these two
propositions was true may be left to the decision of those who lent
to the Turk many millions of money on the strength of Lord
Palmerston's ignorant and delusive assurances. It was mainly owing
to Lord Palmerston, again, that the efforts of the war were
concentrated at Sebastopol. Sixty thousand English and French
troops, he said, with the co-operation of the fleets, would take
Sebastopol in six weeks. Cobden gave reasons for thinking very
differently, and urged that the destruction of Sebastopol, even when
it was achieved, would neither inflict a crushing blow to Russia,
nor prevent future attacks upon Turkey. Lord Palmerston's error may
have been intelligible and venial; nevertheless, as a fact, he was
in error and Cobden was not, and the error cost the nation one of
the most unfortunate, mortifying, and absolutely useless campaigns
in English history. Cobden held that if we were to defend Turkey
against Russia, the true policy was to use our navy, and not to send
a land force to the Crimea. Would any serious politician now be
found to deny it? We might prolong the list of propositions, general
and particular, which Lord Palmerston maintained and Cobden
traversed, from the beginning to the end of the Russian War. There
is not one of these propositions in which later events have not
shown that Cobden's knowledge was greater, his judgment cooler, his
insight more penetrating and comprehensive. The bankruptcy of the
Turkish Government, the further dismemberment of its Empire by the
Treaty of Berlin, the abrogation of the Black Sea Treaty, have
already done something to convince people that the two leaders saw
much further ahead in 1854 and 1855 than men who had passed all
their lives in foreign chanceries and the purlieus of Downing
Street.

It is startling to look back upon the bullying contempt