he other hand, it is saturated with the conviction that
the unfettered action of the individual is the mainspring of all
progress.[7] Its starting-point is economic. Trade is still in fetters.
The worst of the archaic internal restrictions have, indeed, been
thrown off. But even here Cobden is active in the work of finally
emancipating Manchester from manorial rights that have no place in the
nineteenth century. The main work, however, is the liberation of foreign
trade. The Corn Laws, as even the tariff reformers of our own day admit,
were conceived in the interest of the governing classes. They frankly
imposed a tax on the food of the masses for the benefit of the
landlords, and as the result of the agricultural and industrial
revolutions which had been in progress since 1760, the masses had been
brought to the lowest point of economic misery. Give to every man the
right to buy in the cheapest and sell in the dearest market, urged the
Cobdenite, and trade would automatically expand. The business career
would be open to the talents. The good workman would command the full
money's worth of his work, and his money would buy him food and clothing
at the lowest rate in the world's market. Only so would he get the full
value of his work, paying toll to none. Taxes there must be to carry on
government, but if we looked into the cost of government we found that
it depended mostly on armaments. Why did we need armaments? First,
because of the national antagonisms aroused and maintained by a
protective system. Free commercial intercourse between nations would
engender mutual knowledge, and knit the severed peoples by countless
ties of business interests. Free Trade meant peace, and once taught by
the example of Great Britain's prosperity, other nations would follow
suit, and Free Trade would be universal. The other root of national
danger was the principle of intervention. We took it on ourselves to set
other nations right. How could we judge for other nations? Force was no
remedy. Let every people be free to work out its own salvation. Things
were not so perfect with us that we need go about setting the houses of
other people in order. To complete personal freedom, there must be
national freedom. There must also be colonial freedom. The colonies
could no longer be governed in the interests of the mother country, nor
ought they to require standing garrisons maintained by the mother
country. They were distant lands, each, if we ga