COBDEN AND MODERN POLITICAL OPINION. ESSAYS ON CERTAIN POLITICAL TOPICS. MICHIGAN BY JAMES E. THOROLD ROGERS. London MACMILLAN AND CO. 1873 [All rights reserved] PREFACE. THE following pages are an attempt to define the place which Cobden holds in the political and economical history of this country, and to explain the attitude which he took on most of the leading topics of his time. Some of these topics are accomplished facts; others are still debateable questions, though they are in process of settlement, and, as I believe, in the direction which he indicated. I have a further purpose in this publication; that of adding my contribution to the memory of the wisest and most farsighted statesman whom this country, fertile as it has been in great men, has produced. And I wish also to state my own convictions, gathered mainly from my long and familiar intercourse with Cobden, on certain public questions. A near connexion between his family and mine brought about that I knew Cobden intimately from my youth. They who had similar advantages will bear me out when I say that Cobden was ready to speak upon every topic of public interest, and that his knowledge of facts was as remarkable as the clearness b |